Crafting with Lily

 We've been taking this art class at the Hyde Park Art Center, and it has become one of her favorite things we do each week. She asks every day if we're going to art class, and that answer is no every day except for Tuesday. So I've tried to step up our crafting at home to keep her interest going. The skills she's gained in such a short time are incredible. One thing I've learned is that a little bit of prep on my part when Lily's not around makes things go much smoother. We made some Thanksgiving luminarias to give to family members. I cut a circle out of a recycled paper bag from the grocery store, covered it with white tissue paper, cut some red, green and yellow tissue paper into strips, and made a little turkey torso shape from the left over bag parts the night before. Then I gave Lily a glue stick the next day and let her have at it. She had great fun gluing the strips of colored paper in the vicinity of the white circle, then I helped her put the turkey torso on. We filled each bag with a couple of handfuls of clear glass stones (this was probably her favorite part) and dropped in an LED tea light. And voila! Instant holiday decor. Lily kept requesting to turn of the lights so she could look at them and say "Oooh! So pe-ah!" (so pretty). 

We also tried making a festive fall wreath. This was not as much of a success as the candles, but still fun and pretty to make. We had gone of several leaf collecting excursions earlier in the fall and pressed them so they would keep their color and shape. She LOVED picking up leaves from everywhere we went. I also dried some of the flowers that Joe got me for our anniversary. And I had some random silk leaves lying around from last year, I think. I picked up this twig wreath from the Target dollar section and broke out the hot glue gun. Lily stuck the flowers in where she wanted, and pointed to where she wanted me to glue on the silk leaves (the super orange ones) then she was done. She wanted nothing to do with the dried leaves, so I glued them together in a sort of bow-like topper thing. We don't actually have anywhere to hang a wreath, so it's been sitting in the window. 

There are lots of Christmas crafts in the works, most as presents for other people so that post will come later. (We also have back-up present ideas in case the crafting doesn't happen with the arrival of the new one.) Lily is soooo excited about Christmas. Every morning she wakes up and sees the tree all lit up she makes this huge surprised face, covers her mouth, and gasps "So pe-ah!" I love it. 

And she's also really excited about the new baby. Whenever we make anything she asks if it's for the new baby. Or buy something. Or read a book. Or do anything. She loves to make sure we're including the new baby. My favorite is when we ask her what the new baby's name is. She scrunches up her face, taps her finger on her lips, and says "Hmmm.... little boy?" She always makes me laugh. I'm sure there will be lots of adjusting to do, but I'm hoping this excitement carries over when the little boy actually does arrive.

Loooonnnngggg Week

It's been a long week for us. It started with the time change on Sunday. Lily did great, at first. We went to church, she stayed in the nursery instead of the sunday school class (long story unto itself), long nap in the car after a delicious lunch at Buona Beef, and then a fun afternoon with the grandparents. Lily went to sleep early, and Joe and I got to watch a whole movie together. 

Then Monday happened. Everything seemed fine, and then we went to Wiggleworms. We went early so we could play in the tot lot for a while first to get rid of some of her extra energy. By the time class started, she had had a chance to run around and play with some kids for a while. Usually, that means that once class starts she's ready to follow directions and show the babies how to do all of the motions for the songs, dance moves, etc. Not that day. She had another one of her 'I'm just going to literally run around the room in circles like a tasmanian devil' days. So we left after about 15 minutes because it clearly was not going to work. I blame this more on daylight savings than her actual misbehavior because the minute she sat down on her bike to go home she just about passed out, and was completely asleep, sitting up and peddling, by the time we got home. 

Sadly, she woke up with a runny nose and just a generally cranky mood. Tuesday and Wednesday we battled extreme tiredness, little to no appetite, and mild fever on and off. There was lots of TV watching, coloring, play-doh-ing, book reading, long napping and snuggling. She was too miserable to go to art class or dance class, so that made the days even longer. Thursday was a little better. 

On top of all of this, I've been having trouble sleeping. Crazy terrible heartburn that doesn't seem to respond to ANYTHING, super uncomfortable hip pain no matter how I lie down, and thinking through all of the things that need to get done in the next three to five weeks before the little boy arrives. I was able to be productive the first night and write some organizational lists, finish the baby blanket, and got a good start on one of Lily's Christmas presents. The next two nights not so much. I was too tired to think straight, or sit up really, and Lily was having so much trouble breathing while lying down there was no way I could sleep. 

But today is Friday. And today is a good day. Thankfully I got a full night's sleep, the kind of deep, intense sleep I needed. The sun is shining. Lily seems happier, if not completely better. And the Aaron Copland Pandora station is amazing. My original inclination was to go with the positive turn of events and take an excursion to the Arboretum for story time. But after some consideration, I decided to stay around the house and get caught up on housework, play a bit, and finally get over whatever Lily has. After a nap and some lunch we'll walk to the grocery store for a bit of outside-ness, maybe get a special treat to eat in the park on the way home, and then bake something together. I definitely think this was the right decision. Later tonight I'll get a fun craft prepped for tomorrow since Joe will be busy at school all day again, work a little more on Christmas stuff, and maybe we can even get caught up on Once Upon A Time after Lily goes to bed. 

OK, enough complaining. There was lots of good that happened this week, too. Like we bought a car! I've been driving a tiny, red Mitsubishi Lancer since 2006. This little beast moved with me to New Hampshire, then to Arizona, and finally back to Illinois, with several trips between all those places in between. She was a good car, but I'm not sad to see her go. For one thing, it was tiny. With Lily's car seat still backwards (until 40 pounds! Seriously, she's going to be in there until she's 4.), the passenger seat has to be up almost all the way. Poor Joe's knees have been jammed up against the dashboard for a year now. We tried to put the infant car seat behind the driver's seat, and that just wasn't going to happen. I like to have the seat back pretty far, and there was just no way it was going to fit. It was almost to 100K miles, and it was starting to require more maintenance than I wanted. So, we decided to look for something bigger, yet still fuel efficient, and NOT a mini van. We settled on a 2011 Chevy Equinox from Carmax. I love Carmax. Neither of us are negotiators in the slightest, so it's nice to go to a place that doesn't expect it. And that's where I got my first car, my parents have gotten several cars there, and Joe sold his car there. It was a fairly painless experience, just a small snafu with Joe's driver license and birthday, and we have a very pretty new car with PLENTY of space. 

And finally, some silly Lily stories. Whenever she wakes up we say "Good morning, Lily, how did you sleep?" She usually says good or fine or just yes. Then we ask her if she had any dreams. A while back she started saying yes, so we then asked what she dreamed about and she said babies. She says this every day. I ask her what about babies, and for a couple of weeks the answer was "Poke! Poke babies!" Then about a week ago it changed to "Book! Read book babies!" I have no idea where this is coming from, but it cracks me up. Also, her favorite princess Cinderella, or 'Rella' as she says, has a new name: C-Rella. Like P. Diddy. I love it. I can't believe how fast her vocabulary and sentence structure is improving. It's almost like she's a real human now. 

OK, time for some soup and tortilla chips for lunch! Have a great weekend!

Resolution Check-In 10

1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. I should really just change the title of this section to 'Monthly Pregnancy Update' because that's what it's turned in to. But I like pretending that this is still about exercise. Truthfully, for 36 weeks I'm still getting a pretty good amount. I've had some weird bone pain in my legs, so I didn't do my prenatal workout video as often as I should have. I managed once a week for this month. I've finally come to terms with the fact that I can really only expect to complete the 'express' third trimester workout on the DVD. It's half an hour, instead of 45 minutes, but it makes all the difference in both 1) my willingness to actually do it and 2) Lily's willingness to put up with me doing something other than entertain her. For some reason all of a sudden she just can't do ANYTHING without me. But more on that later. The days I don't get the video in, it's usually for a good reason, like walking two miles to do our miscellaneous errands for the day and chasing Lily all around all day long. 

So far I've gained 24 pounds, which is a few less than with Lily at this point. I was pretty surprised when I looked that up because I feel much smaller, and my maternity clothes are fitting better than they did last time. Must be because it's all muscle...   

2) Send one letter per week. This month many of you readers probably received a Halloween card from Lily. I think one mass mailing per month counts as one letter per week, right? I'm still amazed at how hard this resolution turned out to be to keep. It takes a lot of thought to write letters. And a lot of time to actually just sit down and write it. I'm going to renew this resolution for next year and try to make it actual letters to my actual friends, and not cheat by sending just Lily's footprints.     

3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. This was a good month for baking. Honey spice cookies, oatcakes, pumpkin spice mini muffins, and Jello Jigglers (do they count as baking?). Not a whole lot of decorating again. Decorating is fun, but truthfully it's more fun baking with Lily so I've been focusing on that part of things.  

4) Stop comparing myself to other moms. This was okay this month. We had our troubles with participating in classes, but that seems to be settling a little bit. I didn't really change anything, we still use the three strikes rule, but talking about WHY things are happening seems to be helping a lot. For the rest of the week, Lily was able to remember why we left music class and, I think, understood that it would happen again if she wasn't listening to me or the teacher. And the next week we talked about how Lily is a big girl and she needs to show the babies how good she is at following directions and help them understand what's going on. That has been a really big incentive, wanting to help with other babies. Another thing making me feel better has been paying attention to other kids her age around, and seeing that they're all exhibiting the same behaviors. She's just being two, and as long as I keep trying to help her become a civilized human, we will get through this and it will be okay. 

One really recent, and annoying, change that Lily is going through is her need for me to be right next to her all of the time. Doing what she's doing. Entertaining her, keeping her amused, holding her hand. This has mostly manifested itself in my not being able to work out, even if I encourage her to do the video with me (she used to love that). But she has also been very reluctant for me to leave her at Sunday school. She used to love going to play with the other kids, but now just wants me to stay with her. I can't tell if she doesn't like the teacher, the room, or whatever, but it leads to a total meltdown when I try to leave. She calms down pretty easily after I leave, but it's hard to convince the teacher that's going to be the case when she's wailing and screaming and throwing herself on the ground. I know that this is probably just normal separation anxiety and that this too shall pass. 

What I'm about to say next will probably put me in a special class of terrible parents: I dislike reading to my child. I know, I know. It's so good for them, bonding, language skills, logic skills, blah blah blah. It's BORING. We read the same 10 books over and over. And I have to read them the same way every time. And she wants to read them all of the time. When eating. When peeing. When brushing her teeth. When watching TV. I should be happy that she likes to read books with me so much. And you would think it would be a nice, easy thing we could do together when I'm huge. But it's not. It takes a lot of effort to read to a toddler. To make it worthwhile you have to engage them, ask questions, point to things, have them point to things, have them tell you the story, use funny voices, etc. Truthfully, it's exhausting. Not to mention that she likes to sit on my lap, which is super uncomfortable right now. She absolutely will not look at them on her own. She won't even hold them and turn the pages when I read to her. 

I know how whiney this all sounds, but I just don't have the words to describe why it irks me so. I loved reading as a kid and still do. I can't wait to share some of my favorite books with her, The Mennyms, Finn Family Moomintroll, The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm all about reading chapter books before bed. But board books, picture books, children's books, I'm ready to move on. 

So that's where things are one month until the boy is due to arrive. We still haven't finished getting things ready around the apartment (side rail on the bed, revamping the Lily Pad, finding/washing the bottles, etc.) but we've still got 30 days, right? It'll all get done. Sometime.