Other momentous firsts besides sleeping in the big-girl crib...

As I said in the previous post, this has been a momentous week for Lily and her parents. Most important has been the transition from being a fitful co-sleeper to a deep-sleeping crib baby. Most babies would find that enough of an accomplishment for one week, but not our Pinklet! So lemme tell you about some of the other cool things Lily has done this week.

Well, first of all, as you can see here, we have introduced Lily to shoes. This actually came about because, since Lily has been growing so much, she's starting to outgrow a lot of her stuff, so Tata Rina sent down a care package of a buch of Madi and Mallory's old outfits, and hidden amongst the footie pajamas were these cool kicks. So we couldn't resist! Doesn't she look so fashionable?

Speaking of growing, Lily has also in the past week transitioned from the #1 size Pampers to the #2's. This was at least partly motivated by another first, namely her first diaper blowout. Sorry, folks, no picture on that one! You'll have to use your imagination, I'm afraid.

Now, although we've introduced Lily to shoes, don't expect her to be wearing them all the time, because, as you can see from this video clip, there was another first this week that really requires her to have access to her feet:

By the way, I can't even tell you how happy this made her mama. We've been trying for weeks to stick Lily's toes in her mouth so she'd take the hint!

OK, last but certainly not least...drum roll please...

She may not be able to walk or crawl yet, but the days of being able to put her down and expect her to stay where you left her are now officially over. Yay Lily! I guess mama and dada are really gonna have to get cracking on the baby-proofing thing...

How can it be called sleeping thru the night if I wake up at 2AM?

Last Friday, amidst much trepidation, we finally decided that it was time to give Lily some tough love and have her switch over to sleeping by herself in her own crib full-time. We probably would have kept going with the co-sleeping for a while, but Pinky had a 2-day business trip coming up (which she's currently in the middle of, actually), so we realized that, one way or another, Lily was gonna have to figure out how to go to sleep at night without mama lying next to her and nursing her to sleep.

Well, we are VERY happy to report that, although there are still some tears at bedtimes, Lily has responded VERY well to sleep training. As of this writing, she's typically taking anywhere from about 5 to 25 minutes to soothe herself to sleep from when we put her down. But the big surprise benefit is, she sleps a LOT more soundly! She had been rolling over to "comfort nurse" from her mama every hour or two when we were co-sleeping, but now she gets thru the night only nursing twice!! She's even gone over 5 hours at a stretch on a few occasions, which, technically, is considered "sleeping through the night". This is a bit odd because she does this as her first sleep, so six-seven hours from bedtime still means she's up between 12 and 2AM. But we'll take it!

Nono and Nana came down for the weekend to help us out because we assumed we'd be fighting all night with Lily and would need backup during the day. That turned out to be completely not the case (we were probably better rested than we've been in months!), but we loved the visit. Lily loves going outside with Nana, and she finally let Nono hold her a good long time. I caught this picture thru the window. Nana will probably be mortified, but I think it's cute!!

Many other firsts this week...stay tuned for another blog entry, hopefully shortly! We got some coooool stuff!

I'm so proud of my little baby girl...

Lily just celebrated her 6 month "birthday a few days ago on July 30th. What a half-year it has been! I can't believe how much our little peanut has grown up. As of last Saturday, she finally tipped the scales at slightly over 12 pounds, more than FOUR times her lowest weight when she was in the NICU. If you're a regular reader, you know about the rolling over she can do (both ways!), her appetite has really picked up this week (sometimes four ounces at a sitting) and in the last few nights even her sleeping has really improved. Last night, she slept in her crib by herself for over 2 1/2 hours, and has in generally gotten a lot better about being able to soothe herself back to sleep. She can spin in her Exersaucer, grabs at mobiles, and has even managed to put in her own pacifier once (we'll probably be sorry about that last one in the long run, but for now it's good!). Such a big girl. Makes me cry sometimes!


And so, I thought I'd blog just to brag on her a little bit. But to make it worth your while, here's a few recent, fun pictures.



The Mojica girls, getting silly. By the way, in Pinky's old office, they used to refer to that little leg kick thing as "doing a Mo." Not sure if the current office knows about that (but if they're blog readers, they do now!).







Daddy actually IN a picture for a change. Thanks, Po Po, for taking this one for me.

"Mommy, pictures make me so sleeeeeepy..." (Po Po, with her magical sleep-inducing powers, was also nearby, so that might have contributed)







This one was from good friend and frequent babysitter Jackie's baby shower. "Hey, our hats match! But who turned out the lights?"






Last but certainly not least, one more vignette from Po Po and Gung Gung's recent visit. Lily, in this clip, demonstrates her developing speech skills and overall precociousness by showing filial piety to her honored grandparents by promptly obeying their request of her:



(also viewable at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2006635943698651713&hl=en if the embed is again flaky)

Love to all from Lily and the gang!

Giggles!!

Oh, no, mama...not the schnuggle torture!!

And now, going the other way...

Yay Lily!!



I know, you may not believe from the video that her mama didn't help, but Lily has done this four times to date. The first time, her dada had ACTUALLY managed to put her in her crib to sleep (for, like, the first time EVER) and was vainly attempting to soothe her back to sleep after waking up, when suddenly...flip!! Well, at that point she REALLY got mad and got picked up. But not after recording yet another major accomplishment (two, in fact...the crib sleeping is a big thing for us!)

Incidentally, we kept her on her tummy for a minute or two after this flip to see if she'd flip back. She did not, but she did kind of "half-crawl", by which I mean that she scooted herself forward a foot or so, but only using her legs, so it was kind of like a snow plow and not much enjoyed by her. Poor Lily! You have to use your arms, too, baby!

Po Po and Gung Gung's encore

From July 6th thru July 16, Po Po and Gung Gung came back to visit. Hooray!

Po Po has super powers. There's really no other way to explain it. We had actually been a bit apprehensive about the visit because we'd given Lily's nanny the week off, and up until that point she was really the only one who could consistently put Lily to sleep during the day. Emphasis on "was", because Po Po took things well in hand...not only could she get Lily to sleep (by, as she put it, "not taking no for an answer"), she actually kind of trained dada to do it to. I call it "wrestling", which is unfortunately fairly descriptive of how the process goes sometimes, but we can get her to sleep!

Gung Gung kind of kept his distance at first because he was getting over some kind of cold or flu. But as you can see, Lily would not be put off indefinitely. She likes sitting on him. I call her Gung Gung's parrot (credit due to Aunty Cathy and cousin Joshy, who used the nickname first). She also managed to steal a kiss, which will no doubt make boyfriend Andy jealous.

Auntie Virginia and Uncle Leo also came down from LA to visit, which means that Lily has met almost all Po Po's siblings. All except Auntie Tina! Hey, Auntie Tina! Come visit!!

Note that both Po Po pictures show Lily fast asleep. I pretty much didn't get any pictures of them together this trip where Lily was awake! But I did get this fun video...hope it works, video on the blog seems tricky! If not, see it at http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3870650772574347690

Lily's first date

Fourth of July, 2007...young Andy Shipman makes his move:

"hey, that girl Lily is looking over here. I'm gonna ask her out. I REALLY hope she says yes!"

"But I'm so NERVOUS! Okay, man, get it together...here goes..."

"Take my hand and I will show you things you've never seen before. For example, have you tried rice cereal?"

"Hey, she's holding my hand! Ummm...now what do I do?"

Andy puts on his best intense stare and moves in for the kill...

(SMOOOCH!!)

"So, uh, can I call you sometime?"

"Well, I can't use the phone yet. Tell you what, have your people call my people."