What? I gave birth to a one year old?

Not quite. But I do have a one year old baby now! I wish I made more of an effort to blog along the way. Let's see if I can recall some highlights...

Of course I can! Tons of them! If you only have a few minutes, I recommend scrolling down to the bottom of this post and taking a look at the last video montage. If you've got time on your hands, or if you are at work and should be doing something else like playing Lexulous, then sit back, relax, and enjoy the whole thing :)

Saturday April 26, 2008
*Gross Birth Details Alert*
Induction 8am. Some backaches and a little cramping throughout the day. 8:15pm water broke in bed at home. Towel I was laying on saved the bed, thank goodness. Much more water came out at the hospital, seemed impossible that all of it was inside of me all that time. Meconium in the water so baby's heart rate was closely monitored through labour. Labour wasn't pretty, involved vomit and tears as well as much more pain than I'd hoped, ended up with the epidural. Only worked on one side, strange to feel the sensations of labour on only one side of my body. Would still totally get an epidural again.

Sunday April 27, 2008
*More Birth Details Alert*
After midnight baby's heart rate dropped. Doctor decided on c-section. Everyone jumped into action very quickly. Spinal anaesthetic worked great, didn't feel a thing. Worked too great, lasted much longer than normal, my legs were dead weight for hours. Took three doctors and a lot of pulling and pushing for Lillian Dawn to arrive at 1am. Ray and I were dumbfounded and have the photos to prove it.



Lillian took to nursing easily, glad one of us knew what to do. Grandparents Howard and Sally and Uncle Loren got to meet her on day one.



Since I was recovering from the surgery, Lillian stayed in the nursery this first night so I could sleep, though they did bring her to me to nurse a time or two.

April 28-29, 2008
During the rest of our hospital stay, Lillian got to meet Uncle Ian, Auntie Lori, cousins Allie, Eric, and Emily, and good friend Robyn. The cousins brought gifts for Lillian that they had picked out themselves, and Lori said they looked pretty cute marching through the hospital, each carrying identical pink gift bags for the brand new baby girl. We took photos of everyone visiting with Lillian in the hospital... well, ok, almost everyone - sorry Uncle Ian!




Wednesday April 30, 2008
*Use of the word "nipples" Alert*
After what felt like a long stay, we were able to head home from the hospital. My milk hadn't come in yet, so Lillian was trying to feed constantly since she wasn't getting a full tummy. That made for a bit of a cranky baby and some pretty sore nipples! But I knew those things could happen so I was hanging in there so far. Finally on Wednesday evening my milk arrived and boy did Lillian glug it down. What a relief for both of us!

Friday May 2, 2008
Sally, Howard, and Loren headed home to Oregon, so it was just the three of us on our own. Yikes! Much as we loved having our family visiting, it was nice to have our little one to ourselves for a while. We found our groove pretty quickly and just tried to enjoy every minute of it, even those minutes in the wee hours of the night! We were so smitten with our girl.

Sunday May 11, 2008
First Mother's Day! What a special day. I was really upset with myself though, because I hadn't managed to send cards off to our Moms. I had had high hopes of finding time to make cards while Lillian slept, but the days just seemed to fly by with me barely finding time to shower and cook a meal or two let alone haul out the crafting supplies! Of course our Moms were very understanding :) Ray cooked one of my favourites for dinner - caesar salad with teryaki prawns and chicken. Mmmmmmmm.

Auntie Kelly arrived for a visit. She was so excited to see Lillian, and reminded us that we needed to start giving Lillian some "tummy time" playing on the floor so she could strengthen her muscles. Again, terrible with photos - can't find one of Lillian and Kelly during this visit!

Monday May 12, 2008
My first venture out of the house without Lillian! Kelly and I went shopping for some much-needed nursing bras (for me, not Kelly), and it wasn't long before Ray called to report that Lillian spat up her last meal all over him. Perfect! We sped up a bit to get home and feed the hungry girl again. Should have known that first time away from Lillian wouldn't go smoothly!

Saturday May 17, 2008
Auntie Karen, cousins Trent and Brianne, and Oma came to visit. Uncle Ian, Auntie Lori, and cousins Allie, Eric, and Emily met up with us too, and we brought a picnic dinner to Gyro Beach. Everyone clamoured for their turn holding Lillian while the other kids played the evening away in the park. It was a great night - our out-of-towners got to see some of the best and not quite so great of Kelowna: We saw a young girl voluntarily collecting garbage and moving it to the trash bins, and we saw one man let his way too old daughter pee in the sandy play area! Ew! Oma headed to Vernon with the Landy's for a couple of days while Auntie Karen, Trent, and Brianne stayed with us, continuing the clamouring for turns holding Lillian. We had a great visit with everyone.



(Tip: When you hide from the camera, any single shot will be kept and posted for all to see, like it or not!)

Saturday May 24, 2008
Oma arrived back from Vernon a few nights ago to stay with us, and Karen, Trent, and Brianne headed back home. Grandpa John joined up with us too - the last piece of the puzzle for my side of the immediate family to meet Lillian. A very busy few weeks with so many visitors, but we were on top of the world getting to show off our baby girl. Yet again it seems I was bad with photos - I snapped one with Grandpa John, and I know I got video with Oma, but I can't find a photo with Oma anywhere! Terrible!



*Flash Forward to April 2009*

Along the way there was so much more I could have blogged about. Let's see, what else to share...

We had a dilemma about the whole "Back to Sleep" thing. Lillian was not a good sleeper to start, but we soon found out she slept great if she was on her tummy - which is not the current recommendation by the experts. Eventually the need for sleep won out, and I compromised for a short time by letting Lillian sleep on her tummy next to me in our bed. Never thought I'd be a co-sleeper, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do to survive! I did not want to get hooked on that either, so after a while we decided to let her sleep on her own, on her tummy. Thankfully the experts aren't always right - of course Lillian never had any problems and ended up being a pretty decent sleeper despite us bucking the experts' advice.

Lillian's first tooth came in at around 4 months. She was fussy and fevery and generally just not herself one day - and voila! The next day, tooth number 1 had sprouted! Since then I have geeked out and recorded every date a new tooth has come in: August 29 at 4 months, September 12 at 4.5 months, November 13 and 15 at 6.5 months, February 16 at 9.5 months, March 1 at 10 months, on March 22 two teeth came in at just about 11 months, and the first molar snuck in around April 25 - just shy of Lillian's first birthday. That's nine teeth to date for those of you keeping track :)

It seems like our little girl went from baby to toddler in no time flat. Her mobility has been progressing right along, and I know she's going to take off walking on her own any time now. Lillian started off trying to crawl and rocked in the crawling position early in November at about 6 months. Shortly after that she started to pull herself up to stand against furniture and her exersaucer, then in her crib after naptime - which scared me into thinking she was going to skip crawling and go straight to walking! Yikes! Fortunately that didn't happen: she had success crawling on December 7 at 7 months.



In the New Year at 8 months Lillian took off walking holding two adult hands. Today she's still motoring along that way, and hits the brakes if we try to get her going with just one hand. No tricking that girl into anything she isn't ready for! On March 24 I finally found a great secondhand push toy (a Hungry Hungry Hippo no less) and it didn't take Lillian long to figure out how to walk with it - she caught on so fast I wonder how much earlier she would have hit that milestone had she had that toy sooner. In any case she loves that toy - if only she was strong enough to steer it! One of us has to trail around behind her to redirect her when she bumps into things. She's so tickled doing it, it's hard not to love it too!



Some of Lillian's other neat tricks are holding her arms up for touchdowns, showing off her hair and ears, and matching Gramma scream for scream in a very loud version of the shadow game.



She figured out how to climb into a regular rocking chair (not her baby one - an adult size one) on her own just a few weeks ago. She associates her receiving blankets with nursing so now has a habit of bringing one to me, wildly nodding her head, and pulling at my shirt. I found that trick pretty adorable at first - until she started doing it constantly, regardless of whether she had a full tummy right after a meal. She brought it back to being cute when she started trying the trick on other people. Sorry hun, everyone else in this household is dry :)

Well, that about catches us up! Ok, not really. It only scratches the surface. I left out the whole bit about moving to Oregon... but I guess that was more about us and less about Lillian. And then of course there was her first Christmas, which she didn't really understand, and the big visit to Ladner, which was awesome, and Easter, and, and, and!!!

Anyhoo... hopefully I will keep up this blog better now - if not, see you in a year! Until whenever next time is, enjoy one last video :) (Tip: It's better with speakers on!)

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