Big Brothers and their Little Sister (Lili at 10 months)

I have loved watching the relationship between Dallin and Gavin develop. I firmly believe their little spirits knew each other up in heaven and were conniving together on how to get down to Zane and me. The connection between Dallin and Gavin was instant. I feel it was the same way with Lili. Because she was in NICU after she was born, Dallin and Gavin didn't get to meet her right away. Then one afternoon we finally got the good news that they could come to the hospital and hold her. That night she pulled out her feeding tube and decided she was going to eat on her own. She was discharged a few days later. Lili adores her brothers and they have taken on the role of protector (although sometimes they need reminders about their role!) Lili is now 10 months old and she has really started interacting with them. She is a fast crawler so she can kind of keep up with them and for some reason thinks her brothers are the funniest people on earth which then makes the boys act even sillier. But then again, Zane and I love making her laugh no matter how silly we look!

 Dallin dancing with Lili

 Gavin's version of chase with Lili

Lili loves climbing the stairs. She tried for a couple of weeks and just couldn't get her tiny legs up over the step. And then one day she could do it. She just looks too tiny to be climbing stairs.

Lili at 10 months really discovered her love of water. I mean she really loves water. She has no fear and doesn't mind it in her face. I tried to keep her out of these fountains at first because the ground was going to be tough on her knees, but there was no stopping her!

 

Notice this girl touching Lili's hair. This is very common. I will have to teach Lili to say, "Just look please!"

 

With the move and getting adjusted, we missed Lili's 9 month appointment. At her 10 month appointment Lili weighed 14 pounds and 11 ounces and her height was 26.5 inches. Both her weight and height are under the 2 percentile. She's close though to getting on the chart.

Each stage Lili gets to gets better and better. She is growing up too fast. I look forward to watching my kids' relationships continue to develop. I hope they are as close as I am with my siblings.

Finding the Joy in Motherhood

I feel like since Lili was born, our family has just been hanging on. Lili is a fantastic baby, but three kids is just busy. Then of course I started teaching preschool again, both my church callings (my volunteer work) got extremely busy for a couple months, swim season hit, we started looking for a house to buy, we got our house ready to sell and then there was the craziness of selling, buying, packing and moving. Throw in birthdays and the day to day activities, and life has been a whirlwind. I can't believe my baby is almost 10 months old and crawling up stairs.

I feel like the last 9 months I relied heavily on play dates for the boys (someone else other than me occupying them so I can get things done) and the TV as a babysitter.

Since the move though things have changed. I couldn't organize play dates because we didn't know anyone. I couldn't go on outings with friends and let the kids all play together while mom's talked. Instead I had to be the entertainment while not knowing where anything was in our new house since there were boxes everywhere. I had my normal to do list unpacking being number one but other than that, other pressures disappeared. I'm not teaching preschool right now because we chose to home school Dallin for his Kindergarten year (another post will explain further), and volunteering with my church slowed way down as we adjusted to our new area. The stress of buying, selling, and moving were over. Life just calmed down and I started seeing the joy in being a mother again.

I find myself laughing more at my boys' silliness instead of getting frustrated by it. I'm more relaxed. Dallin makes up crazy games like jumping from the stairs onto the bean bag flying like superman.  It was pretty amazing. (We bought the trampoline soon after that game. When Zane asked why he was putting up a trampoline at 10 p.m. when there were so many other things on our to do list in our house, I just informed him that the trampoline had moved way up to number 1. The boys need a place to jump.) We sit around and try to make Lili laugh for the camera or just be amazed at the new things she is learning.  During the summer we swam together and now we jump together and even occasionally eat frozen pizza (which I never do) because sometimes playing is more important than cooking that day.

Sometimes we jump in the rain until we are laughing and are too wet to keep jumping.

I'm one lucky mom.