A Day in the Life of Sonia, Gary and Lydia

And so she is 3

2011-11-25T01:49:00.001-05:00

Lydia turned 3 at the beginning of the month. She's almost 3 feet tall, a few pounds away from 30lbs. How about my little girl being a sassy little thing?

It's amazing how much she has grown this year. There are these crazy full sentences that have been coming out of her mouth for the past half year. Frankly, it's amazing considering how worried we were. She has this ridiculous memory which allows her to learn so many different things and different words. Of course, it's the story of a child in development - it's not like she's a genius, but in my eyes she's the most brilliant star in the sky.

At the end of September, Gary and I had the most marvelous night with Lydia. It was her first shadow puppet show. We turned off the lights, got our flashlights out and made ourselves giants, made bunnies, dogs, crocodiles. It was so much fun!

Lydia, Gary and I took 2 weeks at the end of October / beginning of November and went over to England. Lydia got to meet her cousin, Henry, who she calls Hengry. It took her a week and a half, but by the time we left, she was wanting to hold him. She was slightly jealous, but she did fairly well for a 3-year old bratty kid who was being spoiled by family who doesn't see her but once every 18 months or so.

We celebrated her birthday with my family. It was hard to leave at the end of the two weeks because Lydia had obviously made some attachments with my family. When we were talking on our last night, we said that we had to go home on the aeroplane. She said she wanted to go to work with my sister instead! It was quite cute, although sad too. It's difficult because I want to be around so that we all grow up together still. And I know when we go back like this, the time we spend together is precious, intentional and everyone is so present because it's truly special.

It's prematurity awareness month too. Here's a quote I love from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream:

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

That's our Lydia. Our 2lbs 7oz little itty bitty girl is a fighter.

New videos!

2011-09-04T12:08:00.001-04:00

Check out the 2 new videos above. One is of Lydia cooking with her Daddy, and the other is her with her binoculars!

Lydia-ism

2011-08-07T22:38:00.000-04:00

Lydia loves play-doh. She has been making pretend muffins, pizza, all types of stuff. The play-doh set has 2 pieces of bread. Rather hard, plasticky, inedible bread, but it looks like bread at least! Lydia put some blue play-doh in between the bread and gave it to me.

Me: Yummy, what's this?
....
Me: Lydia, what's in the sandwich?

Lydia: Play-doh!

DUH!!

Memory Lane

2011-07-25T00:11:00.000-04:00

I was just looking through this blog with fondness as I really do intend to either wrap it up or revamp it in some way in a few months. I was reading through those first few blog entries and remembered the day we brought Lydia home. That week, a lady showed us how the oxygen machine worked, and how the heart monitor was going to work. I just remember becoming short of breath, panicking and not hearing much of what she was saying, which was freaking me out even more! I remember being tearful, scared and so worried about not having the safety of the hospital staff around. What would I do if something happened to the machines and I didn't know what the hell to do?!

I am so past those days, but every now and again I remember something like that and it sneaks up on me a bit. Preemie parents say this all the time, but I really don't remember how small she was to begin with anymore. Or at least I don't remember the look or the feel of it. I remember she felt like nothing, and that her leg was as big and round as my index finger. Every now and again I look at my finger and remember that. Honestly, if I didn't have photos to prove it, I wouldn't believe it.

We are one lucky, lucky family.

Mother and daughter time

2011-07-24T23:23:00.002-04:00

Gary spent the weekend helping his Dad with some home improvement projects so I got to spend an entire weekend with Lydia on my own! I always have visions of being productive, organised and efficient with my time. I've come to realise that spending time with Lydia is just that, even when we're just indoors staying away from the heat. In 10 years time, I have a feeling that she won't want to sit on my lap, or hang out with me so much, or even consider me her 'friend'. I'm okay with that, so I relish these moments where there is so much love and laughter between us.

She helped me with some of the household chores today - she helped me do the dishes (put them in the dishwasher haphazardly), she helped me with the laundry (flinging clothes on the bed and laughing really loudly) and when I dozed off and took a nap, she decorated the house with play doh supplies. Nice! We also started a weekend tradition of dancing like Peanut Gang maniacs in the front room. Not that we don't already do this, but it seemed we were doing this all weekend. We put the radio on and made up crazy dance moves. The move of the weekend was JUMPING A LOT! So when I got really tired (because toddlers can just do that FOREVER), we rolled all over the front room instead!

On Saturday, we had a playdate at the park. This is where these gorgeous pics come from. My friend has a great eye for those special moments - I love these types of photos! They're just so real and capture such emotion.

There's Lydia with a face full of banana! On a somewhat related note, here's a memory that came to me the other day. When I was younger, my Mum would peel oranges for us. I hated peeling oranges. To me, it just wasn't worth the work but I still ate them when my Mum peeled them. This memory came to me the other day when I was peeling the umpteenth orange for me and Lydia to share together. I still hate peeling oranges but I do it for Lydia. It helps that the oranges taste good too! Thanks for all of the oranges, Mum!

Lydia has a new fear of noises. It actually started on July 4th. We thought she'd love watching the fireworks this year, which she did from afar. Once the fireworks started up right in front of our faces, we realised it wasn't the best idea we've ever had! It wasn't so much the noises (as she has been next to cannons going off and not batted an eyelid) but the 'colours were too big'. So now she associates the loud noise with that feeling of fear she had. Fireworks, thunder, random cannon going off in Charleston harbour (Yes, really, just the other night when we were having dinner). In this photo, she was scared of the sprinklers and how loud the splashing was at the time!

This new awareness of fear means her sleep routine has changed. She's now insisting that we sit in the chair in her room whilst she falls asleep. This process can take anywhere from an hour to two hours, usually involves listening to our lullaby Pandora station and listening to her whispering to herself and her stuffed friends for a while. It's actually not bad other than not having time to do much else in the evenings, but I don't particularly care to do laundry, or unload the dishwasher, or spend time on stuff for work. So when I get irritated about sitting in there and 'wasting' my time, I remember that one day she's going to wish she had locks on her bedroom door to keep me out! Then I relax and cherish the moment.

Changes

2011-07-14T22:33:00.000-04:00

Gary and I are back in the swing of things after a nice trip to Washington state. We spent a couple of days in Seattle before we headed up to Everson to celebrate Gary's grandma's 90th birthday. We didn't buy a lot whilst we were out there, but I did bring back some rhubarb from Grandma P's garden and made a strawberry rhubarb crumble - delicious!

My favourite food in Seattle? We went to Chinatown one night and had a proper Chinese meal. It's so sad that I have to go to the other side of the country to get some good food! We didn't have time to get dim sum, but I am going to NYC at the end of August so maybe I'll get some then! Oh, and I loved the England-like weather in Washington state too. It was a much-needed respite from the 100 degree heat here.

We're all 'talk three talk four' here at the Donnelly house. Most of what Lydia is saying these days is so clear, or at least it is to us! She's able to hold mini conversations with us, telling us what she's doing, or what we're doing, or what she wants/needs. It's all quite astonishing. Even the daycare lady said, 'You know, she talks the most now - we had a whole conversation the other day! And to think she was the one that we were worried about because she wasn't saying anything!' So that's either an argument that development just takes its own sweet time, or that the speech therapy made all the difference. Believe what you want. All I know is that Adrianna taught me and Gary just as much as she did Lydia. We learned how to elicit responses, repeat, rephrase, acknowledge, reassure and just talk talk talk about everything.

On August 1, it will be Gary and my 11th wedding anniversary. We are the best of friends and continue to grow together. We are always learning patience, love and living in the moment. Granted, I get on his nerves because I pile all the big bowls on top of the small bowls instead of putting them in order (HA! If you know Gary, aka Mr. Disorganised, you know this is a strange pet peeve). He gets on my nerves when he leaves his dirty clothes all over the place! In the end though, if that's all we have to complain about, we're pretty lucky.

I hope you enjoy this blog post! I am averaging about once a month these days and we're coming to the end of the book. I think I'm finally letting go of preemie parenting fears so it's time for a change. I'll keep you posted on the new blog ideas I have for the future.

Oh, by the way, look me up on pinterest.com. I don't have too much on there right now, but I do love that site.

100 degree heat

2011-06-20T23:18:00.002-04:00

Not only do I procrastinate in life, I also manage to do so in my online life. And so here is a post, a month after the last one, that really isn't going to tell you anything new.

The searing heat is upon us once more. If there's one thing I detest about living in South Carolina, it's the fact that I can't go outside during the day. I think I should start a siesta movement here. Really, how do we get anything done? It's nice to be in an air conditioned office most of the day but I don't really like living like a vampire. You know, avoiding daylight as much as possible, trying not to make those tan lines worse than they already are. It's not half as fun as being able to step outside and BREATHE. Breathing is quite difficult when it's 100 degrees F out there and 100% humidity.

My sinus pressure headaches have been getting worse lately. I managed to look up on the internet (oh trusty fountain of all knowledge) that Charleston, SC has the widest range of pressure fluctuations on the continental US. What? Of all the places, how'd I end up here?!

Anyway, I don't want you to think that all I do is whine whine, moan moan. I really do love my life. And despite living in hot-as-Hades-Charleston, I love my job, my family, my friends and the pace of life over here. I even have hobbies! I just rediscovered the library as I went to get some large-print books for my mother-in-law. I actually had a $4.40 fine and had to apologise to the librarian for owing them money for 5 years!

I'm hoping that going to the library and borrowing 'proper' books will deter me from reading on my droid. I can't seem to read any decent books on the droid as I have an addiction to reading free romance novels, mainly because those are usually the only free books you can get on the kindle app. And when I say romance, what I really mean is smut. I think I know every single storyline of those books. Here you go: Boy meets girl. Boy and girl like each other. Girl was mistreated in the past by some other boy (bf, father, father figure, etc.) therefore girl doesn't believe she deserves boy. Boy is a hero - witty, smart, funny, rich, the best thing since sliced bread. He even gets away with being slightly violent and mean because, you know, he's hot and it's for her own good, stupid ninny girl who doesn't see he's her soulmate. Girl takes a leap of faith and declares her love for boy. Boy says, 'I love you too' which often sounds a lot like, 'For frick's sake, about damn time you stupid woman'. The book usually ends with boy and girl happily ever after.

So reading is one of things I like to do. I'd love to claim I'm an arts and craft, scrapbooking artiste. Now, I'm finally acknowledging that I merely collect craft supplies. Hoards and hoards of them. And I love to buy things to organise these supplies. Whether I'll actually use these supplies...well, that's another blog, don't you think?

Update

2011-05-17T22:28:00.000-04:00

I think that the lack of posts means that I've run out of creative juice as far as this blog in concerned, but I didn't want to leave you in the lurch for too long.

We are doing well and I am approaching my 32nd birthday this week. We are busy, as usual, working and playing hard.

Lydia is growing and changing all the time. She's grown an inch or 2, put on a couple of pounds so she's doing well. She is officially doing well according to MUSC, with a psych eval in her future to be sure she's ready for school when it's time! She also had her last speech therapy appointment last month. I must say her speech has advanced by leaps and bounds since then. She's quite the chatterbox and is picking up new words all the time. Just this week she was correcting my pronunciation of banana. Nice! I'm dying inside, but I keep reminding myself that miracles happen - such as her learning to speak and doing it quite well.

We participated in the March for Babies again at the end of last month. It was a reminder of how precious life is and how this time last year, Lydia was in the hospital with a crazy enlarged lymph node!

Potty training is going on right now. I think that our laziness might be contributing to her not being potty trained yet, so we've really got to start paying attention more! Lyd goes through phases where she loves to sit on the toilet, then she doesn't want anything to do with it.

Fairy wings are quite the rage these days too. She spent this weekend running around with fairy wings on and calling herself a butterfly! And, of course, she does this with her favourite toys of the hour - yellow bunny, purple bunny, peep, baby ray and aeroplane. She did take the black tip reef shark to bed tonight which made Gary incredibly happy!

And what a beautiful morning it was this morning. Lydia woke up early so we brought her to our bed to lie down for a bit. I promise you she almost had an entire conversation with me, stringing 4-5 word sentences together. She can now say things like, "No Mummy, Don't touch the feet!" Or, "Where'd baby ray go?" She's working on those pronouns right now. She often will say, "Hold you" instead of "Hold me" and things like that. But she does say, "I get down" or "I do it" and things like that.

Alright folks, that's all I've got!

New Videos

2011-05-05T21:05:00.000-04:00

They're up :)

Let's Go Abanas!

2011-04-18T22:01:00.000-04:00

We've had quite an eventful month. Apologies for another late post. It seems that this blog has almost run its course. I've been thinking lately about blogging and what it's doing for me and for those who read it. It started as a method to keep people in the loop about Lydia's beginning and it's been quite a cathartic process. I also wonder what it does for Lydia's photos and life to be strewn all over the internet for any stranger to come across. And the fact that one day she'll get older, and I should probably start being careful now rather than later.

I've got ideas to make the blog into a book - there's a lot of websites out there that can help me do that. Either way, I'll be posting on here until a good closure point - maybe towards the end of the year. I do have some ideas for a different blog in the future so maybe my internet spamming days aren't over just yet.

As I was saying, we've had an eventful month. We had our volunteer appreciation picnic at work, we went to the air show, went to some civil war anniversary events and picked strawberries this past weekend. It's been getting warm too so we've been going out more and more often. It's nice to be out of the house and not stuck indoors all the time. Lydia loves to be outside and being indoors is rather boring. So we'd better take advantage of it before the heat of the summer kicks in!

Lydia had an appointment at MUSC today. She is doing well and was meeting almost all of her milestones. She had grown about 3/4 of an inch and is now weighing in at 23 1/2 lbs. The doctors were happy with how she's been progressing. She also had her last speech therapy appointment last week. Just today she was talking about Adriana - I guess the lady at the hospital reminded Lydia of her!

So Lydia is no longer receiving early intervention services from babynet, speech therapy or really anything! She has a couple of different appointments to go in a few months and then before we know it, she'll be going to SCHOOL. How time flies!!

I Love French Ruled Paper

2011-04-01T23:44:00.000-04:00

How about my first finished project in about a year and a half? Yahooooo! RIP Winnie the Pooh pencil case that I've had since I was about 15. It's time for a change. I'll have to make one of the smaller crayon holders for Minoo next.

Check out the videos up above - I'm uploading new ones as I type so they'll be up there soon for your viewing pleasure ;)

33

2011-03-22T21:47:00.000-04:00

Time flies when you're sick! Gary caught the lurgy from Lydia last week so he was also sick for his birthday yesterday. Poor guy! Luckily, I didn't catch this last round of sickness. Thank goodness! I just had to deal with my allergies, what with the pollen coating everything in sight and turning things green over here. I can't imagine how hot the summer is going to be as it has already been in the mid-20s all of this first Spring week!

Here is a funny Lydia-ism to keep you laughing.

Lydia waving her fork around at the dinner table.
Me: Lydia, stop waving your fork around!
Lydia looks at her fork, waves at it and says: Hi Fork!

Lydia's decided she's scared of bugs. When she sees little bugs or flies, she starts shaking herself and saying, 'Scared!' The other day, Gary had the mixer out and before he even plugged it in she was freaking out. Apparently the mixer is the most frightening thing in the house right now.

I had a dream the other night. I dreamt that I was being attacked by lions. I was walking to some sort of class, and there was an enclosure full of lions. There were people surrounding it, linking arms, trying to keep the lions in. You could say that there is some meaning to this dream. Perhaps I'm trapped, my inner aggression being contained by others. Or maybe my goal in life is to try to contain the scary things of life to protect others. Yeah, that's not it. Gary's bloody SNORING infiltrated my dreams, putting bloody LIONS in my path. I woke up to my cell phone ringing at 3am (it was the phone system at work calling me - it randomly does that from time to time) and I was actually thankful that I was woken and saved from being attacked! When I came back to bed, Gary was snoring very loudly and I thought, 'Hmmm, that sound is very familiar...' LIONS!!

Okay, I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

I'm thinking about sewing some cool things over the next week. Maybe I'll have something to show you guys next time I post :)

Stronger, healthier babies

2011-03-09T21:58:00.000-05:00

We're walking in the March for Babies to raise money for the March of Dimes again. If you have the heart to donate, please go to www.marchforbabies.org/forlydia. If you haven't ever donated, please consider doing so this year. If you've donated before, please consider donating again. It doesn't have to be a lot. You can give me the change in your pocket, or give me your extra spending money for the month. You can give me $2, $20 or $200. Either way, it really isn't the thought that counts, but the action behind it.

If you don't want to or can't donate to this cause, please consider another. Or volunteer your time and energy to something else you believe in. I obviously can't force anyone to do anything. What I can tell you is that I am passionate about being compassionate. That my life's work and all that I strive for at work and at home is to be kind to myself, to my family and to others.

I believe in the power of volunteerism and that groups of everyday people can achieve so much more together. Whether you donate your money, give your time or advocate for something you believe in, do something.

Lovely weather!

2011-03-02T21:49:00.000-05:00

I was sick as a dog on Sunday. Let me back up. I was sick for about 3 weeks in February. I was never quite sick enough to be bed bound, but sick enough to be below par. One week was spent looking after a sick minoo-Lydia, the next week was spent feeling rather sniffly, coughy and a full weekend at work where I was feeling like my head was swimming and I was going to keel over and collapse at any minute! The following week I was listening to everyone like I was under water. Apparently the bubble feeling means I had a sinus infection, which I didn't realise until Friday. I went to the doctor's and got prescribed some amoxicillin which seems to be working wonders.

Saturday was such fun. We took Lydia to the Children's Museum and she had a great time. It's such an interactive type of place. Rather staged if you like that sort of thing, and not exactly conducive to natural environment learning but hey, have I mentioned that my house is full of plastic day-glo everything?

The last time Lydia was at the Children's Museum, we were there for the family kick off for the March of Dimes walk. We didn't actually get to walk that year because Lydia got sick with the crazy enlarged lymph node and ended up in the hospital! Well this year's kick off is tomorrow so we plan to walk in April this year. It's a great way to celebrate how far Lydia has come. She was climbing and crawling and jumping around everywhere. It brought tears to Gary and my eyes to think how far she'd come in just a year.

So Sunday rolls around, I'm feeling a bit under the weather. It's a nice day outside. I think I'm recovering seeing as the day before we went to the museum, the aquarium, walked around quite a bit and ended our day at Barnes and Noble, one of our favourite haunts. Except I'm feeling like death warmed up. First I felt like I had indigestion, then I felt nauseated. Then every time I tried to eat or drink anything, my body reacted rather violently! I spent most of the day in bed, sleeping for a few hours then waking up for half an hour, realising that far too much energy was being used trying to sit up, and promptly returning to bed. It took me until half 8 that night to finally be able to eat something and keep it down!

This made for an exhausting return to work on Monday. Yesterday was the best I had felt for a long time, and made me realise how bloody sick I've been all month! Be gone, sickness! I'm done with you!

Small Wonder

2011-02-21T23:58:00.001-05:00

I am grateful that I have a 2 year old preemie that is strong enough to fight RSV and win. That she is old enough not to have to worry about its adverse effects, that it took her down for a week, but she is right back up, jumping, climbing, running and playing.

It doesn't mean I don't worry anymore. I just don't worry as much. It doesn't mean I've forgotten she's a preemie. I remember, from time to time to most of the time, that she is a small little wonder. And it's hard to explain to people what that's like. To be thankful for everything she says and does and is able to accomplish. It's not that we watch the milestones to rush her towards them. It's that we're tentatively waiting, worried, then amazed that she achieves them at all. It's that difference that some people don't seem to understand. That there was a time when maybe there weren't going to be milestones to meet, not that we would worry that she might meet them later than others. It's seemingly easy for others to assume that we're just overprotective parents, worrying over nothing. Yet they seem to forget that there really are things that we should worry about, that we have valid reasons - 12 valid missing weeks of gestation reasons as to why we are still sometimes holding our breath.

And it gets easier. Oh, how it gets easier with time. The love that we feel for our feisty, temper tantrum throwing, moon-howling obsessed girl. Today, we went to the grocery store and her excitement over the big letters and numbers everywhere was contagious. Our little, little girl is growing up.

Instigator

2011-02-04T00:52:00.001-05:00

Lydia bit her little friend at daycare. Apparently she does this to compensate for being so small. She gets pushed around a lot and so, to defend herself, she bit the other kid. I'm not really convinced that that's a very good excuse for her harming another child, and I'm not really sure how to stop her from doing it seeing as I'm not there when it happens. And it always happens when she's not being watched so closely of course. Dana, our daycare provider, said she sat her down for some quiet time after it happened. I did try to talk to her about it today. I said, 'Did you bite Elena? Be kind and nice. Don't bite Elena!' and she looked at me with a rather guilty look. Then she started smiling. Oh, she's a cheeky one! I was just thinking this very week that it had been a while since she'd done it (she's done it a time or two in the past) and how glad I was that it didn't turn into a problem. So I guess we'll see if it happens again!

Lydia is turning into a little girl. Every day she does something amazing and I look at her, hoping to bottle up this moment. I know it won't last as long as I think! Most of the time, Lydia's quite gentle and doesn't go around biting her classmates. I was at the daycare one morning and the kids were pushing on her, pulling on her hood...she just ignored them and looked at me as if to say, 'See what I have to put up with?!'

One morning I dropped her off after speech therapy and she was hungry. She said, 'EAT! EAT!' which got all the other kids saying the same thing. The washer stopped and I guess it sounded like the microwave, because they all started saying, 'POPCORN? POPCORN?!' Then Lydia said, 'SIT DOWN!' and all the kids sat at the table. She then started banging on the table going, 'YUMMY! YUMMY! YUMMY!' which ended with the other 2 year-olds banging and chanting after her. Quite the ringleader we have for a child! She instigated a food sit down at the age of 2!

We whipped out the paints the other day and painted these small plant pots. The one that she painted is the one in the front. I'm using it at work as a pencil pot. The one behind is the one that we both decorated. It's being used to hold her crayons. Her crayons have been the taste du jour for Chili, our dog. Apparently it's her new favourite thing to chomp on so we've got to be a bit more careful with them.

I've been trying to get organised lately. I spend a lot of my time doing things that don't make much of an impact, and so I'm trying to redirect my energy to be more productive at work. I think it will help me to save more energy for home. Isn't that the whole point in the end?

Trapeziums

2011-01-23T00:00:00.000-05:00

Apparently trapeziums are called trapezoids over here. Who knew? I wish I would've taken American English 101 as it seems that Lydia is being taught all the ways of the land and I am behind on the uptake. Already I've taught her trapezium and, although she's not stringing sentences together, she has a memory that doesn't allow me to unteach her this dastardly English word. Because when I tell her it's a trapezoid now, it's as difficult for her to get her tongue around it as it is for me, so she just looks at me and says, '-PEZIUM!'

If I was stubborn, I'd say, 'YEAH, SCREW YOU AMERICA! My child says trapezium, up yours!' Except I'm far too fond of being right for my child to walk around being wrong all the time. Particularly if it's my doing. If *I* want to saunter around Charleston acting all rebellious, shoving TRAPEZIUM in people's faces, then that's my deal. But how could I possibly force that on my poor little girl? She didn't choose to be born into this trap-ezoid!

And so I have been pronouncing words like zebra 'zeeeebra'. I can't quite bring myself to say to-may-to. And I still hold onto the slim hope that she will pronounce pin, pen, pan, and pun all very differently. Unfortunately she has edged over to the dark side, saying 'heeeend' for hand and 'baaaaax' for 'box'. Sigh. I wonder how and if this is confusing for Lydia at all? I noticed the other day that she says water slightly differently depending on who she's talking to. If she's talking to me, she'll say, 'war-ta' and if she's talking to Gary, she says, 'waaaa-terrr'. Poor child.

Anyway, the thought of her having an American accent when she grows up seems so bizarre to me! I can tell that my accent has an effect on her because I hear the other kids at daycare pronouncing their words slightly differently. Not just because they're all different, but because Lydia has a clear differentiation between a, e and i sounds right now. And she doesn't pronounce those 'r's on the ends of her words either! It won't last long as I already hear it changing, and that's okay. I'll love her however she sounds.

Thought you would enjoy these photos. Lydia usually looks a lot like Gary. I'm fairly certain that she looks a whole lot like me in the pics up above though!

Follow the Leader

2011-01-17T00:44:00.000-05:00

Follow The Leader is a sculpture in downtown Summerville. Spot the figure that's slightly out of place! Gary and I went to Azalea Park this weekend and took a walk. It was nice to be able to go outside without freezing to death. It was quite bearable - slightly chilly in the shade but not too bad at all.

I've been rather stressed out lately. Different things, different issues, different areas of my life. What I realise is that it's taking up much more energy and focus than I'd like. Best work on that I think. Either way, Gary is teaching me to focus on us and let other people focus on themselves.

These Moments

2011-01-12T23:21:00.000-05:00

2011

2011-01-02T23:07:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year! Here's what I think of 2011 so far:

I'm writing my new year's resolutions down so that I can stick to them!

The main one is to HAVE FUN!

I told my Mummy I was going to be well behaved. That's why she's smiling here. I have other ideas. That's why I'm grinning!

Happy New Year! 

Thank Goodness for Long Weekends!

2010-12-27T23:06:00.000-05:00

Back to work already! At least for a few days before 2011 rolls around. We had a relaxing weekend. Lydia got some pyjamas on Christmas Eve that she wore all day Christmas day. On Christmas morning, she got to see her new tricycle with a Snoopy sitting in its seat. The first thing she saw was Snoopy, and then she saw her tricycle. There was slight excitement but I think she was still tired to really care too much! She hasn't quite figured out the steering or the pedaling so it's something we'll be working on!

Breakfast was a lot of fun and a new family tradition for the three of us. We turned the Christmas tree lights on, Christmas music, and we were all in our pyjamas. It was fun as Lydia got to do some mixing of pancake batter, then she got to eat what she had been making! It was a great way to set the tone for the rest of the day too. We're excited as it's really the first time we've thought about family traditions and consciously made a decision to have Mummy, Daddy and Lydia time.

After our breakfast we got changed and showered and then Gary's parents came over and we had a Christmas lunch. Lydia opened some more toys and got into a cute little dress that Gary's parents bought for her. She really enjoyed the crayons and markers and has been playing with magnetic letters and numbers on an easel.

Gary has this cool fandangled orange juice thing. Gary's Mom said that it was Grandma Hazel that first showed him how to use it. It's a plastic juice straw thing that screws into the orange, you squish the orange around to get the juice out, then you eat the orange! How fun! Gary gets very excited when he's able to give Lydia an orange, although I told him to hold off for a few days because, well, too much citrus isn't always the best thing!

Alright, best be off. Have a good week, peeps.

Sh*t My Kids Ruined

2010-12-22T23:05:00.001-05:00

Lydia figured out how to unscrew the top off my nail varnish. Blue on beige carpet is the new trend. As is blue nail varnish not just on nails, but entire toes. Oh, and on our faces too. I think this belongs on sh*tmykidsruined.com. If you've never been to this website, I highly recommend it. I rate it higher than cakewrecks.com and I laugh a whole lot at those hot messes.

Last weekend, we had a pre-Christmas warm up weekend. Stephen, Cory, Averie and Monty and Gary's parents came over. Here's Grandma Net with the kids decorating cookies. Notice the big kid sitting in the mix.

The behemoth of a cake pictured below is this year's newest fad. Remember the turducken? The chicken wrapped in a duck wrapped in a turkey? Well this is the cherpumpple. Stephen found this recipe online. It's actually 3 different layers. He took 3 different types of pies and baked them in 3 different types of cakes. He then stacked them all on top of each other and covered the entire thing with icing!

I wonder what Lydia will be when she's older? Right now, she fancies herself as a photographer, snapping some great face shots of herself such as this one:

Lydia was pooped out after everyone went home on Sunday. She sat in Daddy's lap and promptly fell asleep.

So dudes. What's the deal with Santa? I mean seriously, this big fat guy who wears a red suit comes into my living room, scaring the crap out of me by eating my cookies and milk? I have issues about pretending this guy exists; I don't particularly like the thought of lying to my child! And you may think, oh what's the harm? I know, most of you believed in Santa when you were younger and you weren't scarred when you found out he wasn't real. Anyway, Gary says I'm not allowed to tell Lydia he's not real unless she specifically asks me about it. That will be YEARS that we'll have to keep up with this ruse...bloody hell!

Okay okay, I can spin truths. I know Saint Nicholas actually existed. I don't knock the Christ out of Christmas either. I know he existed too. Did I tell you an old boss told me I was going to hell because I didn't accept him as my saviour? I was hoping that if I told him I thought he was a really important guy, a generous, loving, life-changing guy even to this day, I'd be safe. Apparently not.

Gary did try to spin me some yarn about me missing the point of Christmas and Santa Claus entirely. Oh ho ho ho, pray tell, I need to hear this one. He said it was about the spirit of giving. Which, of course, was perfect fodder for a great Sonia rant. Who exactly are we giving to? Me, myself and I? I'm not sure that the spirit of giving is just about giving each other ridiculous amounts of presents! Now if he had said, it's about spending time together and giving each other some presents, I admit this to be true. I like the idea of family traditions, being with loved ones, having a special time of year watching silly movies and singing songs. I like the idea of getting Lydia things that will make her incredibly happy.

But did we, the Donnellys of Summerville, practice the true spirit of giving this Christmas? Hardly. How about adopting a family for Christmas? Donating some money to a good cause? Dude, you're married to a woman who sold her soul to non-profit community work. If you want to talk about giving, don't forget to walk the walk too. Oh, he opened a can of worms now! Next year I plan to barter the existence of Santa Claus with teaching the true spirit of giving. Which means Gary will have to give up a present or two and stop using the excuse of, 'I do give. I give them you!'

Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!

2010-12-09T21:39:00.000-05:00

Lydia faces the tree: Hi Tree!

Me in a low voice: Hi Lydia!

Lydia: Wha-doin'?

Me: I'm a tree. What colour are you?

Lydia: Ye-yow.

Me: I'm a green tree. What's your name?

Lydia points at herself: Ee-i-a

Me: My name's Tree.

Gary and Me: hahahahahahahahhahahahahaha hehehehehehehe hahahahaha

Giving Thanks

2010-11-28T16:29:00.048-05:00

We're on the tail-end of a 4 day weekend over here. Thursday was Thanksgiving day. Generally known as a day to give thanks for the things we have in our lives, it's also turned into a day we eat far too much food, and a shopping bonanza weekend. Yes, Gary and I live this life full throttle. Gary's parents came over and we baked a big turkey, had all types of potatoes cooked in 4 different ways, stuffing, gravy, some rolls, macaroni and cheese, a pie and a partridge in a pear tree...just a month early.

At midnight I ventured out to Walmart to buy a Cricut Expression. Yes, I braved the crowds and became just another lunatic sucked in by the Black Friday sales. BEHOLD:

This is what I ended up buying. It's an aqua/turquoise coloured scrapbooking contraption. What does it do? It cuts shapes and letters and all types of things. I'm sure I'll be posting some great creations soon. HAPPY CHRISTMAS SONIA!!

During normal waking hours, we checked out a few stores and managed to snag some cheap blu-ray DVDs. I also bought a new coat from Old Navy at 50% off:

Saturday we went to see Stephen, Cory, Monty and Averie. It was good to spend some time with them together. They're moving to Indiana soon and although it's been in the plans for a while, it still doesn't seem quite real. We hope to be able to see them again before they leave though, and they're never really goodbyes, just see you again soons.

Today we ventured out again. I had to drop by work to film our newest holiday appreciation video. Last year's video was really funny, so we're trying to make another funny video. We'll know soon enough whether we've succeeded. The holiday party is this week, and the last parts of filming are going to be tomorrow evening. It's going to require some speedy editing on my part!

This isn't actually my desk at work, but Lydia decided she wanted to sit at this one and punch some keys on the keyboard.

BOO!

We got quite a lot accomplished this weekend. I even got my advent calendar painted. It's a wooden one that we bought from a craft store. I found some great ideas for an activity advent calendar for the next month. Not that Lydia will really understand it, but she'll understand it next year for sure.

Well, another week. Be kind!

Helloooo!

2010-11-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

Check out the new videos posted above.

Lydia's been talking into the phone. I ask her, 'Who are you talking to?' and she says, 'Connie!'

She will also randomly ask where Steve is, which inevitably leads to her asking where Yee Ma is too, or vice versa.

The other morning when I dropped her off at daycare, she said, 'write...paper....pen....want some...please....' She decided to try all her words to try to get Dana to get her something to draw with.

Okay, short post. Until next time...

Long time no see!

2010-11-10T22:37:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. We've been rather busy with people coming to visit, and work taking up a lot of time. The phones haven't been as busy as usual, but with our being 2 full-time staff members short for taking on-call, we're looking at a busy holiday season for the rest of us. Don't really have much of a choice but to work hard right now, but luckily we have some great volunteer and part-time staff that really step up to the plate when we need them. I'm lucky to work at a place full of kind and compassionate people!

Here's a pic of Lydia at her birthday party. It's not the best photo as Gary looks like a ghost back there! She had a lot of fun and particularly liked people singing happy birthday to her.

For Halloween, Lydia painted her first pumpkin whilst Annie and I carved our first pumpkins. We carved Dora and some face thing from Tim Burton's Nightmare before Christmas. Lydia painted her own masterpiece. She really likes arts and crafts so we are going to have a lot of fun as she grows up!

We got dressed up to go trick or treating around the block. Lydia tried to steal a pail off someone else's doorstep, tried to steal a pail from another little girl because it looked like hers, dipped into the bowl for more candy and tried to steal candy from another girl's pail. She doesn't know what candy is - all she knew was it was supposed to be going in her pail! Gary and Steve enjoyed scaring the neighbourhood kids with their masks. Annie was a vampire and I was a witch. Lydia was a fairy walking around with a bunch of ghouls!

Annie and Steve came to visit for the week. We had a lot of fun and got to play tourists. Lydia still asks for her Yee-Ma and Teefe every day, and we tell her they had to go back home and go back to work!

Can't believe that she turned 2! She's just under 22lbs and 32 inches tall. Love this little girl.

Mucinex DM

2010-10-19T22:03:00.000-04:00

For those of you that just hate chesty, congested coughs, I would like to highly recommend Mucinex DM. For those that are of drug-dealing professions abroad who may not have heard of the brand, click on the link and I'm sure you'll figure out its equivalent. As soon as my allergies - no, it's a cold - no it's the change in the weather - sh*t it really is an effing cold - turned into a cough, which turned into a congested cough, I started taking Mucinex DM.

You may wonder if I'm being paid loads of money to advertise for them. No, but it helped me kick a cough that I know should have lasted for a week in a couple of days! Yes, I'm still having random coughing fits where people wonder if I'm dying and are scared they'll have to administer CPR, but they are few and far between. Why? Because Mucinex DM is an expectorant, a cough suppressant and helps me sleep at night. It makes the cough, 'productive' meaning that you're not coughing like your lungs want to jump out of your body, but specifically coughing to hack up nastiness (i.e. scummy, nasty phlegm and other grossness).

Anyway, you may have gathered that I am sick. This may account for the reason I keep thinking today is Wednesday instead of Tuesday. I feel like I should've been off work today to recuperate! Yet, you guessed it, I was at work and feeling not bad at all. Which just seems contradictory to me. Why am I wanting to get better just to get back to work? Hmmm...that must be a good sign...that being at work is preferable to being sick. Phew. Must re-evaluate life if that ever changes.

This past weekend we took Lydia to the Corn Maze out in Moncks Corner. There was a 3 mile corn maze, some farm animals, a mini haystack maze for kids and a corn kernel pit. We didn't put Lydia in the corn kernel pit; as soon as she saw it, she went, 'corn' which she LOVES to eat. I'm not sure she'd have loved chomping on hard corn kernels!

The cow from Chick-Fil-A was also out in Moncks Corner. I'm not sure that Lydia was impressed though.

Lydia was tired. Really, she was overdue a nap before we even got to the corn maze. She ran around a little but halfway through, and after rolling around in the dirt, (as evidenced by the dirty sleeve) she promptly fell asleep on Daddy's shoulder. There's a new video at the top of the page if you want to see how Lydia did in the haystack maze.

We did hear a kid telling her Dad, 'Don't post that photo on Facebook!' I imagine at some point I might hear this from Lydia too! And then you will only get photos like this:

My henna tattoo that a lady did for me at India Fest downtown. Which is just as interesting as Lydia, slightly less cute but opens up all sorts of conversation. It's actually darker now. I thought it would fade in a couple of days yet it's still very dark and yes, I do wash my hands after going to the toilet. This is about as close to a tattoo as I'll ever get. If I ever decide what I want and where to put it, I'll let you know.

On another child-unrelated note, a Bombay Bazar [sic] opened up in N. Charleston. Yes, although I almost poked my eyes out before I even walked in, it didn't take me long to get over it as I'm much more forgiving when English is a second language. I did consider telling them their sign was spelt wrong, but it was a permanent kind of sign, and not just a paper printed sign. And they're new, so maybe they can get their money's worth before they replace it. I have a feeling I may be too hopeful about that happening though. Anyway, I promptly bought 10 packets of 99c curry, and $4 worth of frozen naan. Wow, I have lunch for 2 weeks! Bargain! They even had pizza naan, although I'm fairly certain this falls in the realm of sweet and sour pork, and that weird cheese stuff I can't identify at the Chinese buffet.

Bern II

2010-10-10T21:09:00.000-04:00

My favourite season over here is Autumn. I love that the sun is shining, yet the temperature is cool enough to sleep with the windows open. Usually my allergies disappear with the heat too, although I've noticed that they're still around this year.

I haven't had the chance to update the blog in the past couple of weeks as I've been busy at work and had a couple of busy weekends. Gary, Lydia and I had a great weekend visit with Connie. If you don't know who Connie is, she's a friend from uni that I used to hang out with. We went everywhere together, had lectures together, went out on the town together. Spending the weekend with her reminded me of why we were good friends back at uni. Connie always says she's not patient or selfless enough to have kids. She actually was great with Lydia, as well as Monty who came into town to do some sightseeing.

Lydia's teething. It seems as if her 8 teeth are being joined by another 8 all at the same time. She's in constant pain, often opens her mouth to say, 'aaaahhhh' and is waking a couple of times a night. She slept through the night for a few nights, but is back to crying a bit tonight. Gary's the new night guard; I go into her room, she wants me to pick her up and won't let me put her down. Gary goes into her room, she sleeps in the crib, all relaxed. I'm guessing I've conditioned her to think I'll pick her up when I go in there!

I hope I don't forget this time in Lydia's life. She's picking up new words all the time. Today I heard her say, 'e-phant' and 'bunket' for blanket. She is starting to put 2 words together, such as, 'bye ball!' We made pizza one night for dinner, and now she's obsessed. The other night, when we were at Gary's parents house, we had pizza and she was going, 'pitha, pitha, pitha!' For some reason she's also decided she can't say, 'Gwampa' anymore and has been calling Grandpa, 'ming-a' instead! It took all night for us to figure out what on earth she was referring to!

Also, her new night-time routine has changed. She drinks her milk and says, 'meeee-MA' for Yee Ma Annie or 'Por por' for my Mum so that I'll pull up photos of them on the ipod. Then, inevitably, she'll go 'deee chung chung' to watch the youtube video of my Mum reciting the Chinese nursery rhyme. She thinks it's so funny!

Soooo, who does this remind you of? If you said Linus, you'd be close. If you said Bern, then you may know of Bern's obsession with my Mum's nightgowns, or The Bag Strap. Lydia's not attached to any particular piece of clothing or texture. She just picks up any clothing, anywhere, and walks around with it. If I pick her up, she'll put her hand down my top or up my sleeve just so that she can rub it with her other hand, or on her lips.

It's cute. I think because she reminds me of Bern when she was younger.

Over and out. I'll try not to leave it so long next time.

Bye Feet

2010-09-27T22:11:00.000-04:00

If I could bottle up these past few weeks, I would. I wouldn't mind freezing time right here. Gary,Lydia and I have been having a lot of fun. It's so exciting to see her grow and learn every day, but so bitter sweet because I know it won't last too long.

Lydia's almost stringing 2 words together! Tonight she kept saying, 'Bye Feet!' and putting them under the covers. Then she'd take them out, just so she could put them under the covers again to say, 'Bye Feet!' again. She's been adding a few new words here and there. She is seeing moon shapes everywhere, even ones that we don't notice at first! She also tells us, 'change' when she wants her nappy changed. She's getting closer to potty training all the time!

Lydia and I went to Wannamaker Park again last weekend. She loves the swing!

We went to the aquarium for Toddler Time on Saturday morning. We had to get there for 8 in the morning so we woke up early to get there in time. Lydia had a fun time and Gary got some extra time to look at the exhibits :)

It was the Moon Festival this past week. If you read the news, you'll know it was a Super Harvest Moon this year! Well, we waited until Saturday to walk around the block in the moonlight and we didn't even see the moon until we were almost done walking! Here's Lydia walking in her pyjamas before bed! Averie, Monty and Lydia all had hand-made lanterns for their walk. We went to the park to the Charleston Chinese Association moon festival picnic - it was a bit of a let-down but I did get a box of 'free' moon cakes. I'm thinking next year I'll have my own new year and moon festival parties!

D-D-D-D-Dora

2010-09-16T23:20:00.000-04:00

So I'm not sure if you've ever felt like crawling into a tub of laundry, but if you ever do, you might have as much fun as Lydia did. You'll be happy to hear that she was in a pile of clean laundry, although I'm fairly certain that means she got my clean sheets dirty, what with her being a stinky toddler. She actually spent a good 20 minutes sitting in this tub, lying in the tub, pretending to sleep in the tub. Amazing how content children are with the simplest of things.

We became members of the SC Aquarium the other week. It gives us unlimited entry to the aquarium for a year. We managed to take advantage of that fairly quickly as Dora the Explorer was at the aquarium. Yes, we stood in the queue and joined other toddler-obsessed parents so that Lydia could meet her friend, Dora. She wasn't scared at all, beamed a smile when she walked up to her, and proceeded to check out Dora's shorts and hold onto her hand. Cute, huh? All that waiting to see Dora for just a brief few seconds! But totally worth it to see her grin!

Wannamaker Park has got a cute play area called the Tot Lot. We took Lydia this past weekend and she had a lot of fun on the climbing frame. To begin with, she spent a lot of time inspecting the gravel and trying to eat it. Once I'd convinced her it wasn't edible (although I caught her a few times trying to test my knowledge of that) she was having a lot of fun.

And she totally loved the swing. Who wouldn't? Especially when you have a Daddy who can push you HIGH in the air!

Lydia has gotten some sort of lurgy sickness from daycare. She has already had 2 colds in the past few weeks and was just getting over one. Then she went to daycare this week and came back with an even snottier nose and a cough. Ack I hate the coughs. She's only had one other one and, frankly, they scare me! Cough attacking my preemie's lungs - BE GONE!! Lydia actually seems to be almost her normal self, despite not being able to breathe through her nose, and hacking up a lung every now and again. She hasn't run a fever and she's not lethargic. We've been running the humidifier for the past couple of nights and I think that helps. So we're hoping it will get better from here and not worse. She did wake up at 6:30am the other morning but if that's all we have to deal with, we're lucky.

Alright, time to go to bed!

September Shenanigans

2010-09-06T22:06:00.000-04:00

I've joined a group to 'Create with intention' or something along those lines. There are only 2 rules: write 600 words a day on anything you want, and choose to do an activity 5 times a week. This can be a physical activity, creative activity, whatever you like. The challenge has about 100 people participating, and today is Day 1! SO, for my 600 words, I chose the blog. Mainly because it's been a while since I updated it, but also because I'm a bit too tired to do much else!

I was on a family blog the other day and there was an 80 something year old woman who had written a page of memories for each year of her life. I really like that idea so I'm thinking about doing that.

Gary and I went to a wedding on Saturday. Here's Lydia in her little dress, ready to go. Actually, she'd just woken up and was rather zombie-like for a while. It took a while to get a smirk of a smile out of her! It was an outside wedding. Luckily it wasn't too hot, although we did leave before the reception began.

Cory, Monty and Averie came down for the weekend. We had a great time hanging out, and the kids had fun now that Lydia is interacting more. Yesterday, we went to the aquarium and did the sea turtle hospital tour. As you can tell, the kids had fun looking at all the different fish in there.

Another week begins. After a 3 day weekend, I have a long day of work ahead of me tomorrow. The great thing is it's a 4 day week. The bad thing is I have a feeling I'll just be working 5 days worth of hours in 4!

Not too long until the end of the year! Not sure how 2010 flew by so quickly. Did it fly by quickly for you?

22 months

2010-08-23T22:26:00.000-04:00

She's pretty cute, don't you think? Got these glasses from AC Moore for $1. She's always ~~breaking~~ playing with my sunglasses, so I thought I'd get her some of her own. Don't really do much for shade, but they do have 100% UV ray protection - how about those Hello Kitty shades?!

Don't worry, we didn't get that gigantic jeep looking thing. We tried to get her to sit on a tricycle. She decided she'd much rather get into this decked out ride instead!

Here's a funny fact. Lydia's hair is lightening because of the sun. I was looking at her hair today and said to Gary, 'Is her hair...lighter?' Gary said, 'Yes, just like mine does in the sun.' I did look (and felt) horrified for a second... before coming to terms with the fact that half the world has to deal with this strange phenomena. Hair stylists are always telling me that my hair also lightens in the sun. Dude, not sure how bright the sun has to be, or if it can get much brighter than it does here in SC, but my hair still looks pretty dark to me.

I've been sticking Lydia on the scale every once in a while. She's still under 22lbs, but over 21lbs so that's got to be a good thing! It looks like she's filling out in the face too, and some of her pants are shorter so she has to have hit 30 inches by now!! It's kinda cute that she's still small though. One day we'll miss this.

點蟲蟲,蟲蟲飛

2010-08-15T00:40:00.000-04:00

For your entertainment, 4 new videos uploaded above. Of Lydia, of course.

Tweedle Dee and Dum drinking milkshake and milk.

Lydia loves Winnie the Pooh. This one was as big as she is!

Tweet-style post. I'm tired!

Sleepless Night

2010-08-12T05:58:00.000-04:00

My loss, your gain, as you get a mid-week photo to admire. I'd be the one behind the camera. Ever notice that I am never in brilliant photos such as these?!

Off to get some last minute kip before I have to get up again for work. Hasta fin de semana (probably).

Ten Years

2010-08-08T23:00:00.000-04:00

We're back from our trip home! Goodbye nice weather, hello crazy, stifling heat! Gary and I have been getting back into the swing of things; back to work, back to house chores, back to our life in SC. This weekend was full of work - Gary mowed and edged the lawn whilst I weeded. Then we cleaned house. It was tiring, but at least we got it done. I'm still looking for a Jetson's robot maid, but I'm not holding my breath.

We took a trip to Edinburgh whist we were over there. Gary couldn't resist getting his photo taken with this Scot.

Gary and I have been married 10 years this month. It's quite bizarre to think that it's been a decade already! Wonder where the next 10 years will take us? I don't know, but I'm pretty certain we'll be taking it on together.

Lydia loved seeing some old, but mainly new faces in England. Of course, she was spoilt, adored and loved. Today, she saw a photo of my Mum and said, 'Por Por'!! Recognition! It made me happy to see that she remembered.

I'm planning on making a book with photos of family so that she can keep seeing them and remembering what to call them. She already points at one of our family pics and says, 'Daddy' and FINALLY 'Mummy' as well as 'Gwampa' for Grandpa (Gary's Dad) and we're almost certain she's saying 'Gwamma' for Grandma, but not quite sure she's got it quite yet. She did point at Annie when I said, 'Yee Ma' so maybe the next step will be pointing at it and she actually names the people herself. We hope so.

Lydia got to meet a lot of my friends. Marie took us to Head Over Heels - it was like an indoor jungle gym for kids. One side was for toddlers, the other for older children. Lydia loved the ball pit. She didn't quite know how to act at first, but after a while, she loved it. There was a part in the middle where air shoots up and the ball float in mid-air. Here's what happens when Lydia stands on top of it.

A mini troll! Bern was great - she crawled up and down the jungle gym with Lydia, helping her climb when she wasn't tall enough, or didn't know how to balance. They climbed all over the thing. There were ladders, and tunnels, and balancing beams... so much fun!

Alright, will post more photos soon.

England bound!

2010-07-12T00:47:00.001-04:00

If Lydia wasn't 20 months old, I wouldn't believe that it has been over 2 years since I've been home. If you wonder how much I love Gary, I love him enough to leave my entire family over in another country for years on end, seeing them once in a blue moon. I know a lot of people don't see their families often, so perhaps this isn't a big deal. But then you probably don't have siblings like mine. Gary is one lucky chubby head. I live with acute awareness of how much I have sacrificed, yet I know it's more than I'm willing to acknowledge to myself. I probably didn't realise that 10 years ago, what with being 21, carefree and running to someone I cared about because I was running away from people I cared about. And would I know how important it all is if I didn't sacrifice it all so easily and willingly back then?

Don't get me wrong, we have built a life over here. I love that we can go pick blueberries and blackberries with Lydia on the weekends. We both have decent jobs and a house we can call our own, some family and friends. I just find it incredible that I ended up in an area that is so far from progressive that it seems to go backwards. The thought of bringing Lydia up in a state where the education system is a complete shambles, the racism is so blatant, and the open minds, well, they all work with me. Step out of that non-profit little bubble and it's not very pretty out there.

Luckily or unluckily for you, I am here to stay for a while. And so, with it being 10 years this month that I moved over here, I'm in a rather reflective mood as to how it's been progressing. I do believe I've made progress. Gary and I are happier than we've ever been, building a life and a family together. We've been through some ups and downs, but nothing that's ever made me second-guess that we were meant to be together. I didn't move here for the scenery, and I certainly didn't move here because of the bright lights - I'm fairly certain that if I had opened my eyes and really thought about it, I perhaps wouldn't be married at all! Seriously, the pros would have been Gary, and the cons would have been everything else.

When it comes down to it, I moved here for him and I don't regret it. I talk a tough game because I'm not willing to settle. Especially now that Lydia's in the picture. For all the faults I find, Gary still outweighs them all. I promise you though, one day he is going to pick up his ass and move me the hell out of here and closer to civilisation. Because one day, he isn't going to be enough to keep me here and I'm sure as heebeegeebees not living out the rest of my days in South Carolina! Sorry Carolina fans, it's just not for me, and certainly not enough for what Lydia's got in store for you.

England bound in 3 days! I'm sure, on my return, I will be blogging about the overwhelming feeling of having far too many people invade my personal space in the city ;)

Tuesday Treat

2010-06-29T23:34:00.000-04:00

This isn't the best pic of your favourite blogger; I look like I could use a few more hours of sleep. I still feel like I'm missing a few hours, especially as the allergies have really been affecting my functioning level and sleep this week. I like this photo of Lydia, not just because the perspective has given her clown-sized hands, but because she's very huggable and cute.

Lydia's speech therapy is going well. For the first few weeks, I didn't see much change as she was getting used to a new person playing with her. Over the last couple of weeks, Lydia's really started to imitate a lot more, as well as use words without our initiation. Her newest words include GO!, Geeee (for Gary, as I'm always calling his name) and Tico (for Tico in her Dora book). She even points at a photo of Grandpa Donnelly and says, 'Bamba...Bappa...Gwampa..' She hasn't been able to say it yet, but when we say, 'Yee Ma' she walks up to the photo of Annie and points!

Worrying about child development often seems much ado about nothing to outsiders. I promise you that it's less worry these days for us, and more about giving Lydia the best start possible. I've had people express concern that we're hindering natural development with intervention. I agree that incessant worrying can be overly protective or cautious, which can get in the way of a child learning and growing. What I want people to know is that prematurity has the potential to have lingering, if not long-lasting and life-altering effects. Do I think Lydia has escaped the possible negative effects? I'm fairly hopeful and confident that she has, but we don't know for sure.

It's hard to listen to people comparing other children to Lydia; it's like comparing apples and oranges. People compare to reassure us that it's normal, that children develop at different paces, that everything will turn out okay. I just don't think people realise how unhelpful their attempt to be helpful can be. Unless you're my immediate family, false reassurance does nothing for me. It irritates me. Intellectually I understand that development is not measured on a 'one-size-fits-all' stick. The irritation I experience happens when people then expect me to peg Lydia on the 'All kids develop at different rates and that's normal and they all turn out to have no problems and absolutely normal' stick. Hello?

Lydia. She is the reason I seriously consider having another child. Lydia. The reason I hesitate and have seriously considered not having another child. Lydia. We love her and, luckily, she still loves us.

Mr. Potato Head

2010-06-21T21:50:00.000-04:00

Well it's one of those busy months for me. We're training new volunteers for the hotline which means I'm working 2 weekends out of the month, turning my weekly blog posts to fortnightly blog posts.

Have I told you I hate the heat? Oh yes, this very time last year you heard me say I was moving out of this Hades for rainier, cooler, breezier places. Alas, here it is, a year later...and yes, I'm still here. If humidity and heat outside wasn't enough, our AC broke down which meant we had a 91 degree F house. Like maths? To convert to celsius, (degrees fahrenheit - 32)/9 x 5. I do this regularly just for fun. There's some insight to how exciting I am. After calling three AC companies, we finally found one that would come out the same day. They fixed it in less than an hour and by the time we went to bed, the house was cooled down to a lovely 78 degrees F.

Here's Lydia eating some pineapple. She has been eating well and her favourite foods right now are broccoli, blueberries, blackberries and squash. She likes eggs too from time to time.

So speech therapy has been going on for 3 weeks now. The speech therapist has taught her to sign, 'more', 'all done', 'please' and 'help'. To be honest, I'm not sure how helpful it is. Granted I say, 'more' and she signs more. But she never tells me more, or all done unless I ask first. In which case, why not just teach her the actual word, 'more' or 'all done'? She learnt 'clean up' so that when I say it, she starts chanting 'keeee aaahhhh keeeee aaaahhhh' and runs around pretending to clean up (guess who actually cleans up...).

Also, they use a Mr. Potato Head to teach eyes, nose, mouth and other body parts. Except teaching a kid that potatoes have body parts...isn't that a bit strange?! Besides, she already points to a lot of her body parts; toes, feet, foot, knees, belly, arm, nose, eyes, mouth, teeth, ears, hair and head! I'm guessing that one day they want her to SAY these words rather than just identify them.
Lydia does seem to have picked up a few new words this past week or so. She will say, 'OH wooooooooow!' and 'Pooh' for her pooh toy, and 'Shoooooooes' for shoes. She also says 'am' for arm, as I always say, left arm and right arm when we're putting her clothes on. Yes, you've guessed it, it usually goes like this, 'am am am am am'. And just like any other child, she gets mixed up too! We were in the book store and she pointed at a picture of a mouse so I said, 'mouse' to which she promptly touched her mouth. Same with peas - she will sign please. She got toes and nose mixed up for a while there too, but seems to have learnt the difference from daycare. Matter of fact, when you say toes, she will wiggle her toes, touch them and say, 'tigu tigu tigu tigu' I assume to say tickle!

A bit sparse on the picture side for this post, so I am making up for it with nonsensical drivel. Gary bought me a new camera (it's rather fabulous and small) so I missed a few weeks of photos with minoo!

Riverbanks Zoo

2010-06-06T00:27:00.000-04:00

Ever had a beer can chicken? So you get a can of beer, stick some herbs in the can, put it in this can holding frame thing, stick the chicken on top so it looks like it's standing up, then stick it on the grill!! Yup, that's what we had last weekend. Oh, the things they come up with over here. Bizarre, yes. Tasty? Yes!

So here's our new rug. Lowe's had a sale on so we found this rug half price! Okay, so you didn't want to hear about my rug. I don't care, it's my blog and I'll do what I want mwahahaha.

So would you believe that Lydia is now 19 months old? It really is true what they say, that time goes by so quickly. Every day we notice her changing and growing. Her hair is getting longer, she has 2 new teeth (one on the top, one on the bottom...bringing the total to 7!) and we think she's getting taller. And cheekier by the day!

Today, Gary took us to the zoo. We did get to see many live animals, but we weren't able to get quite a shot like the one above. It was a hot, humid day so a lot of the animals were seeking the shade. Lydia seemed to enjoy watching the birds. She got a bit scared of the gorilla when it moved - probably because it was gigantic! Otherwise she seemed curious enough about these strange animals.

She did watch the penguins for a little while, but then decided it would be much more fun to climb a rock that had been placed indoors as seating. It wasn't a great seat, but it made for great climbing apparatus for Minoo. Gary said, 'What will you do when you get to the top? How are you going to get down?' Well Lydia showed him. She climbed to the top, then promptly laid on her belly and slid herself back down again!

Alright, 'til next time....

Charlestowne Landing

2010-05-30T00:13:00.000-04:00

It's Memorial Day weekend! Growing up in Charleston has given Gary the unique opportunity to be completely surrounded by rich American history. He's a history buff and he can actually rattle off dates and places of battles, as well as some bizarre off the wall facts that most people wouldn't know. If I wasn't taught to completely block the American Revolution from English history, I would probably be more interested. Unfortunately, I'm slowly coming out of the denial that any of it ever happened. Luckily for the other side of me, I can claim to have invented many things. *I* invented gunpowder, paper, pottery, noodles and printing. So, even though I don't always ~~care~~ remember in which century the civil war was fought, I can take pride in knowing that I invented the wheel. Okay, that perhaps wasn't the Chinese. I guess we'll give you that one.

So who thought of this as appropriate punishment? Gary, Lydia and I went to Charlestowne Landing last weekend. There's quite a lot to see out there including animals, gardens and information about the original settlers (you know, the ones that claimed the land from the natives). SO here's the Sonia scoop on what happened, which is what I remember, which may or may not actually be true. If you want to poke holes in my historical knowledge, go right ahead. I won't be embarrassed if you feel the need to correct me. Matter of fact, you should probably go straight to a more reliable source as soon as you're done here.

Apparently King Charles II, gracious guy that he is, gave 'Carolina' to eight of his BFFs aka Lord Proprietors. Who cares if there were already people living there, he figured it was his to give away. Arrogant stinkbombhead. I mean, God Save the King. So these guys (and a few other peeps) get on 3 boats to come over to Carolina. They stop over in Bermuda to see how slavery plantations work. Despite the atrocious conditions, they decide that the slavery plantation system is rather efficient and effective (Pah, lives lost, people treated like dogs...it's just another day in the 1600s).

I guess they didn't have doppler radar and hurricane tracking back then, because only 1 ship made it to the Carolina coast and the other 2 are destroyed in hurricane conditions. The Lord Proprietors decided that it would be a good idea to try to grow sugar cane and some other stuff that, well, didn't end up growing at all. Deary me, that wasn't so smart.

So Charleston...Charles Towne...get it? God Save the King. That's the only hint you get.

I also learnt that 'bucks', the colloquial term used for dollars, comes from trading deerskins (buckskins!) with the Native Americans. So you would trade 2 'bucks' for...bloomers? What did we have to trade back then?

Anyhoozle, that's about all I can give you as far as the history of Charleston. Well of course that's not all that Charleston's about. That's just a small part of what I learnt at Charlestowne Landing. They did have a full-size replica of a 17th century cargo ship there. The park ranger was dressed in period clothing, making some sort of twine and rope thingy. He was showing us how they lugged the anchor or cows into the hold. I would give you a full explanation but my cell phone kept going off, playing, 'these are the hands we're given' rock style and I had to answer because it was work. Yes, I was on a replica 17th century boat using obnoxious 21st century technology. I then missed pieces of the presentation that were rather important if I were to try to explain it here. The park ranger's name was CJ by the way, and he was pretty dang good at his job. Go visit him if you can.

I leave you with a brilliant picture of Lydia in the Hundred Acre Wood. We were at Barnes and Noble getting a drink and noseying around the children's book section. They had a little stage set up for storytime during the week. I love Winnie the Pooh and now that Lydia's in the story too...well, doesn't that make it perfect? You might notice another bear in the pic too if you look closely.

I uploaded another video. I took it last weekend, after our history lesson outing and walk in the Hundred Acre Wood.

The Day Before 31

2010-05-18T23:58:00.000-04:00

I recently came across a quote by a Greek author, Plutarch, 'What we achieve inwardly will change outward reality'. Failure comes in its different forms and has helped me to find myself and become who I am today. I always thought that failing was less than desirable; that it stunted my potential and it was something that brought shame. Now I know that suffering is inevitable. It takes time to heal and grow from it, but only if you do the work. It's knowing that no matter how far we've gone, we're willing to either turn around, or find a different way to get there.

On the eve of my 31st birthday, I realise that the older I get, the less I am controlled by what others think of me. And in reality, I know that most people don't think about me half as much as I think they do...yet it still has a hold on me. I could blame this neurotic behaviour on my parents and my upbringing, but I heard JK Rowling's commencement ceremony speech and she said that there's an expiration date on how long you can blame your parents for steering you wrong. Lucky for you, I absolutely believe it. And not only is there an expiration date for blaming your parents, there's an expiration date for blaming anyone else but yourself. And, would you believe it, there's an expiration date for blaming yourself too. One day you have to choose to either fight for your life, or stay forever stuck not knowing who you are and living a hollow existence.

I do believe in standing up for what I believe in. I also believe in being compassionate and treating people with kindness. I don't always succeed, but it's always my goal. I believe I'm on my path; the things I love and appreciate in my life outweigh those that did not turn out the way I had hoped.

On a lighter note, Lydia starts speech therapy next month. It's about not letting her fall further behind. But who needs that when Lydia can count? Check out the new video.

Strawberry Fields

2010-05-03T21:40:00.001-04:00

2 new videos up above - if you don't see them come right up, press the arrow button to the left of the video to see the latest one :)

We had a sweet weekend. Ambrose Family Farms was selling organic strawberries for $2 a lb! We drove out to Wadmalaw Island to spend the day picking some strawberries. We ended up getting 20lbs! Some we cut up for dessert that evening, some we juiced with grapes and then froze into ice lolly molds. The rest were cleaned and capped, then frozen. We had a great time and Lydia thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Lydia ended up digging around in the dirt and getting quite messy. She wasn't helping us with picking the strawberries, but she did help with quality control. She would take a strawberry out of the bucket, take a bite, then put it back!

Can you tell by the photo above that, instead of strawberries and cream, she was eating strawberries and dirt?! I had to wash her mouth and hands off several times! Ah well, Gary says a real little girl is supposed to get dirty.

Here we are in the strawberry field, looking thoroughly in need of baths. I didn't get it all over my face, but I did have dirt all over my hands and legs! Here are the strawberries after we'd cleaned them - yum yum!

We're also looking forward to when peaches are in season, as well as tomatoes!

Lydia hasn't started doing much pretend play yet. Matter of fact, we were sitting at this table and I was having a tea party. On my own. Lydia looked at me like I was crazy. Why, Mummy, are you pouring pretend tea into these cups, and pretend drinking the pretend tea? I started wondering the same thing after a few minutes.

Here's little Minoo with her belly sticking out. She turned 18 months old yesterday. She like to be chased, she loves playing with the dogs and she loves books. We're excited to see what the next few months bring!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-28T23:06:00.000-04:00

Lydia the week before I left for Orlando, and her big hospital stay. She ended up with an abscessed lymph node and in the hospital by Wednesday night. They think there may be an underlying branchial cleft cyst if it returns. If not, then it was probably just evil streptococcus infection that wouldn't leave her lymph nodes alone!

Here she is, back to normal! You can still see a slight bump on the right hand side of her neck, behind the ear. We hope it will go back to normal in the next few weeks.

Windows and Rooms

2010-04-19T21:10:00.001-04:00

This is our temporary home.

It's not where we belong.
Windows and rooms that we're passin' through.
This is just a stop, on the way to where we're going.
I'm not afraid because I know this is our temporary home.

Lydia had a great time at the MUSC neonatal nurseries reunion. It was an emotional time for many of the parents there, including me and Gary. It was so relieving, therapeutic and joyful to see so many NICU graduates thriving and doing well. We feel like the NICU experience was such a dream. I dropped off a couple of prizes for the raffle and had to drop them off at the NICU. Once I got on the NICU level, I felt so anxious; the feeling was somewhat unexpected and threw me off balance. To think of how much that floor became a part of our lives, and how glad I am that we were able to leave it with our baby in our arms. I am all too aware that some people don't always have a baby to hold at the end of the rollercoaster, and that makes having Lydia all the more special.

We got to see Logan who was one of Lydia's NICU buddies. We also got to see Asher, another of Lydia's NICU buddies. We always wondered what happened to these babies, so it was so awe-inspiring to see how well they're doing. It was a day of celebration that Gary and I will cherish for a long time to come.

Lydia enjoyed the animals, went on a pony ride and played on the bouncy castle. She is just old enough to get excited by these things! She's a fun-loving thing; quite independent and adventurous.

Most of these over-stimulating days end like this. A pooped out little girl in her Daddy's arms. Is there a better place to be?

Here's the cheeky monkey with Mummy's sunglasses. These days, everything is a toy for Lydia. It's exciting to see her explore and play with things to figure out what they are, or what they do. Gary and I hope to help Lydia find a sense of stability, confidence and compassion. I think it's what we strive for in ourselves, too.

April Foolishness

2010-04-09T01:15:00.001-04:00

A new month! And, thankfully, no more illnesses. Well, almost. Gary was diagnosed with strep throat on Sunday. I was doubtful that our after-hours clinic would be available on Easter Sunday, yet it was! So Gary got some antibiotics and steroids and felt a whole lot better by the next day. I think illness was chasing us last month so we're glad to be rid of it finally. I know, illnesses are good for a child's immune system. Why do people say that? Because I'm not sitting at home looking at my sick child thinking, 'Goody, she's growing so much stronger being ill. She should do it more often.'

Lydia's appetite has picked back up. Her favourite snackaroo these days is a hummus sandwich. She gets excited when she sees bread, or the hummus container; we've created a hummus sandwich monster! Gary thinks she had strep, or some sore throat thing as she really didn't want to eat anything else. In the past week she's been eating chicken, broccoli, blueberries...all the things she used to love! She's been feeding herself really well. We fell off the baby-led bandwagon. I guess all roads lead to Lydia's stomach so we continue to listen to what she wants to eat and when she's had enough. We think she's due a growth spurt too and might have a tooth coming in too.

For some reason we missed an entire season. It went from winter to summer in 2 weeks. So now we're dealing with heat in the mid to late 20s. I'm not really a fan of the heat, but it gives us the great opportunity to be outdoors. Lydia stays active walking around all over the place. Exploring...rocks and other exciting things.

We went for a picnic on Saturday. Gary went out to help his parents with the house, then they all came into town and we went to the park. Well you know I'm not a church-goer, so we'd be those commercial easter celebraters. Lydia doesn't really get the whole hunting thing, so she got to sit amongst colorful eggs and play with them.

The park has a sprinkler area for kids to run around in. She was rather tentative about water shooting out of the ground - who wouldn't be? Whose idea was it to have kids approach shooting geysers of water? It's rather strange really...yet they all seem to find it a lot of fun during the heat of the summer. I imagine we'll be going back there and Gary and I will be having fun pulling her out of the water soon enough.

Lydia handled it quite well - even when the water started getting higher and higher and she was getting water in her face. Which was quite surprising really as she hates it when she gets water in her face when she's taking a bath!

Here's our little toddler. So far she seems to be laid back, independent, talkative, cautious and happy. Lydia's daycare friends are quite feisty - they take things from her, try to move her out of the way. I've seen the interaction; Lydia's playing with a toy, the other kids get territorial and take it away from her (quite aggressively at times) then Lydia looks at them as if to say, 'If you just ask, I'll give it to you anyway. Mummy says to be kind.' How exciting to see that our little girl has a personality that is developing and growing all the time.

Deer lunch

2010-03-31T22:22:00.000-04:00

I think Gary was itching for a project this past weekend. Instead of painting the garage, or painting our bathroom, or doing laundry, or cooking a nice meal, he decided he would build a raised flowerbed. Oh, I'm sorry, I've been corrected quite a few times - it's not a flower bed, but a garden bed. We planted some herbs, veggies and fruit. We don't have a fence so I'm thinking we're growing these for the family of deer that live in the woods - I've been told they're going to eat anything that grows!

Gary learnt some 'mad skillz' from his Dad. Okay, so some of you may be thinking, 'So he's building a box, what's the big deal?' Firstly and lastly, if you are waiting for me to build it, you'll be waiting for a while. You know that phrase ...something to do with hell freezing over? Or if you don't want to be accused of using a curse word (yes, hell is apparently offensive in the south. Who the hello knew?) you could say if pigs could fly, if frogs had hair, if Sonia had any inclination to build wooden boxes...

Here are Gary's trusty helpers. They, you know, watched for deer. And Lydia looked for...blades of grass? Patrick actually helped Gary hold the boards together, so he did help out. The other 3 though...they pretty much eat, sleep, play and poop.

Here's the finished product. When we got the house, Gary said he would never plant anything ever! Mwa ha ha! 6 years later and I've finally worn him down! I'd just like to reiterate that this garden bed was his idea. So it's also his fault that I now want two more garden beds, a pond with a fountain, a tree or two, gravel around the garden beds, a play area for Lydia, something for Chili and Toffee's poop, and a swing.

Well, you'll be glad to know that Minoo Lydia is doing much better. Her rash has finally gone! She has remnants of a cough, but is almost back to her loving, playful self. As you can see, she is getting into trouble again. I am also just dealing with remnants of a cough - yay, almost feeling 100% again! Gary ALMOST escaped the month of sickness unscathed. You've guessed it, Gary caught the nastiness and has the flu. He had a fever and achiness last night so he stayed home today. He's quite puny when he's sick - are all guys that way?! How come when I'm sick, I still have to watch a sick toddler, cook and do laundry? What the heebeegeebees...

See how much Lydia's grown? We've been paying more attention to her speech lately. I think some of the reason that she's delayed may be a fault of ours. When she goes, 'waaaah' we give her what she wants as we know what she's whining for... we don't always encourage her to speak, or speak to her about what she wants. We just hand it to her. So maybe we're making it too easy for her. We'll see. I know what peeps say - kids develop at different paces and she'll get there. We know that. We just want to know that she can do it so that we don't have to worry about it being something else.

We have been enjoying the weather - it's been in the mid 20s over here, so warm and sunny. A bit of rain, but the cold is definitely behind us. We bought our bike trailer about a month ago, but we've been too sick to use it! Something is thwarting our attempts to enjoy this weather and get some exercise. Well, we're hoping that we can make good use of it once Gary recovers. Here's to Spring picnics and being outdoors!

Quack Quack Quack

2010-03-22T22:49:00.004-04:00

Lydia finally got over her rash! She was well for about half a day before developing a cough and cold. So she's now congested. Like any other almost 17 month old, she runs around like there's nothing wrong. She's been running around coughing on everything and drooling all over the place because she's breathing through her mouth! Here's what Lydia looks like in a boy outfit. Hey, we were at home. And it was Gary's birthday so she wore a top with fish on it. Doesn't her face look better without the measles rash all over it?! We took Lydia to her MUSC High Risk Development appointment today. There were a few new things. Firstly, she had some fluoride varnish 'painted' onto her teeth. Apparently preemies are more prone to chipping their teeth and their teeth decay easily. Something about their teeth not having the same amount of time to grow in utero so it makes the teeth flimsy and fragile. So she has to have this stuff painted on every 6 months until she loses her baby teeth! Nice. Looks like we will be looking for a paediatric dentist in the next few months - I guess I should've added her to our dental plan after all! Then the dentist lady proceeded to tell us how juice and snacks are evil - OKAY WOMAN - can't you see that's WATER in the sippy cup?! And honestly, she doesn't get chocolates and cookies every other hour - we promise! So we've been told to limit sugars, sugary drinks and anything else that is anti-baby teeth. I know we have been limiting all of that already, but for some reason I had given myself a 2 year time limit! So to think about continuing this hawk-like behavior for several more years...well, it's exhausting. Oh wait, it's responsible parenting?! Well crap, we'd better get our act together and commit to the long term!

They were really pleased with the way she was walking and moving around. She was almost on track with her cognitive abilities, but I think she was just distracted and not 'performing'. They did say she was at 10 months with her verbal skills so she has been referred to a speech therapist for an evaluation, along with a hearing test. Gary and I don't think she really needs it, and the early interventionist has said she's not too worried about it either. And I think an evaluation would show that she's behind, rather than having something wrong where she can't actually speak. The developmental paediatrician said it was best to catch it and help her with it rather than have her fall further behind. The everyday living of it is rather frustrating. And I know that her development in these first few years will affect her entire life, so I am focused on that. When I think we're done with loads of appointments, more of them get scheduled.
Lydia hasn't been using words to identify anything. She can, however, imitate almost anything these days. If I say yes, she'll walk around going, 'yeah yeah yeah'. If we say Hi, she'll say 'Haaaaaiiiiiiiiiii'. And just today Averie said, 'quack quack quack' to which Lydia responded, 'kwa kwa kaaaa'!! So funny!

We've been at the hospital a lot this weekend. Our appointment today, visiting Averie since Friday as she's been sick... We also saw one of my coworkers who has a baby in the NICU right now, and met a couple with a preemie baby in the NICU. Something is drawing us back to that place. And every time we leave, we look at Lydia and go, 'Hahaha we're taking you WITH US!' I feel like I'm escaping! That place does wondrous work. Just look at that cute little girl in the photos - she wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the miraculous work that goes on at MUSC. Now if the billing department could just get their act together - like stop adding costs that I don't owe to a bill that's 17 months old you CLOWNS - they would be close to perfect.

Loving our children

2010-03-17T22:23:00.002-04:00

Seems we need to hug our children a little tighter tonight.

Grief and loss has touched many of my friends and my heart hurts for what they have lost. I don't forget that I am lucky to have my child whilst others have lost theirs. Gary and I know a few people that have had/are having high-risk pregnancies, complications at birth, unexpected births. It brings me back to the NICU and our time there. It was scary, yet seems like it was such a long time ago now. Thinking of others experiencing this right now... it hurts my heart. It's not an easy road to travel. It's such a balancing act to love our child in the present, and pull ourselves away from the worry of the past and the fear of the future.

For us, it gets easier with time, with support and with hope.

A Day in the Life of Lydia

2010-03-11T21:09:00.004-05:00

This past Sunday, Mummy and Daddy took me out. We went to look at bike trailers, and then afterwards we went to get something to eat. It was fun. If you want to see what I thought about it, there's a video too!After lunch, we went to Riverfront Park. I got a lot of exercise walking around, playing with sticks and acorns, and enjoying the open air. I like to play outside! Dana, my daycare provider, takes me outside too. It's been nice and warm enough this week.The Stingrays had a hockey game at 4 o'clock that day! Brilliant! It meant that Mummy and Daddy could take me to the game and it wouldn't interfere with my bedtime. I was so tired from walking around though that I took a mini nap. I don't think too many people noticed...except for everyone in section 140! I missed the 2nd period but I woke up in time to watch the Stingrays win the game.It's been all downhill since then. I got my MMR shot last week, and it seems to be causing itchy scratchiness all over my body! It started as a few spots on my arms and legs, but it's slowly covered my body and even my face. Here's a pic of the rash on my face... Mummy's keeping a keen eye on me, but Daddy says it's okay. I've had one of these rashes before, when my aunties were here. This one looks a bit worse though and I'm not feelng very well because of it.

Okie dokie, it's time for me to go. It's way past my bedtime. Last night I went to bed at 8pm and I ended up getting back up again at 10pm. I don't know how else to say this, but I really needed to do a poop! So I did! But then Mummy and Daddy were paying attention so I stayed up until 1 in the morning! Wow, it was a party! So I had better go to bed else Mummy and Daddy might be mad. I can't do it too often or they'll catch on... Good night fans! Be kind!

Toddler-rific!!

2010-03-02T11:46:00.003-05:00

Lydia got the last of her synagis shots today! I've been very grateful for this added RSV protection to carry Lydia through her second flu season, but I think I'm more grateful that she no longer has to go in every month for 2 massive needles stabbing her in the thighs! There seems to be more understanding of cause and effect on her part; we go to the doctor's office, she anticipates getting stabbed. Poor Minoo. Hardly setting her up for a lifetime of comfort with her paediatrician, is it? She also got her MMR shot today; we waited until she was over a year adjusted to give her a bit more time to develop and grow. I wish I had been patient enough to get them all separately but apparently that's not going to happen until next year. I think I can wait a few months, but a few years is a bit too much for me.

Letting children run around with food in their mouths is completely irresponsible! Which is why you see Lydia with a gobful of broccoli SITTING nicely. I don't know how she got over there though. She flew. She definitely was not walking around with her mouth full. Ahem. Lydia loves to play with her toys. Our front room looks more like a daycare centre right now, with toys strewn all over the place. She's also exploring the rest of the house and lets us know when we need to put something in a more secure place! I like that she feels comfortable enough to roam around and to play on her own. It means that she doesn't have to be attached to our hips or feel scared if we're not around.

Lydia is 16 months old today. Still shy of 20lbs yet growing before our very eyes. Gary and I are trying to enjoy every minute of it as we know it passes quickly. To think that our baby is gone, and a toddler replaced her in the middle of the night :)

Proof that the minnow walks!

2010-02-23T22:17:00.003-05:00

I am so tired! This is the last late night of work...at least for this week! Work seems never-ending this month. We had a part-time staff meeting this evening which is always fun. I love spending time with people who care about others as compassion is something I am always working on. I don't think I always do well with it, but being kind should always be my intention.

And with all these late nights, I think I am due some time off very very soon. At least yesterday I managed to catch a miracle on camera. Lydia walking! Every time I tried to catch her walking, she wouldn't do it. She still finds crawling the fastest mode of transportation at this point.

The early interventionist came to the house this morning and was shocked. 2 weeks ago Lydia took 2 steps, MAYBE 3. After this weekend....BAM! A walking monster! Literally she went from wobbling around like Frankenstein at Chinese New Year to a walking little girl this weekend. It's just Lydia's style though. She takes a while to warm up to it, then she decides, okie dokie, I'm ready! Well she's not exactly walking all the time as she still crawls everywhere, but at least we know she can do it without any issues :)

It's such a relief to hear the early interventionist say that she is just about caught up to her chronological age. I try not to worry too much about her being behind, but I know I hold my breath a bit when she's not reached a milestone. Who knows what the future may bring, but I think we are in good shape so far.

Well, enjoy this cute video! Maybe next time you talk/see me I won't be a zombie without sleep, but a relaxed, refreshed person!

Changing Seasons

2010-02-21T20:58:00.003-05:00

Sorry for the inconsistent posts this month. It's not that I don't have any spare time, I just get thrown off schedule when I'm busy. I could lie and say I have been productive every second of my time. Yeah I'm just not that good!

Work has been overwhelming this month. I started the month balancing my time well, and it turned into a hot mess at the end of the month! This week was the first time that I felt I missed a milestone with Lydia. Thursday I was at work by 8am and didn't get home til a little before 10pm. Then on Friday, I didn't get home until 7. When I got home, I had gotten changed and Lydia decided she'd walk across the room! She took a few steps, stopped to regain her balance, took a few more steps, then a few more! She went from taking 2-3 steps at a time to about 15 steps at a time.We had a fun Chinese New Year weekend. Stephen, Cory, Monty and Averie came over and we ate all types of food on new year's eve. It was fun and we got to spend some time together. On Sunday, we decided to check out the Chinese Association of Greater Charleston's celebration. It was the first time that we'd ever been in the 10 years I've been over here. It was a rather strange affair, with a 2 hour performance that resembled a bizarre high school talent show. Needless to say it might be another few years before we go again ;) I think I am going to have my own celebration next year and just be happy with that.

Here's a pic of Lydia holding the ladder for her Daddy. Gary was changing some light bulbs and she decided that she wanted to help.

Charleston got some snow last weekend. You might be thinking, 'Big deal!' Well, if I told you that we haven't had any significant snow since I've been here, you might get an idea of how rare this is. The last time that there was snow that actually stuck to the ground in this area, it was 1989! SO although Lydia has been out in snow, she might be a bloomin' teenager before she sees it again. Assuming we're still in this area of course. Who knows, maybe we'll move somewhere where they have loads of snow! Although even I enjoyed the weather being warmer this weekend, what with the temperatures being around 15 degrees. I'm not looking forward to the sweltering heat though. Inevitably it signals the season of allergy reactions, unbearable humidity and pressure headaches.

Lydia had her 15 month appointment last week. She was 29 1/2 inches tall and 19lbs 14oz. I was glad she had put a bit more weight on as she had only put on 2 oz the month before. She's been eating really well lately; she's loving her broccoli, peas, hummus, a bit of bread, chicken - really any type of meat. I gave her some grapes the other day and she really liked those too. She's been drinking her milk and water well. Still hasn't figured out how to tip her cup, but can suck on the straw. So she did it a bit backwards but at least we don't have to worry about how to get rid of the sippy cup I guess!

We also got new carseats for the cars, seeing as she is almost too tall for the one she was brought home in. We got an evenflow symphony 65 which rearfaces up to 35lbs, and has the harness that can be used up to 65lbs. It took us a while before we decided which one to buy - it's like buying a car or something!

Hope you've been enjoying the Olympics. I've been pulling for all types of peeps. Shen and Zhao in ice-skating, Apolo Ohno in the short-skate, Great Britain in curling... I love to hear the personal stories of some of these athletes! Watching the Olympics makes me think of things I want to be in life that I don't think will ever happen (well, that aren't possible haha):

Olympic athlete!

Engineer (okay technically I could go back to school and do this but really, I think my brain would explode)

Astronaut (if I wasn't so scared of big spaces - which is why I don't do well in the ocean either!)

I should probably quit whilst I'm ahead.

Hide and Seek!

2010-02-10T22:06:00.003-05:00

Hello!
You can't see me!
Here I am!
I don't know if this hides enough of me...
This is a cool hiding spot!

Almost a toddler!

Day 449

2010-01-25T20:16:00.006-05:00

Reporting from the Donnelly camp, this is Chili Dog Donnelly, aka Annabella Chili Pepper the Beagle, Queen of all Beagles and other canines. It has been 449 days since the Little One made her appearance. Things have been changing every day. I'm not sure what her plan is, but the Big Ones seem to have no idea either. I have been collecting secret footage of her actions. You wouldn't believe the power she exerts over the Big Ones unless you saw it with your own eyes.

I have been working hard to build an alliance with the joker mutt - aka Brownie - aka Toffee Bosley Steakum Head Donnelly. Unfortunately she seems to have come under the spell of the Big Ones, acting like an imbecile when there's a slight chance of a walk, or running in circles in the house in a frenzy. Toffee has even shown affection towards the Little One. It looks like I am alone on this mission.

A surprising development this past week. We thought that Little One was doing well assimilating canine behaviour. Unfortunately I caught her bipedal. Such a disappointment as I thought she had pledged her allegiance to me.

This Little One is strange though. Perhaps the bipedalism is a mere ruse. Even whilst standing she transmits signals to us. For example, the hands placed on her belly - the Big Ones think it helps her balance, but I know she is telling me that her next meal is mine. Although she shows signs of submission, Little One is a constant source of annoyance - loud squeals, strange noises, laughing at nothing. At least when I bark, I am barking to assert my dominance over the world. Little One makes no sense - she squeals at toys and thinks that everything is funny. I held her down the other day to tell her to keep her eye on the prize. I'm not sure she understood everything that was said, as she started that incessant squealing again.I have been thinking of ways to break out of this prison for a long time. Sometimes the Big Ones tempt me with a ride in the car, or a walk. Sometimes I go, sometimes I choose to stay in prison. I will not be swayed and will show them that I am still in control. The Big Ones took down the vertical blinds to the back yard and put up some screens called 'curtains'. They block our view of the outside world, but I will show them no weakness.
Little One has not been able to communicate with us in dog language, but she has been feeding us to show us that she is on our side. Over the past 6 months we have been receiving more and more food. Lately she has been sharing her dinners with us - anything from chicken, pork, broccoli, cauliflower... the choices are endless! We hope that this trend will continue. Perhaps I will recruit her to be my human advisor and mediator when the time comes for me to take my throne again. Until then, I continue to fight the good fight. This is Queen of all Beagles and other canine transmitting this message from the Donnelly house.

Ready to Take a Stand

2010-01-18T21:07:00.003-05:00

Well I waited a few more days to see if I could capture Mini-ness standing tall and free. It never quite happened at the same time as my having the camera in hand, but she stood without support for a few seconds a couple of times this weekend.

Another thing that happened this week - goodbye bottle! Lydia mastered the sippy cup. She has about 4 different brands of the dang things - this one seems to work the best as it's got a straw in it. She hasn't figured out how to tip the cup up, so I guess the straw is as good as anything right now. I had a 4 day weekend this week, so I got to spend a lot of time with Lydia.Here's Little Lydia showing off her bottom two teeth. She's got 4 teeth right now, and probably a few more on the way. Lydia would sleep 8 til 8 if we let her, but we usually have to wake her up a little after 7. She's been sleeping well the past week seeing as she was waking with teething pain a lot.

Mimicking is Lydia's favourite activity these days. If you tip your head to the side, she does too! If you make a sound, she'll try to imitate it. This is her fish face that she sometimes turns into a kiss sound.

Well my intention to get out and about and get healthy got off to a late start. Today, Lydia, Chili, Toffee and I went on a walk around the neighbourhood. The weather was ridiculously gorgeous; blue skies, shining sun, slight breeze. Seriously, I was walking outside in a t-shirt! Not sure that it will last, but it was enjoyable.

Well I thought you might enjoy another video of mini Lydia. She has far too many toys. From the photos, I'm sure you can tell that they're overtaking the house. Well, she just enjoys playing with everything. I never knew that upside down dog bowls could be so entertaining!

Long week ahead at work. Until next time...

Baboddler fun

2010-01-09T09:15:00.004-05:00

Lydia climbing a box - only using her left foot though, she couldn't do it with her right!

Feet are still a main source of entertainment.

As are socks.

And dog leashes.

Happy weekend!

The Beginning

2010-01-08T23:05:00.004-05:00

When Lydia was in the hospital, I dreamt of her. It's the only time she's been in my dreams to this day. I dreamt that I was in a huge hotel and I'd left her in a room. Only I couldn't remember which room it was so I was going up and down the halls trying to figure out where she'd been taken. The meaning is obvious so I don't think it needs any explanation.

Last night I had a dream. I was pregnant with another child. I was getting ready for the c-section and another pregnant lady asked, "How far along are you?" I told her, 33 weeks. In my dream, there was an excitement that I had reached 33 weeks. Until I realised that it wasn't 33 weeks; it was actually 23 weeks and even earlier than what Lydia had been. There wasn't any reaction to the realisation, it was just that. Until I woke up of course. It took the air from my lungs and weighed heavily on my heart and mind. Not that the baby was early. That there was a baby at all.

I've been dealing with some inner conflict lately and it's time for it to be resolved. I'm so interested in ensuring that others are happy. It doesn't matter if it's work, home, or play. I accommodate. I bend. I compromise. I placate. I feel an obligation to others. This servile nature of mine does not serve me. It holds me back both personally and professionally. I find it difficult to stand up for what I believe in and what I know to be true. I spend my time boosting other people's belief in self and stressing about their happiness; I forget to work on my own. It's at the expense of my own peace of mind. At the expense of my sanity. At the expense of my happiness. I know from where this stems. And yet this is my bed. I won't lie in it.

I haven't seen myself as a strong individual in some time. I'm not quite sure why I chose to nurture dependence on others, or to give others control of my happiness. At some point last year, I realised it was ridiculous. I was fighting myself. I don't know if it was turning 30, having Lydia... a combination of the two? A dream, an article and a book made me realise that my actions must reflect my intentions.

I intend to hold my family's physical, mental, emotional, financial health and happiness above all else.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to be a completely different person. I just intend to be much happier now. I am ultimately responsible for my own happiness. I begin by sharing how grateful I am to have:

A stable, loving husband
A beautifully healthy daughter
2 rambunctious dogs (well 1 rambunctious dog, and 1 rather lazy dog)
A roof over my head, and finances to cover the bills
A job that I enjoy
Hobbies that I love
Family and friends that are respectful and supportive
Enough time to make changes

Thank You.

Happy New Year!!

2010-01-02T02:36:00.005-05:00

Well, two weeks of festive spirit are over. We had a lovely Christmas and New Year's Eve as we spent it with family. Here's a pic of Lydia standing next to her rocking chair. Grandma and Grandpa Donnelly got her the chair and made everyone some new stockings.
We put a few decorations up around the house. One of the Christmas stuffed toys we found was this pig that Gary has had since childhood. When you push its...hoof (?!) it starts oinking the jingle bells tune. The snout also starts to move up and down. Lydia thought it was incredibly funny.

Of all her presents, here's one of her favourites. Wrapping paper! She has been playing with the maracas that Grandma and Grandpa got her, as well as the shape sorter. Her favourite right now is the ball popper that Gary's boss got her, and the singing teapot that Shannon, Bryan and the kids got her. I think I have that tune permanently imprinted on my brain!
Lydia wasn't cranky during the day yesterday, but she sure wasn't happy when we tried to put her down to sleep. Little Miss Toothy is getting another tooth to go along with the two on the bottom and the one on top. She was in pain, poor thing. Gary felt about and felt another top incisor coming through.
We watched Star Wars movies on New Year's evening and New Year's day with the Pickett peeps. We hadn't watched those movies for ages, so it was fun to watch them again. The older I get, the more I realise that I have no retention span whatsoever. I don't remember movie plots, storylines, TV shows. I guess on some level I can't be bothered! Or I don't want to clutter my brain with this stuff? Who knows!

Alright, back to our regularly scheduled show. Maybe next week I will share how my new year's intentions are going? And what they are?!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-21T11:49:00.004-05:00

Sorry for the non-posts lately. I have been sick all month and we're finally getting rid of the remnants of it! Lydia and I pulled through without too many problems. I'm hoping that we don't get sick again during flu season as it's not much fun!

We bought Lydia a couple of gifts for Christmas - mainly stacking toys and sorting toys and stuff like that. Really, I'm not sure that she'll want to play with any of it. As you can see by the photo above, she's having a whole lot of fun playing with the duster!
This is her favourite toy right now. Matter of fact, it's really the only toy that she seems to have any attachment to whatsoever. Sure, she plays with a lot of her toys, but this is the one that she carries around everywhere. It's not even really a toy (Do you see a theme here? I'm thinking that most kids like to play with things that aren't really their toys!)... it's a Piggly Wiggly keyring. It's got a little pink pig on the end, and when you press the button it is a flashlight type thing and it oinks. She doesn't know how to push the button yet, but I think she likes it because it's just the right size in her palm.

Not sure what Lyd was doing here, but putting her feet up on this plastic thing in which Gary carries his tank water was fun for a few minutes!

Here's Lydia holding her bottle. She's about ready to be drinking out of a real cup now! She drinks out of her sippy cup every now and again, but not regularly. For some reason she likes to stick her leg in the air when she's drinking her milk!

Here are the gruesome twosome all dressed up for my work's holiday do. I am working this Christmas (as usual), but still have some good time to start some family traditions. This year it will probably involve some holiday films, some cookies (I found some Lydia-friendly ones that I am going to try out!) and some stories. We put a few decorations up to capture the festive spirit.

We already have a few ideas for next year. Lydia will be 2 and she will be a bit more excited about Christmas time then. This year is exciting because we can celebrate not having tubes and wires hanging off her! To think that she's been home for over a year now. That's a great feeling. Merry Christmas or what?

Our First Thanksgiving

2009-12-06T21:27:00.002-05:00

Last Thanksgiving, there wasn't much we wanted to celebrate as all we wanted to do was to see Lydia at the hospital. Next weekend, we'll be done thinking about what happened this time last year and still thinking about her being in the hospital. Lydia has almost been home for an entire year! It seems like such a dream, all of that crazy stuff that happened at the start of the year.

This year, Shannon and Bryan and the kids decided to go camping. The plan was for everyone to get together for Thanksgiving day. We thought, hey, why don't we go camping too? It'll give us some time to catch up and for the kids to get to know each other. What was strange is that, 'Let's go camping' came out of MY mouth! So we got a tent, sleeping bags, all the bits and bobs that you need to go camping (apparently there's quite a lot of stuff) and went up to Santee state park to stay a couple of nights. If you look really closely in the photo below, you'll see Lydia on the floor of the tent. She was making sure that Gary had everything set up the way she wanted it to be.
The weather turned out quite nice seeing as it had been raining for the better half of a week. By Thanksgiving day, I was worried that we'd be miserable and wet! I can deal with cold weather, but cold and wet weather outside is not really my idea of fun! SO we were very grateful that it didn't rain at all for the couple of days we were there. It got a bit chilly at night, and I think Lydia got a bit cool so we stuck her in the sleeping bag one night and she promptly fell asleep for a few hours. We didn't realize how popular Chili and Toffee would be. Poor inside doggies got a bit cold at night, so we spent the majority of our time trying to keep them warm! Although I think they got some help from the kids. As you can tell, Zachary liked Chili a lot.

Here's Lydia with Monty and Averie. Lydia looks like she's very comfortable, as does Chili!

Here's a pic of all the cousins together. I'm a bit off centre as Shannon has some better pics of this. But I thought this was a good way to show how brave the Picketts were with their camping experience. Gary and I just had one to look after whereas Zachary, Averie, Taylor, Kaelyn, Monty and Lauryn had been there all week! It looked like they were all having a lot of fun.

Here's Gary and Lydia taking a walk on a trail. There were a lot of leaves on the ground so it looked really nice out there. And it wasn't too cold when we were walking around.

Well, we've been home for a week now. We stayed close to home this weekend as we have all come down with the lergy. Lydia brought a cold home from daycare, Gary got a bit achey and had a sore throat, and I have been battling a sore throat and now a cough (boooo) all weekend. Not very fun! We hope to be much healthier this coming week...wish us luck!!

Prematurity Awareness Day

2009-11-17T22:48:00.004-05:00

Today is Prematurity Awareness Day. There are bloggers all over the world sharing their stories as part of the March of Dimes Bloggers Unite campaign. Here's a small part of our story.

Lydia was born at 28 weeks. I'm not sure that people can imagine how small she was. When she was born, she was just under 2 1/2lbs and 14 inches long. Her arms and legs were the length and width of our fingers. We could literally pick her up in the palms of our hands. If you want to know all types of Lydia-specific preemie details, you can follow the link at the top of the page. It is a product of preemie parenting that I have captured every single minute detail of our experience. Even long after I didn't really need to, I still wrote every single thing down. Just in case something happened and I needed to have documentation of her progress. I think it controlled me for a while...that feeling of needing to recapture some control. The NICU left me feeling helpless and numb for a long time.Lydia turned 1 on November 2nd. Lydia has not had any major illnesses and so far is on track developmentally for her adjusted age. I know that we are lucky to have come out of this relatively unscathed. There are many preemies that are born around the same time, even around 30-32 weeks that have many more complications. Respiratory issues, feeding issues, gross motor issues, fine motor issues...the whole range of parenting woes. I don't know if they're magnified because we had a preemie. I do feel like I have a heightened awareness to look out for things that may be out of the ordinary. And I probably live more in a, 'prepare and prevent' type of mode rather than a, 'whatever today brings' mode. Is that good or bad? I guess they both have their pros and cons.

The March of Dimes has done so much research into preventing prematurity and in helping preemie babies survive. Without the steroid shots, I do not believe that Lydia's brain and lungs would have been developed to be as strong as they are today. I am lucky to have had the time to be able to get the full set of shots before she was born. Please consider walking with us next year in the March for Babies in April. Thanks to everyone who supported us last year.

We are so grateful to the MUSC Children's Hospital. The NICU is a scary and awe-inspiring place. There were many struggling babies and I often wonder what happened to some of them. The nurses were so compassionate and supportive. Alethia saved my life as a mother. She was the first nurse I spoke to and she knew just how important her words would be. To be honest, I'm not really sure what she said to me. All I know is that the first time I entered the NICU, I was fearful and she did not judge me. She showed me compassion when I needed it the most. Gary is the wonderful father I always knew he would be. His parents brought him up to be a loving family man - centered, grounded, calm and stable. He is honest and true.

There are many people that helped us along the way. Friends at work that came to visit, cooked for us, gave us gas money to go to the hospital every day, threw me a baby shower when Lydia got home. Those that cried with me, laughed with me, shared our fears and joys with us. Friends and family that called to check on me and came to visit. You hold a special place in our hearts. We are eternally grateful for your support and love.

Today, Lydia is 18lbs 6oz, 28 inches tall. How about that?

Meeting the Aunts

2009-11-15T16:55:00.002-05:00

Well we got back from DC. Did a lot of sightseeing - it was fun. We will go back there one of these days. Lydia did well - she stayed on her schedule most of the time and had no problems sleeping in the hotel room. We were lucky as we had adjoining rooms so we were able to leave the room once we had put her down for the night. On the way up to DC, she was a bit fussy as she decided that it was time for her first tooth to come through. You can see it poking out a bit now, although you really can't see it unless you know it's there. Her new nickname will be Toothy. For a few days anyway ;) That's Annie and Elaine squishing Lydia to bits. Apparently, she's cute. But, you know, they're a bit biased really.

We went downtown last weekend to try to go to the Whale of a Sale. The queue was around the block. I went to the front of the line to ask how long they'd been waiting - an hour already!! SO we decided to walk around the farmer's market instead. Then we went to swing on Charleston swings and get some photos.

Lydia did get her synagis shots, seasonal flu and H1N1 flu vaccines a few days before we left for DC. Couple that with pain from teething and you get this:I'm quite positive that the sight of her Grandpa Donnelly did not make her do this as she's usually quite content to sit on his lap. She was trying to hold it in for a while before breaking out into a full blown wail. Poor thing.

Well, half of November is over already. How time flies! I'll post some DC pics next week ;)

Having Lunch with Barack

2009-11-09T00:36:00.002-05:00

We're off to Washington DC tomorrow!! Everyone keeps asking if we're going to see Obama. Well, we have a lunch date with him and his wife. I'm not sure if they'll actually show up as they didn't respond to Lydia's invitation, but hey, I'm sure they're busy. Doing President-y things or something. Lydia turned 1 on Monday. It was a quiet affair - a day spent getting to know her Aunts. The weekend before her birthday, we went to get some pics done and had a birthday lunch celebration with Lydia's Grandma and Grandpa Donnelly. Here are just a few of the pics. She got her synagis shots for the season (about time!!), a flu shot and the H1N1 flu shot too. She was cranky the rest of the day. I have a funny picture to show you all but I can't find my camera right now - I will have to post it next time for sure.

Lydia weighed in at 18lbs 6oz, 29 inches long! She's been a bit cranky the past couple of days. She's also had a few explosive nappies - she pooed all over Annie's jeans and hardly got any on herself! Mum said she's probably teething. Well lo and behold we think we can feel a tooth coming in. So maybe it will make an appearance one of these days! Although we have been mistaken before. Gary and I have thought that she was teething a few times before too.

Wow, we made it to a year!! Thanks so much for all of your support this past year. I feel like we've been on a wild journey. I know that you guys have been on the wild journey with us. We are really enjoying Lydia and parenthood. Stay tuned for more pics next week. I have some really good ones to share.

Spooky Birthday

2009-11-02T20:54:00.002-05:00

Lydia dressed as a pumpkin for halloween! We didn't get go trick or treating, but we did sit on the lawn for a bit to hand out sweets to the children. Lydia looked very cute and had fun with Toffee the Jester and Chili the Wizard. Lydia also had a onesie that had, 'I love my mummy' written on it with some halloween baby leggings. I think we both looked good in our spooky outfits.

Here's Lydia with a pumpkin - I was hoping to get a picture of her at a pumpkin patch, but it didn't seem to quite work into our schedule as October was a busy month.Lydia has some visitors this week! Her 3 aunts are here visiting from England! We had an early day today, what with the time change. Lydia was up at 6am - I'm not sure if she knew that it was her birthday and just wanted us to be up too! Here's Annie and Elaine giving Lydia a bath tonight. Lydia was a pukemeister today - she had puked in her crib last night, then spit up a few times today too. Not sure what was going on, but we think it was just an off day for her. Well, more to come from our travels. We got some professional photos taken on the weekend and they are cute!!

Let's Go Rays!

2009-10-18T22:29:00.003-04:00

Here's Lydia at the Stingrays Hockey game! She had a good time :) We kept her out past her bedtime, but she had fun. She didn't start fussing until 2 minutes before the end of the game! By the time we got home, she was pooped and ready for bed.
Here's a short video of little Lydia. There's not much to it, but you can really see how much she has grown.

I've been working hard lately. Busy at work and trying to save energy for home. I did manage to clean the house today so that Lydia has some clean floors to crawl on! Gary has been working hard too - he's been doing his usual finagling with trucks and destinations and trying to get more work and fit it in! It's all worth it though :) Work to live, right?

There are many things that have happened this year. It's been quite the journey since Lydia was born. The closer we get to her birthday, the more mixed emotions I have. I'm excited to celebrate her coming so far. I'm also slowly letting go of some guilt, anxiety and worries about her development. So I'm not really sure how I'll feel once her birthday weekend rolls around. We're not sure what to do yet - I have a few ideas of places we can go and things that we can do to celebrate. I know we'll be thinking about being in the hospital and all the things that have happened. We'll be thinking about the scary NICU experience. We will celebrate that Lydia is beautiful and doing well. And we will be thankful that we're lucky. The strides she has made this year have saved me from a lifetime of guilt and burden...and for that I am thankful.

Wordless Wednesday

2009-10-14T21:40:00.001-04:00

11 months young

2009-10-07T22:14:00.002-04:00

Lydia weighed in at 18lbs and she's 26 3/4 inches tall. Wow! Her latest conversation has been, 'dadadada nananana geeeee geeeeee da DA DA.' I'm not really sure what it means, but I'm fairly certain she's telling us, 'You're not the boss of me! You're not the boss of me! You're not the boss of ME!' Lydia's been pulling up on everything lately. Here she is, being environmentally friendly and helping with the recycling.
A few months ago, Lydia was too small for this stroller that has travelled half way around the world. Annie and Joe brought it over last time around! Almost a year later and she is finally big enough to use it. She enjoyed our first walk around the neighbourhood in it as she was able to be a nosey parker and look all around.

Here's Lydia climbing all over here seat like it's a jungle gym! She's like a little monkey!

Look how big she's grown - she fits into the chair just right. We usually put her in this to feed her. Recently she's started eating yellow squash, butternut squash, nectarines and kiwi.

The Lion, the Witch and the....Bookshelf??

2009-09-27T21:59:00.004-04:00

Well, if we thought that she was making strides last weekend, this weekend we were in for a big surprise! Lydia has decided that she is exploring everything. Here she is under the end of the sofa - I'm not quite sure what she was looking at, but it was rather exciting! Surprise! Lydia loves to stand! I have now become, not mummy the comforter, not mummy the cool one to play with, not even mummy provider of food. I will now be known as mummy, that lady that helps me stand. She crawls over to me all excited, looks up at me and extends an arm. And I, of course, oblige by holding out my hands so that she can pull herself up to stand! So, rather than looking under the sofa, she can now look at everyone above it.

Sooo here I was thinking that my role as 'stander-upper-helper' was really coming into its own. Until we walked in to find this. And this is AFTER we had already lowered her mattress as she had gotten herself up to kneeling earlier in the day.

Now that she can pull herself up, she's realized that el mundo es un pañuelo. Here she is, clambering up on the bookshelf...actually trying to get INTO the bookshelf to the wonderful world of Narnia. Okay, to the box of Beatrix Potter books that I bought off craigslist a few months ago!

It looks like we'll have to do some more babyproofing. We just got done looking at crawling level and now we have to look at calf level and knee level too! Look at the next pic, doesn't she look like a little girl? Looks like our little baby is growing up :)

Proof's in the pudding

2009-09-20T22:44:00.004-04:00

Like father like daughter... Gary was lying around watching a bit of TV. Lydia was rolling around playing with toys and she promptly took her spot above him. I'm thinking we need to get out of the house a bit more once the weather gets cooler!! Lydia's been getting around quite well. Rolling, crawling, all types of movement! AND who needs toys when there are things behind the fish tank she shouldn't be touching?

Lydia got her first taste of oatmeal this weekend. She really liked it and was quite eager to feed herself too! She also had a little bit of chicken tonight - we cooked it up for our dinner and saved her a piece too. She swallowed a little piece of it so that was nice. We're really trying to eat with her in the evening now.

I made Lydia some baby leggings. Basically they're knee high socks for adults, cut down to make baby leggings! How easy is that? And they're stylish too. How cool, hey? They keep her warm, make nappy changes easier, and protect her knees!

Not that she'll need them that long. She's decided that she needs to be standing up. She'll be walking in no time! Maybe she'll be close to walking by the time Annie, Elaine and Bern come over! Can you believe she's nearly a year old?!

Lark in the Park

2009-09-13T22:03:00.002-04:00

Lydia's mastering the art of crawling. Her knees move forward like she's crawling, but she hasn't quite figured out what to do with her arms. She's started moving towards us when she wants our attention though, which is very cute. And she will reach for toys at the same time rather than flailing around on the floor! She's almost there! She's also been pulling herself up when you hold your hands out to her. OH and she just starting going dadadadadada the past few days!!! So many new developments!

Hellooooo camera!!

These photos are from last weekend. We went to the park because the weather was beautiful, and we thought that Chili and Toffee deserved a good day at the park. Lydia was mesmerized by the people throwing balls, as well as the grass!

Here we are posing for a photo! This outfit was given to her by Jenna a loooong time ago. Well, it finally fits! I like the colour :)

Lydia's first taste of sweet potato. YUMMY! She did like it, despite the expresssion on her face in this picture. I think, so far, her favourites have been green beans and sweet potato. She even tried a piece of pluot (yes, it's a cross between a plum and an apricot) at Grandma and Grandpa Donnelly's house this past weekend.

Well, best be off!! Will post this coming weekend. Sorry for the delay... work has been really busy lately.

On Time!

2009-08-30T20:04:00.002-04:00

Wow! A post on the weekend! I'm not sure how I got on the schedule of posting during the week, but I'm back on track. At least for a week. Lydia's grandparents Donnelly were here this weekend and saw her take her first crawling motion. She had recently started rocking on her knees. On Saturday, she took her knees forward in little crawling steps! Now all she needs to do is figure out what to do with those arms. It won't be long and we will be chasing after her around the house! I might get a couple of gates, but not sure I'll really need them just yet so we'll see. The first thing I have to figure out is where to put all of our stuff that is down low on the shelves!!

ANYWAY... here are some comparison pics for your pleasure. The first, you may recall, is from when Lydia was 2 1/2 months old. In the second, she is 4 1/2 months old, and the last one is the most recent- she is 9 1/2 months old. This coming week Lydia turns 10 months old. Wow!! Time really does fly.

Tasty Morsel Tweets

2009-08-24T23:21:00.003-04:00

So busy these days! Writing this week's blog in tweet-form (aka 144 characters or less). Lydia=banana stealer. She had her own piece, but found my piece easier to hold onto!Lydia=green bean munching machine. She doesn't eat the whole thing, but manages to suck the insides out of it!

Lydia=multitasker. Able to hold onto foot whilst sucking on thumb at same time!

Lydia=loves carrots. Hmmm....maybe not?

Lydia=sleepy baby. Down to 2 naps a day and asleep by 8:30pm! Often wakes self by imprisoning leg inbetween crib rails!

Bunny Rabbit

2009-08-18T22:30:00.004-04:00

Hope all is well across the world. Gary, Lydia, Toffee, Chili and I are having a hot August. It's just been so hot lately. I could blog (once again) about how I don't think that we were ever meant to live in this type of heat, but I won't. Instead, I'll just mention (perhaps not for the first time) that one day I will move away from this ridiculous weather! Did I also tell you that I'm all talk and no action? I'm not really the very adventurous type (don't let my moving 4000 miles and marrying a weirdo off the internet fool you) so I'm not sure how it will ever happen, but maybe one day. I got this little nemo rocker off craigslist last weekend. It's a bit silly but there are a couple of reasons as to why it was a great find. 1. Gary loves fish. 2. Lydia loves Tracey (our clownfish in the saltwater tank). Okay, so neither of these reasons are very good ones to buy a weird looking rocker like this, but she sure does look cute on it, right?

Lydia got to meet a couple of cousins last weekend. Taylor and Lauryn were on their way back to Florida and stopped by Lydia's grandparents' house to visit. According to Taylor, Lydia has big eyes. Neither Gary nor I have big eyes. I've looked at Gary's parents eyes and they're not very big either. I don't think my parents have big eyes either. So who knows!

Here are some more of Lydia's grandparents. Grandma Linda and Grandpa Monty! Lydia is very lucky to have a lot of grandparents. Once she meets my parents in person, she'll have met all of her grandparents! By the time we go to England next year, she will probably be walking around. I hate that my family is missing all of this...it means I have to keep up with the blogging to keep everyone connected! It's so weird that no one has met her yet... I mean, my Mum and Annie did...but at the time she was under 3lbs and looked like a little monkey! I wish they were here/I was there to share the joy. It's hard without you guys around.

Lydia found her feet! She just started playing with her feet and finally sucked on a toe! Eugh! The early interventionist said, 'Funny how we don't want you to suck on your feet, but that's all that we're going to want you to do in the next few weeks.' I'm not sure why this is such a milestone... she's doing it though!

So Lydia did okay with avocado. Although more of it ended up on her than in her mouth! She has been trying carrots for the past week (as seen above!) and we also introduced her to green beans this week. She's doing quite well. She'll pick it up, stick it in her mouth then start sucking! She'll bite a little piece off, move it around her mouth, then either spit it out or swallow. We are doing baby-led weaning. Skipping purees for now. Starting with veggies then we'll try some fruit. The neonatologist actually suggested avocado as a first food, although the lady at the health department thought that was very amusing...apparently it was the first time she'd heard of that! And, of course, avoiding added sugar, salt, carbs and processed foods for as long as possible. Hey, that sounds like what our diet should be!! It is my hope to provide Lydia with as healthy a lifestyle as possible. I don't want to contribute to or be the reason that she is not in good health. That's my promise to her, and to myself. We've gotten this far. I'm not messing up now.

Happy Hobbies

2009-08-10T22:39:00.003-04:00

It's another week already! We went to the flea market this weekend and found a couple of things. It got a bit hot though so we left after a while. Plus there's more junk there than anything else. I did manage to find a couple of sleepers for $1 each so that's not bad. Lydia doesn't really like to be held when she's sleepy anymore. If we set her down in her crib, she will fall asleep on her own. Falling asleep whilst we hold her is so rare these days. We do miss it so here's a rare photo of her peacefully sleeping before putting her down for the night. She did get her leg stuck in her crib tonight and started crying. I re-positioned her and she fell right back to sleep.

Toffee fits under Lydia's crib when she squeeeezes herself under there. She doesn't usually get a chance to do it as we try to keep the dogs out of her room, but the other night she crawled under there. As you can tell, Lydia really doesn't know what to make of it.

Here's my weekend project in action! Lydia can sit up well on her own so I made her a shopping trolley cover. It comes complete with little pillows for ultimate comfort! And loops to hang Lydia's toys from! Do you know that grocery carts have all types of germs and even fecal matter on the seats? Which is why, if you go to the shops and touch door handles or carts, you should always wash your hands and sanitize!! Who knows what we might be touching... then we touch Lydia's hands and she puts them in her mouth! And blah blah I know, germs improve the immune system. That doesn't mean I want to knowingly expose her to germs! SO the moral of this story is to wash your hands before touching babies!

Gary's been working hard on his new and improved saltwater tank. It's looking quite nice these days. Lydia loves to watch the fish swimming around. The other night she was trying to figure out how to touch the clownfish! I've found that if she's being fussy, I take her over to the tank and she is just mesmerized!

Alright, best be off! Until next time...

Celebrations!

2009-08-05T22:52:00.002-04:00

Gary and I celebrated our 9th wedding anniversary on Saturday. We have had a few ups and downs, but nothing too dramatic. Our arguments these days usually consist of who's going to make the dinner. And who's going to go grocery shopping! I don't think those arguments are too difficult to deal with hehe. We decided to go to Savannah for the weekend. We left on Saturday, and came back on Sunday. A short trip but it was nice to get out of town. We've been running on empty for a while. Well here's your weekly dose of Lydia. Gary wanted to go to Fort Pulaski on our anniversary. I'm not much of a military history buff but Gary likes all that kind of stuff. Frankly, I find it a bit boring, which makes Charleston less of an interesting place for me! But, we did have a picnic and I love those. I'm not sure why I like picnics so much. It might go back to the days when Joe, Elaine and I used to microwave hotdogs and take them to the park . Obviously that was a long long time ago! I have a photo of me as a baby sitting on the grass crying - I suppose I didn't like the feeling of it on my legs. Lydia wasn't bothered though and just sat there having a good old time.Lydia's been rolling around all over the place. When we stayed at the hotel in Atlanta, we just put her in the middle of the other bed and stuck pillows on either side. This time we decided not to chance her rolling off the bed in the middle of the night! We brought a pack and play and put her down to sleep in that. Luckily Dana, the daycare provider, puts the kids down to nap in pack and plays so she was already used to it. Lydia's sitting up like a champ these days. Here she is checking out the action out of the window. Just in the past few weeks she's been sitting up quite well. Every once in a while she'll topple over, but otherwise she can sit there for quite a long time. She's not far from crawling now! Can you believe that she is 9 months old? She got her shot this week and weighed in at 16lbs 9oz, 25 inches long. I am still fighting the insurance and hospital bills. MUSC decided to send us another $1000 bill the other week. It was for charges from December. I'm not quite sure what it's all about as I thought I had met all the deductibles and out of pocket premiums. And so the saga continues!

Development 101

2009-07-27T15:56:00.004-04:00

Gary and I took Lydia to the high risk development clinic at the hospital today. In truth, it was rather uneventful! The most exciting part was finding out that she is 16 1/2 lbs, 25 1/2 inches long, and I don't remember what size her head was - needless to say she's probably on target for having a bau-shaped head like her parents!

The neonatologist was pleased with her progress - she seems to be on track for her 6 months adjusted age. The early interventionist also did her 6 month evaluation the other week so it wasn't anything we didn't already know. The early interventionist said the main things she's behind on right now are being able to sit up, roll around and all of that business, which we think has improved just in the past couple of weeks, and her communication - making sounds vowel and consonant sounds. This has also started happening in the past week or so...she's been a lot more vocal, I even have proof in this post!

Here's the little bee having fun with her Daddy. Well, she was supposed to be sleeping, but was far too happy and playful to be going to bed just yet. I got a few cute shots before she decided to calm down and go to bed for the night.

Did I tell you that Gary is scared of the grudge baby? Well Lydia is giving out some high pitched cat sounding squeals these days! Just put some dark eyeliner around the eyes and she could definitely be mistaken as a scary grudge baby... hehe

Baby Doll

2009-07-22T19:08:00.002-04:00

Lydia had her first sleepover guests last weekend. Monty and Averie came to visit and spent the night in Lydia's room. They helped her get dressed into her pyjamas, helped pick out her outfit, helped feed her during the day... I think Lydia enjoyed having them around and hanging out with them :) Luckily for us, Lydia does well with people she's not met before. She doesn't have any of that stranger anxiety stuff going on, or at least not for the time being. She's quite the well-behaved baby really... my Mum said not one of the Party of Five let her sleep through the night very well!It's hard to believe that Lydia was so light when she was first born. Now she's a good 17lbs (according to my most accurate and scientific scale in the bathroom)! Averie was carrying her around the house and was doing very well carrying something that was bigger than a sack of potatoes!

Lydia's making strides this week. She has been rolling from back to front for a while now, and has just started to roll from front to back. She doesn't do it often, but she's starting to. She's also sitting up a lot better and reaching for objects - mainly toys, but pretty much any object she can put in her mouth! Either way, Gary and I have decided that she's at the most perfect huggable size right now. To think that one day she'll be much too big to carry around. I'll be sad when that day comes, happy too :)

2.4

2009-07-12T00:13:00.009-04:00

Gary and I have been working hard this weekend! We finally finished our front garden patch! I'm sure Annie will be pleased to see that the weeds are non plus! We got some edging so that the grass doesn't grow into the flower bed, put that weed paper stuff down and then bought a lots of lava rock! The best part of the whole thing is that it's cured the drainage problem we had in front of the one bedroom. The water would drain off the roof and create this trench (okay, it was more of a mini rut) in the soil. Now, with the lava rock... no more rut!

The following is project number 2 of the weekend. Well, you may recall this unfinished 'weekend' project from a few months ago. We have had some busy weekends running around and working so this got put on the back burner. Which is a shame because the garage was still in my dining room and it was driving me bonkers! Well, this may look like it's finished, but it's actually an illusion. If only you could see the other 3 walls, you'd see that it's far from looking like this! But at least now you know what Gary's vision is. He wants to make sure his 'man cave' is pretty. Seems like a contradiction in terms to me, but hey, I'm just a girl in the world. We painted and finished up this wall so that we could at least get some shelves up and get the stuff in the dining room back out to where it belongs!! Of course, all of this hard work is like tryptophan (sp?). Gary and Lyd needed a nap so they decided to take one together.

Just thought this would be a good comparison pic for you. Here's Lydia this weekend. We'd been out and about and she fell asleep in the car. So we brought her in and left her in her carseat rather than disturb her. At 8 months, she's probably 16-17lbs by now. Her head is almost to the top of the carseat, her feet are nearly sticking out! The shoulder belts got moved up a while ago now - the top of the shoulder belts is where the top of her head used to be!

This pic is of Lydia exactly 7 months ago, coming home at just over 4lbs. The belts were the smallest they could go and she was still too small. We had to roll blankets down the side to secure her in the seat, and her feet didn't go to the end of the little preemie outfit she had on! If you look closely, you can actually see where her feet are in the outfit - they are close to the bottom of the belt buckle section (if you see a sticky out bit on the inside of the leg, that's her foot!). Some good comparison points: Look at the yellow and white label next to her head to see where her head is positioned in each pic. Also look at the bottom strap to see where her feet are - compare that with where it is on the photo before. Wow she's really grown!

Quite Contrary

2009-07-08T21:21:00.004-04:00

Hope everyone had a fabooooo 4th July weekend. Gary and I decided to tackle our overgrown jungle of a yard. I wish you could see the, 'before'. Gary was going to mow the lawn, edge the lawn and then weed around the house. What he ended up doing was tackling our weedy flower bed. We raked all the mulch up, put weed paper down and got some lava rock and put that down. The neighbours have promised that it is well worth it! SO here's the during picture - we have it 3/4 done - we just need to go buy some more lava rock to finish it up. More pics coming up next week.Lydia has been close to sitting the past week. She has managed to go for a few seconds before toppling over and falling flat on her face! Here she is using her toys to balance!

This is the fandangled activity seat thingie that Annie and Joe bought when they were over here. Lydia loves to hit the ball with beads in it to make noise. And, as you can see, she's taken to eating the antennae of the butterfly. She loves it :)Lydia is just so alert these days. She watches people, she smiles at people. We talked to Elaine on Skype and I swear Lydia was smiling back at her!Here's minif trying some avocado. Well actually she's turning her nose up at it. It's her first attempt at solid foods so we thought we'd try some avocado first. Joe said that babies have a natural aversion to green things (something about it looking unripe). Well, I must say that I agree, as she didn't even know we wanted her to eat it and she wouldn't go anywhere near it. She just kept looking at it in disgust! We were hoping she'd touch it and put a bit in her mouth. Well that didn't quite happen and we cheated a bit to get her to taste it. I stuck a bit on my finger and she was licking it a bit! Eeksters... a whole new world...

Time flies...

2009-06-29T21:37:00.004-04:00

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon we'll look back laughing

At the week we brought her home
This phase is gonna fly by
So baby just hold on
Cause it won't be like this for long

It won’t be like this for long
One day soon that little girl is gonna be
All grown up and gone
Yeah, this phase is gonna fly by
So, he's tryin’ to hold on
Cause it won’t be like this for long
It won’t be like this for long

First Sailing Trip

2009-06-22T23:54:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone had a great weekend. We were running around all over the place it seems. Here are some pics of our first sailing trip with Lydia! Sorry this is a bit late in the week, but we've been really busy. Here's mini-ness not liking her lifejacket too much!!

This picture makes her look like Aaden on Jon and Kate plus 8!!! I always say she kinda looks like him in certain photos.By the end of the trip, she was pooped and ready to go to bed. She's been sleeping earlier and earlier this week - she's been dropping off to bed around 7:30pm. On one hand it's great because she sleeps til 7 in the morning. On the other it stinks because then I only get to spend an hour and a half, 2 hours with her when I get off work. Wish I could just stay at home, but it's not even a remote possibility.

Got Sunscreen?

2009-06-15T23:09:00.005-04:00

Another week has passed and Charleston is hot right now! I'm not a big fan of hot weather. The sun has made me a permanent shade of dark. Even Lydia has a tan already and she's not out in the sun all that often. Anyhoozle, one day I'll move away from these humid summers. I wouldn't mind if it didn't last that long, but a third of the year is spent dealing with this heat... not my idea of fun! More power to those who brave the beaches this time of year. Not sure how you do it without feeling like your insides are cooking though!

SO are you ready for Lydia's latest achievement? She isn't quite sitting up yet, but she is trying!

I'm not sure it's very comfortable as she spends most of her time doubled over, using her hands to keep herself from toppling over. It's a bit easier on the sofa, as you can see.May-Yuk is making strides every day. She likes to watch as people talk, she's starting to reach and grasp for things - she even tried to reach for Chili a few times! She loves to hear us laugh - when we laugh, she smiles and smiles and laughs a little bit with us. I wish I could share some of these moments with you peeps across the pond. I sure do miss you all.

Life has been busy for us the past few months. Recruitment and training overtake my life for a few months so it seems like there are not enough hours in my work day. I haven't cleaned my house for a few weeks and the garage is still in my dining room. We always have good intentions to get these things done, but things always come up.

We're enjoying taking Lydia out and about on weekends when we can. I can't help wanting to enjoy our time before flu season hits again! So we expose her to germs in the summer and then avoid the scary flu germs in the winter. That's as much as we can do for right now. We're lucky that she hasn't been sick yet. Every time she gets the slightest hint of sniffles or coughs...I have to admit it sends me into a slight panic. I have visions of having to go back to the hospital and it scares the hell out of me. And yes, I know, germs build up the immune system blah de blah. Well we expose her to people and germs but that doesn't mean I want her to get sick. I guess as she hasn't been sick yet, I don't know what to expect. I'm sure it would be completely manageable. But I'll tell you now that I'll probably be freaking out as to how severely it affects her and whether it would cause her any permanent damage to her lungs.

I guess there are the 2 sides of preemie parenting. On one hand, she's doing brilliantly and no one would be able to tell that she was preemie. On the other, I probably worry about things a lot more. Every time she does something new, I'm just so thankful that she can do it and we haven't encountered any problems. I think these are just parenting woes too, as a lot of parents watch for their kids to meet milestones. And maybe it's a little easier for preemie parents as we're trained to look for weird things early on. Whereas if I had a full-term baby it probably would've taken me by surprise a little more.

Well, best get some rest. Thanks for reading ;)

Roly Poly

2009-06-09T07:21:00.003-04:00

Gary and I have been busy enjoying the world with Lydia as much as possible since flu season ended. We still have a few months of weekends to get out and about before we're on RSV alert again! It's all been quite exciting, feeling like we have a rather normal baby and she's doing so well. We still worry a bit about her immune system - trying to stay healthy so staying away from germy places and all that, but we've managed to have her around groups of people without her getting sick or anything, so we're doing well on that front. Thought you'd enjoy a photo of Mini here with Toffee. Toffee and Chili go check on her in her room, lie next to her and all that. They don't quite enjoy her kicking them in the head though...they don't know what's coming in the next few months!!

Lydia is now a proficient, 'roll to my left-side from my back to tummy'-er. She's so proficient that she manages to do it in her crib, gets mad and then doesn't go to sleep. The other morning, she had managed to roll herself over and was sleeping down the side of the bed with her arm sticking out of the rails!

The Rays brought the Kelly Cup home this weekend. We were excited so we went to the rally outside the ice palace to support the boys (they really are boys... born in the mid-late 80s most of them. We are getting REALLY OLD). There were a few hundred peeps that showed up there -fairly decent-sized crowd as you can tell by the pic below.Today is the beginning of volunteer training at work. It makes for an incredibly busy few months when training comes around. I think it's been a couple of weeks since I cleaned the house, so I'll have to find some time to do that this week after work. It's all quite tiring! Soon Lydia will be crawling so we're going to have to baby proof, as well as make sure our floors are cleaner than what they are right now. I'm sure the vacuum cleaner will be a permanent fixture in the front room, making sure she doesn't put something weird in her mouth!

Alright then, best get back to whatever I'm supposed to be doing...

Let's Go Rays!

2009-06-02T23:25:00.002-04:00

Hellooooo Peeps! Quick post about our hockey game shenanigans. The SC Stingrays made it to the Kelly Cup Finals!! We were able to watch 2 games on Friday and Saturday, but we didn't win the cup and the Rays have to go back to Alaska to finish up the series. If you're not really into hockey, you probably don't really know what I'm talking about, but that's okay! Carolina Hurricanes lost their series but we've been watching the Pingus and Redwings (Gary calls them the Dead Wings) play for the Stanley Cup.

Here are some pics of Lydia, me and Gary at the game. We had to find a hat that went over Lydia's ears. Mainly for warmth, but also to muffle out the noise. It's fairly loud in there but it didn't seem to bother her. She outgrew the little dress thingy a while back, but the hat still fits! She got it from Auntie Connie.

Here's Lydia sucking on her hand and watching the hockey. Really she spent most of the time looking at people. At one point she looked up at the guy next to me as if to say, 'Why are you standing up?' Then she looked at the woman next to Gary as if to say, 'And what are YOU doing standing up too??'

Here she is catching a few zzzz's. She pretty much went to sleep for most of the game. We threw her off her schedule a bit, but the very next day she was back on track! woohoo!

Lydia is now 7 months old (4 months adjusted) and is right on track for all the 4-month old milestones. Hurray! She has started to blow bubbles, giggle a little more and we think she's trying to imitate facial expressions too :) A couple of days ago, she rolled from her back to her stomach - intentionally!! It won't be long before she's rolling all over the place so we'd better get to that baby-proofing business! Does this mean I have to clean more, too? Eeksters!

Shark Attack

2009-05-27T07:36:00.002-04:00

Well here are some photos of Lydia and Gary at the aquarium. I have a ton, but these few are the best ones. This was Gary's perfect day out with his little girl. As you can see in the pic below, they were both watching the fishies go around. Gary said it was an entirely different experience...he wanted to show her lots of things and talk about all the different fish.

The SC Aquarium is a great place. They have got a new exhibit there with a few penguins there. Along the wall they had all of these penguins at actual size. Lydia was the same size as the smallest penguin there. Here she is measuring up to the biggest penguin, the Emperor penguin!

If you know Gary, then you might know that he is completely obsessed with sharks. At the aquarium they have a new kid play area with a fake shark cage. Well, here are the gruesome twosome in the cage. Lydia is busy watching the shark swimming by!Just thought you'd like to see Lydia's minions, Toffee and Chili. The pic is a bit small but you can see how much she has grown.And last but not least, here we are sporting our matching hats from Aunt Kathleen. She had knitted a hat for Lydia and it was far too big before. Kathleen was wondering where it was, so I pulled it out and it looks like it fits! So I pulled out the one I have and we made quite the stylish pair! Cute, hey? If we go to the hockey game on Friday night, I think I will put this hat on Lydia's head to keep her warm :) She has some purple booties too, but they were a bit big still.

Alright then, over and out for another week!