4 Months Old

I can't believe it. Lila is 4 months old today! She is getting so big and still changes a little every day. She's getting chunkier and stronger and a hell of a lot more personality. She cracks me up at some of the stuff she does. She will scream or squeal and then make this astounded looking face like "did that just come out of my mouth". She splashes in the tub and will splash her face and then looks at me like "mom, why did YOU do that to me".

Lila is so funny. She sings with me and tells me stories. She dances to her music and watches our every move. She is amazed by the dogs. She watches them all the time. Even when Ringo barks at her, she just kinda jumps, no crying, no fussing. She is just amazed. She lets them get up in her face and smell her. She especially like Jasper. I think maybe because he's a busy body. He's always moving so she's always watching. It will be so much fun when she starts moving around and can chase them. They will be so frightened! BAHAHAHAHA

She has gotten a walker and can touch the floor just enough to sort of spin around. She is growing so fast she'll be scooting away in no time. I'll have to make my Dad take her to the gym and see how fast she can actually go!

People say it all the time, but until you actually have a child, you really don't think there is a love that strong. It's unbelievable. I can't get enough of her!!! We love you Lila. Happy 4 month birthday!

Sick?

No I'm not talking about Lila. I'm talking about me. Since when are moms allowed to get sick anyway? I thought it was completely against the rules. I thought that that was some cool thing that God gave to moms; the ability to not ever again (at least until the kids are grown) get sick. Well I must have missed that training. I've been doing so well this winter, mind you, I can't really remember the last time I was really sick (excluding being hungover...that is a feeling you never forget) and here I am, in bed, blogging about being sick while my husband and baby girl are in the other room having fun. :(

Hopefully this won't last long and I'll be able to wake up in the morning and get ready for work like every other day...hopefully.

Perhaps I'm a bit worn down. Maybe I do need sleep? The 5-6 cups of coffee a day keeping me up and going until bedtime, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing in coffee that is actually keeping me healthy. Oh well, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

So for the remainder of the night, I'm going to lay here in bed, relax a little and try to get some rest. Good luck to me!

How to get Lila to sleep

We give her a bath every night. Every night unless we get home late from a basketball game. We use Johnson & Johnson's Bedtime Bath. It freaking works. We then let her hang out in the buff for a few minutes while we lather he up with the Bedtime Lotion, which also freaking works. Ok, so maybe it's the combination of the two. :) We will then usually just wait for her evening snack, which we can usually time pretty well to be fairly soon after her bath. She will then eat, burp, and start rubbing her eyes. She is very transparent when she's tired. She sends us all the key signals. On average, she's usually pretty easy to get to sleep. She loves her daddy and nuzzling in his armpit to crash. If I'm trying to put her to sleep it's a little more difficult. She likes to give momma a hard time. For some reason and only God can know why, she likes when I sing to her. While some of her favorite songs of all time are Puff, the Magic Dragon, I've Been Working on the Railroad (with "Lila" inserted for "Dinah"), and she's also beginning to like Polly Wolly Doodle. Now to get her to sleep is a different story. If you know Lila, you know she's a Peter, Paul, and Mary fan. As soon as you start singing Gone the Rainbow, her eyelids start falling. It's the sweetest thing in the whole world.

For those of you who are reading this and either have never heard of Peter, Paul, and Mary, I feel bad for you. Some of the greatest music of all time! Now some of you may very well know who they are, but have never heard of this song. Well, here it is.

GONE THE RAINBOW

Adapted & Arranged:Stookey/Travers/Yarrow/Okun- Neworld Media Music Publishers-ASCAP

Shule, shule, shule-a-roo,

Shule-a-rak-shak, shule-a-ba-ba-coo.

When I saw my Sally Babby Beal,

come bibble in the boo shy Lorey.

Here I sit on Buttermilk Hill;

who could blame me, cry my fill;

Every tear would turn a mill,

Johnny's gone for a soldier.

Shule, shule, shule-a-roo,

Shule-a-rak-shak, shule-a-ba-ba-coo.

When I saw my Sally Babby Beal,

come bibble in the boo shy Lorey.

I sold my flax, I sold my wheel,

to buy my love a sword of steel;

So it in battle he might wield,

Johnny's gone for a soldier.

Shule, shule, shule-a-roo,

Shule-a-rak-shak, shule-a-ba-ba-coo.

When I saw my Sally Babby Beal,

come bibble in the boo shy Lorey.

Oh my baby, oh, my love,

gone the rainbow, gone the dove.

Your father was my only love;

Johnny's gone for a soldier.

Shule, shule, shule-a-roo,

Shule-a-rak-shak, shule-a-ba-ba-coo.

When I saw my Sally Babby Beal,

come bibble in the boo shy Lorey.

and here's the outcome...

Lila's First Christmas

Lila had a great first Christmas. She was such a good girl even though we had to go to about a million different places.

She loves all of her presents. She has been laying on her play mat and actually grabbing at the things dangling down on her. She can even make it "sing" sometimes all by herself. She is getting so big it almost makes me cry sometimes!!!

We all had the most wonderful Christmas ever because Lila is the best present any of us could ever get!!!

New hat and gloves

Lila and Daddy in her new jams on Christmas night! She looks so chunky here!

Surprise! I love my new mat!

Christmas Eve

My "little" brother and me

We also had 3 WHOLE days of basketball at the Eldorado Holiday Tournament. Harrisburg took home the 1st Place trophy for the first time in 23 years. That "little" brother you see above is on the team. I am so proud of all the boys on the team. They have wanted this for so long. Great job boys! Lila was such a good little fan. If she wasn't sleeping, she was standing up looking around and watching the game! It's a good thing because she has no other choice by to love basketball.

Littlest Bulldog Fan

The Team

Capel and Tyler (they've been playing together since they were like 1 and winning this tourney has always been one of their goals!)

Capel and the "good luck charm"

Pictures

I so wish that Lila would cooperate and get her picture taken. Sure, she's fine when it's not an actual photoshoot or even when there's other people around, but when it's time for her to get her sweet little face in picture by herself, she just won't do it! I see all of these precious little baby pictures where the babies are sleeping on their bellies or all cuddled up in big cute blankets or something. She just won't do it.

Anyway, last weekend we went to get family pictures taken. A girl I went to school with and played with every Friday night after eating at the Elks when we were kids, is a VERY talented artist and has taken up photography in the past few years. Her work is AMAZING. Mikayla Henderson Photography. I'll share a few of the pictures that she took. At least we did get a couple goods ones of Lila even though we had to hold her to get them done. Either way, they turned out great and we are very pleased!

This my brother and sister

This is all of the kids with Dad

Thanks Mikayla! You did a great job!

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

In the words of N'Sync, "It's a wonderful feeling. Feel the love in the room from the floor to the ceiling. It's that time of year, Christmas time is here."

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Christmas. I love to see how much giving goes on during the holiday season. Whether it's monetary or not, people are just wonderful this time of year. This always stops to make me think, "why is it only during this time of year that people can be nice?".

As a child, you're always on your best behavior because Santa is on his way and if you want him to bring you something, you better watch out and you sure as hell better not cry. Or maybe the Belsnickel is watching you from the window reporting back on how you've been acting. Who wants to mess with that guy anyway? Not only do you have to worry about presents under the tree, but also you have to worry about your stockings...

Then you get a little older and although your thoughts may have changed a little, you still behave, knowing that this isn't the time to get in a huge argument with your parents. Then you get even older and if you didn't start realizing it in your teens, you surely have by now. All people don't have the same kind of Christmas that you and your family have. So you go out of your way to make it better for them. This really makes you feel good. But why is it only during Christmas that we do these good deeds? We can be "good deed doers" all year round. Those people that don't have anything at Christmas, have just the same in May or August.

Now I'm just as guilty as the next person, but this year I'm going to make a conscious effort to help those in need all throughout the year. Maybe I can help someone at the grocery store with something or maybe I can go to my grandma's and help her out around the house. It doesn't always have to involve money. A simple good deed can turn a person's day right around...it can turn yours around too. :)

On another note, this year is Lila's first Christmas and while she's still too young to know what's going on, we still want to make it special for her. We got her one present, basically because she doesn't need anything right now and we know that everyone else will probably go overboard. I really hope that no one got her anything that is BIG or MAKES NOISE! If you did, and you know who you are, those lovely presents will be staying at your house for when Lila comes to visit! So just start making room! :)

Last year, Neil and I had a huge Christmas. We really overdid it. We both surprised each other with stuff. I got him a PS3, which he had been saying he wanted since like October. He really thought he wasn't getting it. I did a pretty good job of faking it. He got me a Wii. I seriously couldn't believe it! So we did pretty good last year. This year we pretty much know that we're on a budget and we are focusing on our families. We have been so blessed with the greatest family and wanted to get them some small gifts showing them how much we appreciated everything they have done for us this year, especially since Lila was born.

I cracked....I always do. I'm a "present-getter". I just have to do it. Ever since I got my new phone, Neil has been saying that he liked mine better than he like his. He's been up for a contract renewal for a long time and just hasn't gotten a new phone. So I did it! I just couldn't help it! I knew he would love it! I feel like, "he's my husband and I SHOULD get him something". Maybe it was from watching my parents (my dad has always been really good about getting gifts for my mom and now step-mom), but I just feel like I should get him something. Back to the phone...I did good. He's obsessed with it! :) It's a Samsung Fascinate and it's truly the greatest phone ever!!! I got it at BestBuy, where they are on SUPER SALE. If you're up for a renewal, you seriously need to go there! Right now they are so much cheaper than Verizon!

I will try to post before Christmas, but I just wanted to make sure I said this at some point!

Merry Christmas to all of you! I wish you all the best!

The Things I've Learned Being A Mother

1. If Lila is crying, there's something wrong with her. All these women who are are mother's age or my grandmother's age had told me not to pick up the baby every time she cries. After reading LOTS of articles about developing babies and their needs, I had come to the conclusion that at this age, babies aren't able to manipulate their parents. Don't get me wrong, sometimes she will be screaming and I will pick her up and the instant that I do that, she's fine. I'll put her back down and she's screaming again. She obviously needs the comfort of my arms to make her feel better at that time because she doesn't do that ALL the time.

2. Never change a poopy diaper right away. If you do, you just may get another explosion at you, this time with the diaper off! Nuff said!

3. The whole "sleep when the baby sleeps" thing is just a bunch of CRAP!! Now people, I'm a sleeping. Just ask my husband or anyone in my family. I can sleep for 18 hours a day if someone would let me...that is, BB (Before Baby). Even those first few weeks when we were up ever couple of hours to eat, if it was during the day, I couldn't sleep. I could lay there, on my ass, all day, doing nothing, but I couldn't make myself fall asleep. Now I've finally learned that since she's set her bedtime around 8:00 every night, that she's also set my bedtime around 8:00 every night.

4. You can't plan anything. This has actually gotten better since she's gotten a little older and I'm not nursing her anymore. She was the SLOWEST eater on the face of the earth. If we needed to be somewhere and it was 30 min before she needed to eat, we just weren't making it on time. That pissed me off. I don't like to be late and I don't like to mosey around. Just sitting there, waiting on her to eat made me so antsy. This is another reason why I think I sucked at breastfeeding.

5. A larger number of women have problems with breastfeeding than those who just keep going with no a single care in the world. Lila was losing and losing and it was giving me a complex. I realized that my supplementing it would have a huge affect on my supply, but I had to do what was best for my baby. The poor thing was STARVING. She responded very well to the formula, actually she sucked it down faster than anything I'd ever seen! It made me so sad that I couldn't provide all she needed, but I know that in this day in age she will be fine on formula. 100 years ago we couldn't say the same thing.

6. It's ok to WANT to get away from your baby every once in a while. My mom told me everyday from the day I got pregnant, "you will wish you could stay home all the time" or "I hated going back to work after I had you kids. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do". At 4 weeks I was getting a little antsy for stuff to do. At 5 weeks I was just about to go stir crazy. At 6 weeks, I sent her across the street to my Aunt's and came to work part time as I could. It's been the best thing for me. If I was still at home we be in debt (even more than we are now) and I'd be divorced because Neil wouldn't be able to handle me and my spending!

7. Your family can't wait to see you, but for a different reason now. I haven't had an identity for a while. For the past 5 or so years, I've either been "Capel's Sister" or "Connor's Sister" and I've even been known (for my whole life) as "Coach Henshaw's Daughter". Let's just add another one to that..."Lila's Mom". This is fine. I don't mind it, but if I'm out somewhere and don't have her with me, people really start freaking out. "Where's Lila?" "Who has her?" Listen people she's not attached to me anymore. I can leave her different places and it's ok!

8. Working out isn't quite what it used to be. :( Wom wom wom :(

Now matter how much I want my belly to go back to the rock solid abs (quit your laughing) that I had before my baby, it's just not so easy to get my butt up there and burn calories anymore! I'm just doing what I can and hopefully, one day soon I'll be able to get back up there. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to do the half-marathon in Nashville again this spring. I so hope it can happen!

One more GREAT piece of advice that was given to me from a new mom and good friend of mine, Miss Laura Minor Zurliene: The best advice is to ignore most of the advice given to you. You know what's best for your baby. After all, we are mothers for a reason!

That's all I can think of at this point, but it's a pretty good start. Happy naked baby!!!