Lily – Page 8 – Darais Days

Cemetery walk

Ever since Abe got home from his trip yesterday, life has been great. I didn’t expect him until yesterday evening, but he got up at 4am and surprised me by showing up at 11am. It was sooooooo nice! I know this sounds morbid, but we walked to the city cemetery (just a couple blocks away) and found the spots his dad and stepmom bought a while back. They got eight spots together in this amazing part of the cemetery close to some of the prophets and really close to Porter Rockwell (Joseph Smith’s body guard).

I love spending time in cemeteries, and it felt so peaceful to visit such a nice spot with Abe, Lydia, and his dad. We also got a nice laugh out of one of the graves on our way back. Some guy thinks he is Hyrum Smith reincarnated, and so he bought himself a grave near the Hyrum Smith monument. For his full story, the tombstone refers you to his website! I probably shouldn’t laugh because I am sure this person feels sure that he is actually Hyrum Smith, and his paradigm deserves respect…but I wasn’t good enough to suppress my laughter when I read his tombstone.

And then today we drove up to Park City to watch the movie Forks Over Knives. It was awesome. Here’s a link to the trailer:http://www.forksoverknives.com/ Of course, I am biased because I read The China Study and came away totally convinced that we need to be eating plant based diets. The movie is basically The China Study in cinematic form, but it was still motivating.

Lydia was a star during the movie. Normally I don’t let her watch any type of TV or film, but I thought that this could be an exception. She was totally taken with the movie and stared mesmerized until she got excited and started vocalizing back to the people on the screen. At that point, I took her out of the theater, but she was in a really happy mood for the whole hour and a half. I didn’t need to do anything except walk around with her, and she just looked at everything around her. She is totally enthralled by life. I love my sweet baby.

Yay! Abe is home! He was out for a late night inspection, so I started blogging to pass the time. And now the time is successfully passed!

cleaning and sitting

We have recently recovered from a bug infestation. I have no idea what kind of bugs they were, but they were littler than ants, easily squished, and everywhere! Every time I saw one, my skin crawled. But I tried to stay positive. Right before killing one I thanked it for not being a mouse. I really, really, really, reeeaaallly HATE mice. (As in, when my Boston apartment had mice, I set up a tent on my bed and lived in that. It was better than risking being run over by a mouse in my sleep!!) But the bugs inspired us to clean, clean, clean. We discovered they probably came from the flour and spice cabinet, so we completely overhauled those:

And now they look like this!

I like to stare at my bug free, organized cabinets in my free time. Lydia seems to like it too!

We have been on a massive de-clutter and organize ourselves kick, and so we got rid of a bunch of books and reduced down to one bookshelf. We have so much more space! Lydia loves staring at our remaining ROYGBIV (remember your rainbow order?) bookshelf:

And last night Lydia decided she wanted to be a big girl and sit at the table. She was really sad until she got to try out her new seat:

An elf and a picture update

So you will now think I have gone completely cuckoo. First I claimed my baby talked and now I’m going to write a post about being visited by an elf. Oh, you don’t believe in elves? Me neither–at least, I thought I didn’t. After Lydia’s little talking escapade in the car (which scared the bajeebers out of me), I was ready to believe anything. And what do you know, as soon as we opened the door to our home, there on the living room table was a vase of flowers, a letter, and the framed copy of my mom’s wedding poem she wrote for us.

As a safety fanatic, my first thoughts were, sadly, quite panicky: How did this person get into our building? What if they come again and steal the baby? Is there someone in the condo RIGHT NOW??

But when I read the letter, it was a very sweet note congratulating us on our first year of marriage. The letter was quite touching, but I remained alarmed. The letter was signed by “Bob, the Anniversary Elf.” Bob, the Anniversary Elf? I read the letter out loud to Abe, who seemed delighted and unconcerned at the security threat posed to us by the elf breaking in.

“Honey,” he said, “what’s an elf going to do to us? Give us more flowers?”

I didn’t answer, and instead retreated to the bedroom to reread the letter and look up the latest door locks on the internet.

Abe came in smiling. “Ok, ok,” he admitted, “you don’t have to worry about our safety. The elf had some help from me. Why do you think I wanted to get that last load of laundry before we left?” His eyes twinkled.

“Are you the elf?” I demanded.

“Nope!” He said cheerfully. “But I met him when I let him in. All I know is he was about four feet tall, wore a funny hat and some green boots. He said he wants to keep visiting us on our anniversary.”

I didn’t believe him, of course. Elves don’t exist! (Just like babies don’t talk.) “Come on,” I pressed. “Tell me who the elf is!”

Abe shook his head. The most I could get out of him for the rest of the evening was that the elf wore green boots.

In his letter, the elf mentioned that he was top secret and wished to remain anonymous. He likes to surprise couples on their anniversary. But he talked to us about things on the blog, so I figured I’d post an entry and ask the elf if it would be okay to blog about him. Guess what! The elf emailed me soon after! Here’s his email:

Lily,
As you have noticed by now, I and my scouting team do read your blog.  Blog-reading is one of our preferred ways of locating couples for me to visit.  You may have wondered if I visit every married couple on their anniversaries, but I only visit some.  There is a rigorous screening process.  Think about it, millions upon millions of married people, and only one anniversary elf.  I mean sure, I can do about 15 visits per day, times that by 365 days in a year and I get in just under 5000 couples per year.  Factor in that I can only add new couples when other couples are gone, and you realize there aren’t that many openings from year to year for new families for me to visit.  You and Abe are very lucky!!  Our scouting department is always on blogging websites to find couples that we feel would be fun to visit.  They must be a couple that is totally fun and in-love, and also a couple that seems committed enough to make it through hard times.  There is nothing that hurts more than seeing one of the couples I visit not work out.  I try really hard to pick the one’s that I think will make it.  So anyway, after we’ve identified couples for me to visit, there is one final step: someone who receives visits from me already must refer the couple to me.  It actually gets really complicated because sometimes we get referrals of couples we have not tracked so then we have to do additional research.  Sometimes we don’t get enough referrals so we have to start making calls to families we visit asking for referrals!   It’s a very laborious process and we should probably reconsider how we decide on families so our lives are a little easier.
Anyway, about your question…..hmmmmmmmmm…I generally make it a rule to be completely unknown to those I have not visited, but maybe it would help our process if people actually knew who I was.  Perhaps people could even submit applications and then our scouting department would have an easier job….with people coming to us for a change!  O-k, here’s the deal, you can tell people about me, but only if you also mention my contact information for anyone who wants to be considered for a visit.  My email is anniversaryelf@gmail.com.  I think this could greatly help our elf’s in the scouting department!  They are slightly overworked.
Sincerely, 
Bob (The anniversary elf)

Soooooo…do you want a visit from Bob (The anniversary elf)? Simply email him and see what he says! I am starting to believe he’s real, since he has an email and all. Thank you, Bob, for visiting us!!

And to end on a cheery note, here are some pictures of Lydia and me on her three month birthday!

My baby TALKED!!!

Okay, so I know this will sound like I am making it up, but I promise I am not. Believe or disbelieve at will, but Lydia talked! As in, she said WORDS at the tender age of 10 weeks old. We are still in shock.

It began with Abe saying “I love you” to Lydia. We say this regularly to her, and he has been saying it repeatedly to her for weeks now. The other day I found him repeating the phrase as he changed Lydia’s diaper, and she was cooing back to him. “It’s working!” he exclaimed excitedly. “I’m telling you, her first words are going to be ‘I love you’! She’s going to say it one day soon.”

“Mmmhmmm…” I said indulgently. Inwardly, I knew babies don’t talk this young, so I dismissed his prediction off hand. I mean, Lydia has been cooing up a storm and we totally encourage her sounds (we both read a bunch of research saying a baby’s tendency to verbalize is not based on how much exposure she has to language, but rather how much people around her respond to her vocalizations), but I never actually expected her to bust out WORDS.

And then…we were driving home from Springfield yesterday, and Abe was leaning over Lydia’s car seat doing his “I love you” repetitions. I was driving, and Clark was seated next to me. Lydia was cooing happily back to Abe, when all of the sudden we distinctly heard her say, “I loff oo” to Abe.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I almost drove off the road. We all jerked around and stared at Lydia.

“Oh my gosh,” Clark gasped, “she just said ‘I love you’!”

I was trembling. “Yeah,” I said shakily. “She totally did.”

Abe grinned proudly and said, “Oh, Lydia, I love you too!”

She tried again. We listened, and her next couple attempts at the phrase continued to mimick Abe’s voice. It was incredible. And scary. I just kept thinking, “Oh man, who is this baby? How am I going to mother this child?” I don’t know if it makes sense, but the whole thing freaked me out. By the time we got back to Hyde Park, I dismissed the talking thing as a fluke. I mean, almost 11 week old babies just don’t talk. They don’t! So I figured I wouldn’t worry about it and continue on as if everything were normal.

And then it happened again, only this time I was alone. Abe was out unpacking the car, and I was cuddling Lydia inside. She was smiling contentedly at the ceiling, and I asked her if she was smiling at her angels.

“Angel,” she said, still looking at the ceiling. I about fainted. The “g” was really gurgly, but the “An” and the “l” on either side of the gurgly g were quite clear. She said, “angel.” I really about died.

She hasn’t said any more words today, and I’m still waiting to see if these were just fluke sounds. In the meantime, I guess I have to stick Lydia’s “first words” sticker on her baby calender and try to remain calm.

(P.S. We also discovered Lydia may be getting ready to teethe this past weekend. We can see her teeth and she is drooling up a STORM. I checked the baby book and it says babies can teethe as early as three months, so this is not abnormal.)

Oh, and in addition to hearing my infant speak (AAAAGGGHHH!!), I also discovered that we’d been visited by an elf in our absence. Details and a pic in the next post. Elf, if you are reading this and don’t want a post out (there was a little hint in your letter that you wish to remain anonymous to certain people) feel free to let me know not to post about you. I have no idea who you are, but Abe has me convinced you are real. He said you’re a little more than 4 feet tall and wear green shoes. From your letter, I think you read this blog. If you don’t want to be blogged about, I suppose you are magical and can find a way to tell us not to blog about you. Otherwise, you might share Lydia’s spotlight in the next Darais Family Blog post. =)

Very exciting news! A dear friend–who shall remain anonymous until she decides to go public with the news–just told me that she is pregnant! I am so excited for her, and she asked for a blog post about baby must haves. I know everyone’s must-have list is different, and friends, please amend this list in the comments. I think my friend will appreciate different perspectives. Here’s my list.

Basics: Car seat, stroller, diapers, wipes, assorted clothes.

A double electric breast pump + hands-free pumping bra!!!! Although pumping is tiring (and gross), I could not survive without this. Even though I feel like I spend all day nursing Lydia, I pump multiple times a day in my free time. In fact–this may be too much information–I am pumping as I blog. It is great for multitasking, and it also ensures that when my baby melts down because she is too agitated to latch, I can still feed her! Also, I’ve found that there are times throughout the day where my milk supply is down, and if Lydia happens to be hungry at those times, I NEED to have a bottle on hand.

Lots of burp cloths. I still have to write some thank you notes for burp cloths wise moms have given to Lydia. I didn’t realize this before, but you really can’t have too many. Even though we’re usually too lazy to actually put the burp cloths on our shoulders when burping Lydia, we use them to wipe her face off and wipe ourselves off. Lydia now sleeps in her own room at night, but she spends all day in bed with me, so I spread those cloths out on the bed to protect the sheets from spit up. We even sometimes swaddle her with the bigger cloths.

Sleepers, onesies, gowns, and a Sunday dress. (Thank you, Megan, for Lydia’s dress! She wore it every Sunday until last Sunday, when she finally blew out of her diaper onto it–just in time to graduate onto the other bigger dress you gave her!) I like the sleepers because if Lydia kicks off her swaddle, she’s still covered. The gowns are great because of diaper access. And the Sunday dress (assuming your baby is a girl) is really fun because you get to dress your baby up.

HAIR PIECES!! Thank you, Ashley, for sending us these! They have made a world of difference in the cute department. We loooooooooooooooove using hair pieces, and I’m pretty sure we would still use them even if Lydia didn’t have so much hair.

Nursing pads for you. Sorry, but leaks are a no-fun reality of nursing.

A bouncy seat! (Thank you, Sarah and Dick!!!) Lydia spends TONS of time in her bouncy seat. It’s the only way I can cook or go to the bathroom or do anything that requires being physically separated from Lydia. I just sit her where she can participate in the action, and she’s good to go. She just sits there and amuses herself in the bouncy seat, and I can get whatever needs doing done.

A My Brest Friend (Thanks for lending us yours, Sarah!) and eventually, a Boppy. At first, the Boppy was a waste of my time, but then Lydia outgrew the My Brest Friend and I lost 35 lbs (Woo-hoo!) and all of the sudden, the Boppy was a possibility.

A nipple shield. For those of us who struggle to attach ourselves to baby, this is a God send. This little piece of plastic means that I can read and scroll around on the internet while nursing. (I can’t really type, but at least I can kind of poke around here and there.) I would go completely crazy without this thing.

Okay, please amend this list away. Also, for those of you who might not have seen on Facebook, we have two new exciting pictures of Lydia:

Like father like daughter

Suzi pointed out on Facebook that Lydia is actually reading to Uncle Clark! What a super baby. 😉

More Lydia! =)

Lydia has been experimenting with her fists for a while, but she finally figured out how to soothe herself with them yesterday. Right now she’s sucking away contentedly while I blog. So cute!

Wash me!

Streeeetch!

Daddy took over hair styling duties…

Today’s photo. Lydia’s hair is growing straight UP. We even try to comb it down, but it goes up despite our best efforts.

A smile!!

5 comments:

Shandi and Alex May 21, 2011 at 7:05 AMShe is SOOO freaking cute, Lily!! I can’t get over that hair, I’m in love with it!Reply
ChrisIng May 21, 2011 at 6:46 PMLet me help be effusive about her cuteness – wow! What a charming and beautiful little lady, and yes that hair is fantastic. Any way you want to shape it, it is fantastic. I love the photo of you holding her.Reply
Ashley May 22, 2011 at 12:12 PMAck! So beautiful! Not that I’m the least bit surprised…Reply
Preethi May 25, 2011 at 6:05 AMShe seriously keeps getting lovelier. Ah – she is just SO SO cute!Reply
Aubreydoll May 28, 2011 at 9:09 PMShe is gorgeous!! I just want to squeeze her!Reply

Liquid nutrition

I am told that most women recover from labor within six weeks of delivery. Lucky ducks! I just had my six week check-up on Friday, and I had the joy of explaining to my dear doctor that I am actually less mobile now than I was the first week after Lydia’s birth. I had been in the habit of taking Lydia for walks around Evanston, and ever since I learned to read while nursing, those walks had become especially delightful. Lydia and I strolled through the stacks of Evanston Public Library while various titles caught our attention. Then I would consult her on what titles to check out before we crossed the street to get groceries and return home. That was our routine, and it provided us with both structure and vitamin D. However, this walk has become increasingly painful. On our last stroll, I practically had to crawl home because the pain was so bad. So now, even if the weather is great and Lydia and I are both dying to get out and about, we do nothing but lie in bed cuddling, napping, and breast feeding in turns. The only breaks in this routine occur when Lydia needs a diaper change. I have not cooked for a long time, and so my meals consist of microwaved cheese on bread with the occasional yogurt cup (that is, if I have time to eat before Lydia realizes she’s alone in bed and starts wailing). Abe has had to fend for himself. I realized that the situation had become dire yesterday during church when Abe whispered that he was hungry and that he needed to run to the car to get a nutrition shake. Within five minutes he was back, smiling and sated. After church I decided to take a look at the shakes that have been powering him through this food-free period, and to my horror, I discovered a giant pack of CVS branded bottles of “Liquid Nutrition” in the trunk of the car. “Liquid Nutrition?” I asked in disbelief. “You’ve been drinking this stuff?” I think nutrition shakes in general sound gross, but at least some of them are better titled! Abe nodded sheepishly. Before I could examine the label, he confessed, “I know it says it’s a nutrition shake, but corn syrup and corn syrup solids are high on the ingredient list…” his voice trailed off. “I used to drink these a lot when I was single,” he added weakly. I sighed. To these new lows my dear husband has sunk. His diet has returned to pre-marital status.

So…I haven’t been posting a lot lately. There are both obvious and less obvious reasons for this state of affairs.

Obvious: Babies take time and energy! Lydia has been a little more wakeful recently, and so I spend more time cuddling and playing with her. She is smiling now, although her smiles are fleeting and usually give way to expressions of bewilderment and concern. I suspect she is bewildered by all of the excited sounds her smiles elicit from Mommy, and she probably becomes concerned at how mentally unbalanced Mommy seems when she is making crazy faces trying to get Lydia to keep smiling.

Less obvious: 1) I am terrified that when I do blog, I will whine. Whining subject of choice: post labor recovery. No one warned me about this process, and I could easily write pages upon whiny pages about how yucky this stage is–especially since I have the good fortune of experiencing medical complications in this process! Yay for me. BUT…I spent nine months writing whiny pregnancy blogs, so I think I’ve forfeited my rights to keep complaining.

2) I am scared I will effuse too much over my adorable baby. She is SO cute, and I could write a book that would probably bore everyone else to tears about all the cute things she does. For example, I would love to write about her sweet little noises (my favorite are her exasperated sighs) and her floppy moods where she collapses onto me and becomes this little butterball of cuddly love. And how she looks so imperious during bath time…she is sooooooooo adorable!!

Because of the obvious reason listed in the beginning of this post, I am tired. Lydia fell asleep almost two hours ago, and I have spent the time pumping, going through post-labor care routines, cleaning, and now blogging. Off to bed I go! Ah, the joy of knowing I have at least three hours of solid sleep ahead of me…

Ashley May 7, 2011 at 8:08 PM

Well. In my humble opinion, I don’t think any of those things are problems. I think I’ve explained my testimony of complaining–you’ll either be reassured that your complaints are normal or someone will point out that it’s not so normal and help you figure out that there’s a problem. There’s no need to suffer in silence!

And goodness, I’m sure I’m only one of manymany MINIONS of people just DYING to see and hear more of Lydia!! You couldn’t possibly go on about her too much, it’s just not going to happen!

But, I also understand your point of view…not wanting to seem whiny (and thus ungrateful) or boring. It’s YOU and we love YOU, not a pretend version of “You”.

I vote for going for it.Reply

Janelle Bargar May 16, 2011 at 9:07 AM

I second that! More Lydia!!!!Reply

Of parties and picnics

A couple weeks ago, my Food Network Magazine had a wonderful insert: 50 recipes for different tea sandwiches! http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes-and-cooking/50-tea-sandwiches/index.html How fun! I wanted to try/eat them all, and so I needed an excuse for a tea party. Enter this month’s AMAZING issue of Martha Stewart Living. Inside was a beautiful craft for a Mother’s Day card. (See here: http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/pop-up-card-for-mothers-day?comments_page=1)

So I thought, why not have a small tea party with some of my high school friends and make Mother’s Day cards? Also, Abe and I have been discussing family traditions, and we thought it would be fun to do a yearly tea party with Lydia. As the party approached, Abe was almost as excited as I was for Lydia’s first tea party.

Side note: we had her first tea party on the day of the royal wedding. It was a coincidence, but a very happy one at that. =)

Since this was my first time hosting a tea party, I learned many things.

1) Tea sandwiches take a while to make! I was totally duped by the pamphlet. Each recipe is approximately 2.5 sentences long and leaves the reader with the impression that assembling tea sandwiches is a snap. I beg to differ. By the time the tea party started, I was sweating it up in the kitchen with nary a sandwich in sight. I was caught between boiling eggs, blanching asparagus, mashing up lemon parsley butter, cutting grape tomatoes, and throwing watercress everywhere. The scene was a disaster, and if Abe hadn’t come to the rescue, we would never have eaten. As it was, we ended up starting almost an hour late–at which point we realized we had totally forgotten the tea part of our tea party. So at our tea party, everyone just drank water until we had some water heated up for tea. Note for future parties: start working on the sandwiches more than half an hour before the party starts!

2) Narrow down the sandwich selection. I wanted to try all of the sandwiches, and so my final list consisted of the following: Cucumber, Watercress, Tomato Cheddar, Curried Egg Salad, Smoked Salmon and Cucumber, Asparagus and Egg, Ricotta and Marmalade, Cream Cheese and Strawberries, and Nutella with Raspberry Jam. In the end, I had to cut down that list a lot or we never would have eaten. Seriously, it was just too crazy trying to make all of those in half an hour. Next year we’ll streamline.

3) Not to be sacrilegious, but Martha Stewart tends to skip steps in some of her recipes and crafts. I’m sure this is just because she is so busy and talented–she just figures everyone can read between the lines and figure out how to make a pop up origami bouquet of flowers on their own, but some of us can’t. For future parties, I am going to give the crafts a test drive first. Or at least pick a simpler craft.

4) The leftovers are perfect for a picnic! The next day, (conveniently May Day), Abe and I took Lydia for a picnic by the lake. The weather turned cold and windy just in time for our arrival, so as we were entering the lakefront, crowds of people were leaving. That meant we got our favorite picnic table right by the Wilmette beach, conveniently vacated in time for our arrival. Abe dressed Lydia up like a little hippie for our picnic, and she seemed to enjoy herself (or at least slept so soundly through the whole picnic that we had no reason to believe she wasn’t enjoying herself).

5) I need to take more pictures. Abe took some of the tea party, but I am too lazy to get up and post them on the blog right now. Lydia is asleep next to me, and I just know as soon as I make a move, she will wake up. So I will post more pictures later. Until then, Lydia’s first tea party and May Day picnic will be commemorated by this picture-less post.

2 comments:

Lily May 3, 2011 at 1:59 PMThis is Abe signed in as Lily. By far the best sandwich was the fresh strawberry and cream cheese on date nut bread. It was amazing! It was also fun to try interesting combinations with leftovers. Salmon egg salad sandwich tasted slightly better than expected 🙂Reply
Preethi May 5, 2011 at 6:27 AMCute cute cute! Love this idea. 🙂Reply

Lydia’s boyfriend =)

I am a little behind in blogging. Last week (I think it was last week! It’s so hard to keep track of time when you are nursing every couple hours…) our dear friends Dan and Preethi Harbuck visited for a couple of days. It was so fun, and one of the most exciting parts of their visit involved observing the budding romance between Lydia and their super cute, fun, and smiley (did you hear that, Lydia?? Smiley!!) son, Nat. We saved the amorous pair some trouble and took their engagement pictures a couple years ahead of time. I have about a hundred different pictures of these two together, but here are just a few:

Lydia did her longest tummy time session ever when she was on the blanket with Nat! He helped make tummy time fun. =)

Snoozing with her future in-laws. =) Thanks, Dan and Preethi, for a wonderful visit! We love you!!

1 comment:

Preethi April 21, 2011 at 11:08 AMOh how I love these!! Especially the third one down: “Sweet Lydia, THIS is how you stick your toes in your mouth.” I also love the third from the bottom. 🙂Reply