A Week in the Life- Thursday

6:15am:  We are greeted by this lovely gal who was all smiles after sleeping for 5.5 hours after her late night feeding!  Mom and dad were all smiles too!

7:30am:  As a special treat, we all went to breakfast together before Dad had to get to work.  We had a Groupon that needed to be used within the next couple of days and so we decided to go on a weekday morning and beat the weekend crowds.  It was a wise decision.  Lily got lots of attention from the staff.

7:45am:  Needless to say, she did not last long in her carseat, but after being taken out did great.  She had a fun time eating and studying her hands.

8:15am:  I forgot to take a "before" photo of my meal, so here is one at the end of my breakfast....I had some delicious french toast with strawberries. Yum!

9:05am:  After Joe left for work, I made another quick run through the Starbucks drive thru for a decaf coffee.  We got home and I put a sleepy Lily down for what ended up being a 50 minute nap and while she was napping I had some quiet reading time.  These are the books I'm reading right now during my quiet time....both are excellent!

11am:  With her belly full, Lily goes to town in her little play gym.  She is now not only grabbing the butterfly, but is pulling it toward her mouth too!  Notice the kicking!  It is beyond cute to watch her!

11:10am:  Another first...grabbing the little pillow and holding onto it!

11:15am:  Switched to tummy time....doing great!

11:25am:  Our friend Beth came for a visit over her lunch hour.  She attends a different service than we do at church, so this was her first time meeting Lily... It was so much fun to introduce Lily to Beth!

 

 12:30pm:  Lily is napping now.  My fingers are crossed that she will be able to rest for a few hours...not just for my own sanity, but for her well-being!  I have started to become worried about her not sleeping well during the day.  With Lily's sudden shift in napping patterns, I felt it was time to break out my trusty baby sleep book and try to figure things out.  I did not realize that I did not have much time!

2pm:  After several rounds of soothing and catnapping, I decide to try something new.  I am not sure if Lily is out growing her swaddle and is now capable of sleeping without it.  It is a question of whether or not she actually needs to be swaddled or if I'm swaddling her for my own peace of mind/its what we have always done... So- we introduce the sleep sack!  (Look at how tired those sweet eyes are!  The poor girl is pooped, but just cannot stay asleep!)  

Despite the lack of zzzz's, Lily seems to be in good spirits and ready to try her new sleep sack...

2:30pm:  After rocking and soothing her to sleep, I re-enter her room to check on how she is doing to find her just kicking up a storm in her bed and looking at her cherry blossom tree!  She was having a great time and of course was not sleeping a wink with her arms and legs all free in her sleep sack!  Guess we are not quite ready for that transition yet!  So....

2:33pm:  I turned on the 'Sing Over Me' lulliby CD that we have loaded onto Lily's ipod and decide to just let her "rest" (aka kick and play) in her crib for a little while...you know, have some quiet time.

2:45pm:  What was happening when I next checked on her...

2:55pm:  "Quiet time" is over....and with it, all hopes of an afternoon nap.

3:20pm:  Despite the heat, now that we are not napping we decide to run an errand.  We have a gift card to spend at a local department store, so Lily and I set out on our afternoon adventure.

3:40pm:  Asleep on arrival.

3:50pm:  The world of baby/children's clothing is a new one for me...to be honest, its a tad bit overwhelming!  And yes, its true what they say...little girl's clothes are SO DARN CUTE!!!

4:05pm:  Lily shopping....she did wonderfully and all of the sales ladies were ooo-ing and aahhh-ing over her...  It felt good to get this errand completed...it was something I've been wanting to do for weeks but just have not had the window of time with trying to help Lily figure out her sleeping....

5:09pm:  Back home again and Lily is all fed.  We are now just in the home stretch of the day just waiting for Dad to come home.  It is still very hot outside- with the heat index today felt like 107 outside. Yuck.

5:15pm:  Lily hung out in her boppy ...

while I had a phone conversation with a lender...

5:20pm:  Our self portrait for the day.

5:45pm:  Hooray Dad is home!  Bath time is in full swing...

and our tired little gal is not happy!  Poor little elephant!

7:15pm:  With Lily asleep, we enjoyed a delicious pizza from our favorite pizza place.  It was a nice treat to not have to fix dinner after such a long day!

Our photos dwindled from here, but after dinner we sat on the couch and talked about our days, looked at some houses online, wrangled the trash for trash day on Friday, picked up the house, posted a blog post and collapsed into bed around 10:30pm.

The Day in Numbers:

Total number of hours napped by Lily: 2.0

Number of times up during night: 1

Longest stretch of sleep by Lily after going to bed for the night: 6.5

Number of pages read: 12
Number of diapers: 15

Number of hours spent blogging: 2.0

Number of things crossed off to-do list: 4

Number of outfits: 1

Number of bibs: 3

Number of Brothers and Sisters Episodes: 3

Number of hours spent feeding Lily: 3.5

Number of photos taken: 121

Observations from the day:

I'm getting much better at being able to multi-task using one hand while holding Lily

Can see huge improvements in Lily's ability to grab things and even put them into her mouth

She is drooling up a storm these days!

I'm a complete chicken when it comes to clipping her finger nails

I'm a bit frustrated with my camera skills

It is so difficult to accomplish anything when Lily is not napping

Gratitude for the day:

Breakfast out with Joe and Lily

feeling like I had plenty of patience with Lily

having a day with nothing on the agenda besides hanging out with Lily

Getting a big errand run

Lily's sweet smiles even though she is tired

My Shot of the Day: