In general, Lily is a very, very, very happy baby. It’s hard to believe that she’ll be six months old this week.
And though it’s not too difficult to get her to laugh, Lily thinks her brother Tommy is the funniest person in the world. She laughs at every stinking thing he does. If he just walks in the room, she starts smiling, and if he just jumps in the air she’ll start laughing. This video is just a small sample of how he can crack her up by doing the smallest things.
This is becoming a regular thing to end the days with Lily, but apparently Lily really likes live music right before bedtime.
I was playing piano for Lily and singing a rather pitchy version of Mr. Jones by Counting Crows when Jennifer started recording.
Not my best rendition, but it’s neat to watch how carefully Lily was paying attention, especially near the end of video.
This morning we got an early start to the day as we headed out for Mass with the entire family, and our own Easter Lily got dressed up in her finest dress. Got to tell you, it’s still weird having a kid that wears dresses! But she already is turning heads, that’s for sure.
So here’s praying for a very happy and blessed Easter to all of our friends, family, and listeners of The Catholics Next Door!
What a wonderful Lent it was, and we’re so glad that we had the opportunity to share so many experiences with so many wonderful people throughout Lent.
A couple weeks ago our friend Dan Harms from the band Popple was here for a visit.
While he was here we were goofing around, playing some songs on the piano and guitar. Near the end of the night I picked up Dan’s guitar and was amazed at how easy it was to play his compared to the guitar I typically play.
The guitar I play is actually one Jennifer bought long before we even met, but she never uses. So when we got married, it pretty much became my main guitar. It’s a very nice guitar, but after playing Dan’s, I realized I could probably have some work done on it to make it even easier to play and better sounding to boot. So last weekend, I dropped off the guitar at a local music store and ever since picking it up on Monday, I’ve been playing the guitar quite a bit again.
The cool thing is that we’ve also discovered Lily has an instant reaction to the guitar. In fact, just about every time I’ve started playing when she was fussy, she’d stop crying almost immediately.
So last night when she was getting particularly fussy, I went and got the guitar and Jennifer, Lily, and I ended up recording a couple of videos as we serenaded our little girl.
It’s been a few days since I posted some random Lily pics.
During our last doctor’s appointment for her, the doctor recommended that we give her daily “Tummy Time” where she has to lay on her stomach, even if she doesn’t want to, just to help her get stronger all around.
Have to say, this girl is already pretty strong and doesn’t a good job pushing herself up.
Overall, Lily still spends a lot of time sleeping more than anything, but she’s also starting to be a lot more alert.
I’ve been enjoying taking her for walks up and down the street and just ambling through the yard. She very much seems to enjoy whenever we take her outside.
The boys have transitioned to her with no problems, and even Jody (as evidenced by the photo below) finds her very intriguing.
This picture is from Lily’s first visit to Kaiteur. Moose is on the left and our friend Patrick is on the right. Lily is that little pink thing in the lower left corner. You can’t really see her in this, but I still thought it was a funny picture.
While all the brothers love Lily, Tommy probably spends the most time trying to love on her.
More than anything, though, this girl is one good snuggler.
Lily was Baptized last night in an absolutely beautiful and simple Mass celebrated by our good friend Fr. Bill Kessler.
The picture to the left is the first family photo we’ve managed to take since Lily was born. We don’t get many photos taken with all of us in the photo at once and I admit it’s strange to see just how much all of us have changed since our last family photo.
Here are some more photos of Lily that have been taken over the past week. I hate how she’s already changing in so many ways.
Overall, it’s been a very good week. I still ended up doing more work than I planned on, but since I’ll be flying solo on The Catholics Next Door for the next month, I suppose it was necessary.
But we did get a lot of good time in with Lily, as well as the boys. And today we took Lily to Adoration for the first time. We only stayed for about 15 minutes, but it was nice to bring Lily before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and sit there for what time we could in prayer.
If you would, please keep praying for Jennifer. Because of the pregnancy, labor, and delivery, she’s very behind on a lot of tax stuff for Rosary Army as well as our family and is feeling quite stressed out about that at the moment. This is always the busiest time of the year for her, so having a baby in the middle of it has just made it even more stressful. Thanks in advance, and thanks for all the prayers you’ve offered up over the past week, as well.
We’re currently at the doctor’s office, having Lily checked out for the first time by the pediatrician.
She’s been doing great, but the doctor at the hospital wanted us to bring her in after 48 hours just to make sure everything is continuing to go well.
And believe it or not, but it sure seemed like she just smiled and cooed at me for the first time. Both Jennifer and I were surprised because we didn’t think babies ever reacted that early.
Overall, we’re simply blown away by how good of a baby Lily is so far.
She’s nursing like a champ, she’s sleeping well, and she’s just been an awesome baby so far.
We’re praying constantly that she stays that way!
Lily has been poked, prodded, and tested all morning and now we’re just waiting for the final paperwork to be processed so we can check out of the hospital and head home.
When we get home and have better Internet access, I’ll upload some more photos and maybe I’ll even open up a uStream window for a few minutes so you can see Lily live. Stay tuned.
Jennifer and Lily are both doing great.
Jennifer was a super trooper during this labor! And now she’s resting comfortably and just absolutely amazed me with how strong and incredible she was during the labor.
And I just made the coolest discovery. Lily has the most crooked pinkies of all our kids. That’s a trait from my mom’s side of the family.
Some people have asked about her name, and I have to thanks Jennifer for going with Lily.
Lily M. Gyldenvand was my great aunt and a tremendous influence on me when I was a kid. Painting, writing, drawing, speaking about faith – that’s what Aunt Lil did her whole life. Google her name and you’ll find references to books she wrote decades ago.
She died more than 15 years ago of Alzheimer’s, and as soon as we learned we’d have a daughter, I wanted to call her Lily. Grace (her middle name) is a tribute of sorts to our Blessed Mother, who the angel Gabriel called “Full of grace”. For all the Hail Mary’s we’ve prayed, it seemed appropriate.
Here’s the update:
When we got here, she was only about 4cm dilated and 80% effaced.
They had us walk the halls for an hour and we prayed a Rosary.
An hour later, they checked her again and she hadn’t progressed very much. The options were: Go home, Get Petocin (no way), or have the membranes stripped on the cervix. Jennifer opted for the membranes being stripped and she immediately went to 6cm dilated, so they admitted her.
We’ve now been moved from triage to an actual labor and delivery room and Jennifer is in the tub.
I only have very slow dial-up, but I will update as much as I can. She’s doing awesome, and it was great news to see how she’s progressed in just a few hours.
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