Farley's Lilypie

Lilypie First Birthday tickers

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Am I ready for this?

New trick alert. Yup, this weekend we mastered the "pull up." This was taken tonight before bathtime and I had to snap a picture. Yes, it's dark because we're trying to set the sleepy tone before bedtime... as you can tell, this looks like a baby girl who is ready to fall asleep. Or, not so much!

The quality- once again- is janky because it was taken with my phone. "Wait," you say... "I thought you got a fantastical wonderful awesomeness-filled new camera for Christmas?" "Ah yes," I reply. That aforementioned fantastical wonderful yadda yadda camera currently houses more than 500 (yes, I am also alarmed by that amount) beautiful pictures that need to be downloaded. Problem is... Still no working computer. I think Jason (though he is a computer baby genius compared to me) has finally said Uncle and we're going to hand it over to the
Geek Squad and pray they don't tell us we need to just get a new one!

Anyway... Back to the superstar. I mean what the heck in the world is this pulling up mess about already?!? We just started crawling a couple of weeks ago! I can't keep up; my brain needs time to process these growing-up-so-fast-holy-cow-what-happened-to-my-little-pink-swaddled-newborn moments. Guess she's not waiting for me, huh?

Plus, the slow crawling... Done. Bye bye. It was nice knowing you, spare moment to walk in the kitchen to refill my glass. She's dang fast! Farley's like a fugitive on the run. Turn your back and she's taken off in the other direction. You had better watch out! I'm looking at you, cat food. (seriously-- the one thing in the kitchen we can't babyproof or put away and she's going straight for it) All joking aside, things are getting really crazy and really fun, too. I wouldn't trade it for the world!

And why why didn't anyone tell me how much babyproofing was going to cramp my style? I have started to get used to the fact that I can't just open any cabinet in my house... I have to *unlock* it. Now, I'm having some trouble adjusting to the toilet locks. I mean, why does it take so much effort to just peepee? Yeesh. Then... baby gates. Baby gates. BABY GATES!!! Arghhhh. We got some hand-me-downs (thanks Leann) so we busted them out the other day, all ready to put Farley in lockdown. Well, guess what? We have this huge opening from the kitchen to the living room and, wouldn't you know it, the ones we have don't extend enough. So, Jason went to purchase one that would work. After buying a gold-plated super gate (oh... not gold-plated? could've fooled me with how much it cost!), we put it up and discovered that gates that wide are also made very tall. Verrrry tall. Like, higher than my waist tall! Excuse me... did we mommyproof as well??? So, I can't put it up because it drives me bonkers to have to walk out the other side of the kitchen and down the hall to get into the living room. Hence the cat food beeline. I decided to put the others up in doorways hemming in the living room, and-- shocker-- our other doorways are too small for the gates to fit! Serenity now!!! Of course, the new Whitney just started laughing at this point and decided I would just follow Farley around everywhere like a train caboose and tackle the gate issue later!

Friday, February 12, 2010

8 Months (and my, how life has changed)


Well, today is Farley's 8-month birthday! What a difference 8 months have made. I know I'm a totally different person (I hope for the better mostly!) and this is how I know... last night was just one of those nights. I mean, one where you think to yourself that surely, just surely someone is playing a joke on you. I actually thought to myself, in the midst of it all, "if this had happened to me a year ago, I would probably either be crying or saying some choice words right now!"
Here's how it started: I put Farley in her high chair for dinnertime. While I get her food ready, I usually give her a sippy cup with water and some puffs or yogurt melts as her "appetizer" so she can practice her self-feeding. So, I put the food out on her tray and I look over as she picks up a melt and navigates it to her mouth (the majority of them usually end up on the ground). She starts gumming it and then, a little cough... a gag...another gag. I'm running over to the high chair going, "no, don't barf!!!" Because, folks, I knew what was coming. Farley has been throwing up a lot lately. I mean, like every day. Sometimes she'll do it if she doesn't like what I'm feeding her (she'll gag herself until she pukes...nice), or if she gets a little choked up. Anyway, back to the action... As I get to her, it happens, just like I knew it would. She throws up. Projectile-style. Guess what? She had carrots for lunch! Guess how I knew? It was orange! So, it's all over her (precious outfit... yes, it somehow gets under the bib), the tray, down the legs of the chair, puddled in the footrest, and all over the splat mat underneath.
So, I throw the tray in the sink for washing and grab her out of the seat to get her out of the wet clothes. Since the mess is orange, I don't want to sit her on the *white* changing pad, so I put her down on the carpet in her nursery and started pulling off clothes. Once I get them off, I throw them in the sink in her bathroom and start running water and I go back into her room to wipe her down. I plop down on the floor with her to change her diaper and when I get it off, I hear *trickle trickle* and then *GUSH*. Yep, I sure did stopper the sink and leave the water running. I had never really noticed before that our sinks don't have those overflow holes. Lesson learned. So, mid-diaper change, I jump up and turn off the water in the sink and open the drain. At this point, I'm already thinking, "seriously? Anything else wanna go awry?" So, I run back to get Farley and she's rolled over and crawling to check something out. In her wake, I notice she left me a nice peepee puddle on the carpet. Yes way. This is the point that I thought that the old me would have been crying or as mad as a hornet. Instead I just giggled and thought how this would make a funny movie.
So, I get her, put on the diaper and assessed the situation. I got some leggings out for her and pulled them on. I knew a shirt could wait, I just didn't want her knees to get any redder (toughening up for this crawling is serious business). So, once she was pantsed and safe in her room, I went to get paper towels for the pee puddle (I figured I might as well work backwards). By the time I got back, she had crawled over to her tub of toys and had sat right down in front of it, pulled it over, and dumped all of her toys out on her lap. She was in hog heaven and it was the cutest thing. So, the new Whitney put down the paper towels, left the water all over the bathroom floor and puke all over the kitchen and went and got my camera to capture the moment. Pee, puke and water can wait. Eight months with Farley have flown by so fast and there's nothing more important to me anymore than enjoying and capturing these funny, sweet, silly moments before they pass me by.

So, about Miss Farley at eight months:

  • Miss Crawly von Crawlerson- Yes, she loves to crawl now. She's not very speedy-- despite her best efforts, she still hasn't caught the cat! But, she is slowly discovering new things around the house, like last night when she crawled under the coffee table and thought she had discovered a Whole New World (try to not sing the Aladdin song now!).
  • Getting a little picky- Yep, all that bragging I did about how good of a eater she is... "ha!" says the Universe. That's what I get. We have gotten awfully picky as of late, and, like I mentioned above, she's started gagging herself when she doesn't like what you're offering.
  • Screaming!!!!!- Yes, she figured out how those cute little squeals she learned to make can be so much more! She will scream to get attention and then just laugh at herself. I'm sure our neighbors think we're torturing her!!! (by the way.. shout out to our favorite neighbors who have one of their own on the way... congrats and do we find out soon?)
  • Talking- We can now "bah" "dah" "gah" and all other sorts of noises as well as some weird tongue "tsk" thing she does to call the cat (like what we do, but slower). She still loves to blow raspberries.
  • Games- Farley loves to play "Ride a little horsey" and "Pattycake" still, even though her patty-caking consists of her clapping just one hand on yours. "Peek a boo" is even better now, because she loves to cover/uncover her face herself and thinks it's hysterical.

Monday, February 8, 2010

Crawling!!!!!!

I know thus isn't a great pic. One, because it's from my phone, and, two, because it's a MOTION SHOT! That's right folks. We're crawling! We went from a few ungainly scoots to full-out, room-crossing crawling in just a few short days. The Rother house is in full babyproofing mode. What a huge accomplishment here just a week short of our 8 month birthday. Now, if we could just get some teeth!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Obnoxious Bragging

See the title above and be warned: this post may cause nausea in those who do not find Farley as awesome as we do!!!

So, if you're still reading, I have to tell you that I am gonna do some serious bragging about sweet thing. First is this-- she is Miss Congeniality at daycare. Over the last couple of weeks, I have had each individual teacher at her school tell me that Farley is their favorite baby! (naturally!) I mean, this isn't even me prodding-- they just come right out and tell me. Even the infant 3 and 4 teachers who haven't even had her in their class yet come down the hall to see her. Usually, they all say they not to take her yet, that they want to hold her or play with her a little longer. One even said she would be so sad when Farley had to go up to the "big school" (2years-5K) and she hasn't even been to her class yet! They even told me one of the other parents came in to pick up their baby the other day and looked at Farley and said, "I just love Farley!!" But seriously, how can you not? She really does have the best personality. And seriously (this is where I tempt fate) she hardly ever cries!

Last night, she officially sort of crawled. I don't know if it counts as crawling, because she only gets one... stride (step...lunge...what do I call it?) in before she collapses, but then she gets right up and tries again. It's only a matter of time!!! We are in the process of babyproofing-- finally!

Other accomplishments this week include feeding herself puffs (I'd say 1 in 4 actually makes it in her mouth). Besides the puffs, there's no other self-feeding going on. She's perfectly happy with someone else feeding all other foods, holding her bottle, and holding her sippy cup.

And now for the good stuff:
First time swinging at the park weekend before last
Bathtime- mmm... duck butt
Playing in her "house" with Monty

Just looking pretty for Mama!