Saturday, July 14, 2007

Almost a year

Tuesday will be Lilli's "Gotcha" Day. I can't believe it has been a year! Time flies so fast. It has been an interesting year with lots of ups and a few downs. Becoming a parent of a toddler has certainly been challenging, but we've had so much fun.

I will post my last post on July 17th and then I am shutting down this blog. I have been printing the entries for her baby book and I hope that some day she will have a good laugh at her crazy mommy.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me during this year. I appreciate the positive comments.

Lorie

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The Toddler Bed

Lilli's bed has been converted! Things were going great until tonight when she discovered that she could get out of bed. It was really cute the first time. We have hardwood floors and we heard her slide out of bed and the pitter-patter of her feet on the floor. When we went to her door, we saw a little head make a bee-line for her bed. This little game got old very quickly and dh ended up having to lie beside her bed until she fell asleep.

The tubes went well. Lilli hears everything now and she doesn't want to eat any more. Apparently she can now taste the food and has become quite picky! What a little stinker. She definitely keeps life interesting.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Tubes

Lilli is getting tubes in her ears in the morning. It should be an interesting day. I'm worried about the time when she gets up until she can have something to eat. She is going to be extremely crabby if she can't have something to eat in the morning. I will update more tomorrow after her surgery.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Silly, giggly girl







Lilli is going to be a flower girl in my cousin's wedding. I was FINALLY able to get her to try on the dress. She has spent the last week walking by it and hitting it. She has this thing about dresses. Here are some pix of her in the dress.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

6 Weeks!

The longest time between posts! Life with a 2 y/o is chaotic to say the least and blogging is one of the last things I do with my down time.

Everyone here is doing well. We have celebrated Lilli's birthday, Easter, and many other occasions since my last post. Lilli is doing GREAT! She is so much fun. Her personality just seems to get brighter and brighter with each passing day. Her speech is coming along as well which is cutting down on some of the frustration. She is a classic 2 y/o in that she throws tantrums, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Last week, Lilli was moved from the toddler room at daycare to the "Terrific Twos" room. I was devastated because we LOVED her toddler teachers. They made everything so easy for us and Lilli became so attached to them. I hope she does just as well in the 2 y/o room. She is so much smaller than the other kids!

On Friday Lilli is having tubes put in her ears. The kid keeps having ear infections and has been on so many antibiotics that I can't see continuing to put her through all of that nonsense anymore. Our pediatrician recommended it and referred us to an ENT. I am so hoping that the tubes will help with her speech as well. Maybe the reason why she has been so slow to communicate is because she can't hear!

Lilli says several words now: Mommy, puppy, kitty, beep-beep (cars), fish, more, juice, drink, yes, and her favorite words NO, and STOP IT! I have to keep myself from laughing when she tells us to STOP IT! It is hilarious. I'm sure there are other things she says, but I can't think of them right now.

I forgot to mention that Lilli is now sleeping every night in her crib AND we put her in the crib and leave. More nights than not she spends the ENTIRE night in her bed! Yeah us! 9 months of HORRID bedtimes have finally paid off!

Well, I'm off to bed.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

Sicknesses and birthday parties

I'm terrible about updating my blog! Time goes by so quickly anymore and I just don't leave time to blog.

Anyway, Lilli did not get to attend her Valentine's Day party. Her daycare called us to come and pick her up because she had a temperature. Turns out that she had another double ear infection plus pink eye. This poor kid can't catch a break. We were able to celebrate CNY and my food items were scrumptious! The steamed buns and bean paste were incredibly time-consuming, but it was worth it. My family really enjoyed trying some new Chinese food.

We are busy preparing to Lilli's birthday party. It is in less than two weeks. Of course, being on St. Patrick's Day, the theme is going to be green. I spent the day Saturday searching for just the right invitations and decorations. As usual the best invitations are the homemade kind and that is what I will be sending out. I've also decided that I am going to make the adults play games. We are going to play "Pin the Hat on the Leprechaun" and Hot Potato. This should be interesting. I hope the weather is nice enough for some of the guests to go outside--you just never know what it is going to be like in March here.

We are having Lilli's 2-year picture taken on Saturday. I am excited about that. We are having her picture taken in traditional Chinese dress, a Colts cheerleading outfit and then something casual. I'm not sure what just yet. I have some really nice dresses for her but she throws an absolute fit when I put her in a dress. I've placed the two dresses I would like for her to wear in her room hoping that she will want to try them on==so far she hasn't shown any interest in them.

Well, it is late and I must go.

Sunday, February 11, 2007

150th Post!

Wow! I've shared my thoughts 150 times! It hardly seems possible. I've been thinking about when I will stop the blog completely and I am thinking of ending it on July 17th which would be the one year anniversary of when Lilli came into our lives. I haven't made any definitive decisions, but I am thinking that I will end then.

Anyway, I think Lilli finally feels like she is home. She has been the happiest child the last two weeks. I absolutely ADORE this baby! She has been such a ball of energy and smiles and we have been fit free! I don't really know how to put what I am feeling into words. What I know for sure is that I thank God for bringing Lilli into our lives. It has been a long, tough journey so far. I know we are just beginning, but I am so glad that we are now a family.

Lilli's speech is finally coming together. She has several words and phrases that she uses regularly and she can sign. Being able to communicate makes things so much easier. Her speech is very rough, but we know what she is trying to tell us or what she wants. We will continue the speech therapy at least until she is three and then determine if she needs to continue. My guess is that she will not need any speech after she turns three.

Lilli has her Valentine's party at daycare on Wednesday. They made Valentine bags at her daycare and we are bringing in candy and Valentines for her class. Parents are invited to attend. I contemplated doing something for her class for Chinese New Year, but I don't think the kids will understand. I printed some coloring sheets so maybe I can give them to her class to color. I think I'll save the Chinese New Year celebration at school for when she is older and the kids understand. I ordered her a book about Chinese New Year that explains the importance of this holiday in China. I also printed some recipes and we are going to celebrate Chinese New Year as a family on Sunday. Wish me luck with the recipes. I'm going to attempt steamed buns and moon cakes. And, for added torture, I am making sweet red bean paste to fill the buns and moon cakes. We fell in love with the steamed buns and red bean paste while in China and I've been dying to find a recipe easy enough for me to follow. I'll keep you posted as to how everything turns out!

By the way, Lilli will be home 7 months on Saturday!

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Still goin'

It has been a week since we have had a measurable fit. Sure we've had small fits, but those were more like tropical depressions or thunderstorms--no tornadoes! :) I took Lilli to a basketball game tonight at my school and she did really well. I was nervous because she had three mini-fits before we went. She played with another little girl that was there and climbed all over the bleachers. I didn't watch much of the game but it was nice to be out of the house.

Lilli's latest thing is screaming while bathing. Unfortunately for her I'm kind of a bath-Nazi. Lilli gets a bath almost every night. I can't stand stinky kids and I'll be darned if my kid is going to smell bad. I also know how dirty she gets during a day's play. She was loving the bath until just recently. She doesn't even want her toys in with her anymore. It's crazy. Once you think you've got one thing licked, something else takes its place.

I think I'm ready to start leaving Lilli with a real babysitter. I have several reliable older girls who would be willing to watch Lilli for pay. It would be nice not to have to rely on my mom all of the time to babysit.

We are signing up for a Parent/Toddler gymnastics class. It sounds like so much fun and looks like a great time for the kids. I can't wait to get back to cartwheels and somersaults! Ha!

Nothing much else going on. Todd took some great pix tonight so I will post some soon.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Gettin' in the groove

Twenty days have passed since my last post. Being a working mom is tough and by the end of the day blogging is the last thing on my mind. I really don't have that much to report. School is going fine and Lilli seems to like daycare. I can't really complain about anything right now.

Lilli is receiving speech therapy and developmental therapy once a week. These seem to be going well. She doesn't say many words with consistency, but she can sign complete sentences. Her signing vocabulary is fairly large and the signs make communicating easier. I know she still gets very frustrated at times and I do as well. Sometimes when she gets frustrated she throws a humdinger of a fit. She throws them often enough that we rate them like a tornado. An F5 is the strongest and an F1 would be mild. We haven't had many F1's. Last Wednesday she had an F5. It lasted for three hours. She screamed for so long and so loudly that I put some tissue in my ears to save my hearing. Nothing soothes her during these times and we don't usually know what, exactly, set her off. The F5 last Wednesday bothered us so much that we thought she might be hurt and need to go to the ER. It just wasn't normal.

My mom thinks Lilli may have mild attachment disorder. There are times when I think that may be a possibility. We are in the process of securing an Occupational Therapist to help us with sensory issues so Lilli can calm herself during a fit. You would have to see a fit to believe the severity of it. Lilli was in the midst of one of her fits (an F4) when the speech therapist came this week. The therapist was in complete shock and said she would have never thought that a fit could be so bad. I was glad that someone on the "outside" was able to witness one. I needed someone to take me seriously.

We are making plans for Chinese New Year and for Lilli's second birthday which is March 17 -- a St. Patrick's Day baby! I've got grand plans for that celebration and of course it involves green. By the time Lilli is 10 or 11 she will be begging me to not use green decorations at her birthday party.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

I can't believe it!

It has been such a long time since I posted anything. There have been so many changes since my last post that I don't even know where to begin. Obviously, Christmas happened as well as New Year's Eve. We got through those two events pretty much unscathed. Christmas was quite overwhelming for Lilli. It didn't take her long to figure out what to do with a brightly wrapped box! She was completely overstimulated by the end of the evening which cut our evening short and made for an early bed time. She got a lot of nice things and I think she enjoyed all of the "cousin" time.

Lilli stayed with my parents New Year's Eve and got some undivided attention from her Uncle Mike and Aunt Laura. I think they really enjoyed spending some one-on-one time with her. Laura hadn't seen Lilli since the first week we were home from China! That is almost six months! It will be six months on the 17th of this month.

I went back to work last Thursday. Lilli started going to daycare on December 27. So far, so good. The greatest thing about daycare is that our nights have gotten SO much better. I had to fight to keep Lilli awake until 7:00 tonight. After her bath, I put her down in her crib and she fell asleep almost immediately. We have been so grateful for the calm bedtime. It has made such a difference in so many things. Getting her to sleep in her own bed has been such a difficult thing for us. I am just so thankful that our (Todd's) hard work (and daycare) are paying off.

Another great thing since daycare is that Lilli has a few words that she uses consistently. One of them is HILARIOUS. It is more of a phrase, really, and we probably shouldn't encourage her to say it, but we think it is too cute. When somebody is doing something they shouldn't be doing or she doesn't like it, Lilli will point her finger at them and say, "top it!" (Stop it!)She also has a stern look that goes along with it. My sil said I shouldn't worry about her saying this and that it is no worse than a child saying "no, no." I guess. Her other words are puppy, mommy, daddy, bye-bye and sometimes baby. She is still very stubborn when it comes to talking. She does things on her own time and NO one is going to force her otherwise. I kind of like that about her.

I am finally starting to feel like we are a family. It has taken us six months to settle in and feel like we are parents and for Lilli to become used to us. What a wild ride!