Santa Claus Visit 2012

Ho Ho Ho!

Tickling her while on Santa's lap greatly contributed to the happy girl we see here. She was a little hesitant and needed mommy and daddy to sit with her. I really love this picture of us. This totally captures my Lila. I was going to dress her up all fancy to see Santa but thought it was more her style to wear a Walmart Christmas tee, tutu and fun tights!

I think it's awesome that Neil was willing to sit on Santa's lap! What a good daddy. 

Merry Christmas! Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday.

Pumpkin Patch 2012

We went on our annual pumpkin patch visit to nearby Barn N Bunk, in Trenton, Ohio.

Love my girl, ignore the porta potties in background

She ran through the corn maze yelling "Go Lila!"

She loved it! She is such a big girl now.

Having a snack with Daddy

My cute girl. Love her skinny jeans and chucks.

Family pic at the pumpkin patch 2012

And last year... same place!

Funny how we look different but the same. Lila is much bigger, but same sun-squinty grin. Neil wore the same outfit, LOL and I am thankfully 15 lbs lighter this year! I think I'll celebrate by eating fudge, caramel apples and caramel corn!

I love FALL!!! I also am so relieved to have lived through my super busy time at work the last month or so. I haven't had time to eat let alone post to the blog. I am so happy to be able to think about something other than work! 

Lila is saying and doing so many new things, I hope to get an update together soon. She will be 20 months old in a week. I really can't believe that, but I love it! She is so much fun now!

Lila's 18 months old!

Well, here we are! 18 months old and Lila is as wild as ever! We are having so much fun with our little ball of energy. She pretty much never stops moving, talking or dancing and wears us out all the time!

We were supposed to have her 18 month check up on Saturday but due to her recent fever we cancelled it. 

She weighs about 23 lbs and has gotten a lot taller. She is wearing a size 5 or 6 shoe! In May she was wearing a 3! She is wearing 18-24 mo. outfits and some 2T.

She wakes up between 7 and 7:30 and goes to bed around 8:30. Naps for around 2 hrs somewhere between 12:30 and 3:30.

I think both her molars on bottom are in and maybe one on top, so I guess that makes 11 or 12 teeth.

Developmental stuff


Saying more complex sentences. Like "Look at this” and “Look daddy, hat!” and “I want night night” or “I wanna go bye-bye or outside, etc”, “Where’d mama go?”, "I wanna cookie please!"

She has gone to the potty a few times, both pee and poo, and she’s wearing cloth training pants (wish they made these in 12-18 months size!) or no bottoms at home most of the time. This is helping me to know when she pees and is getting her used to the idea of the potty. I think she will pick it up fast when we are really ready. No rush though, I just want to catch her when she is interested.

Tries to put on pants herself, can put on shoes herself, and can take off tops and dresses. Tries to take off diaper. Can pull down big girl panties with help.

Loves identifying things: mommy’s shoes, mommy’s “babock” which means cup, baby’s hat, etc. She will sometimes say her name, says it like “Yaya” but usually calls herself “baby”.

She is feeding self really well with spoon and fork, still resorts to hands though!

Can climb up into her high chair and practically buckle herself in on her own. We just bought a small picnic table and we are transitioning to that.

Love to climb on chairs, beds, couches, ottomans, tv stands etc. and stand and jump on them. This is a big problem as far as safety and we have to correct her and watch her all the time!

Knows two letters! “O” and “B”.. working on L and some others. Anytime I sing the alphabet to her she says.. “B” “I”... for BINGO song

New words 

Seems like there are at least 2 new ones a day!

happy
pretty
picture
bow
owl and says “hoot, hoot”
bike
hotdog
pizza
meatball
crocodile
bagel
elbow
up
down
please
peas
sorry
pee-pee
poop
yucky
car
thank you
“bobo” for the book with Bobo the monkey in it
“go go” for Go Dogs Go (favorite book)
“moon” for Goodnight Moon

Favorites and funny stuff

Loves JUMP and Roar like a Lion by Patty Shukla

Itsy bitsy spider, Mr. Sun, BINGO, Hokey Pokey

Still loves Bubble Guppies. This is pretty much the only TV she will pay much attention to. She even laughs at appropriate parts and tries to sing along. We stumbled on Pajanimals the other day and she thought that was hilarious. 

The cat obsession continues this month. She puts her cat Mao in high chair, feeds it. Also Love babies! She “talks” to her babies and asks them questions “wanna go outside?” Loves to brush baby doll’s hair.

We are trying to get her to growl for Bengal (for Cincinnati Bengals).. and we will say.. what does a lion say? “Rarr”.. what does a bear say? “Rarr!”.. what does a Bengal say? “Peekaboo!” Every time!

“Cheese” when anyone gets out a camera

Can identify people’s clothes...like if I’m folding Neil’s t-shirts, she’ll say “daddy’s!”

She is a good helper! She will also sometimes put up toys and will throw things away for us. Great at following directions, most of the time!

The other day she got a “boo boo” and Neil kissed it. She then proceeded to very dramatically get another “boo boo” and fake cried to get more kisses

Tries to wash herself in the bath.. will try to lather bubbles on her belly, knees, etc.

LOVES to wash her hands and brush her teeth.

Can identify many animals and do their sounds... can do many more sounds than animal names though. She rarely says monkey, cat or dog but instead just says the sounds. She says “yeehaw” for horse. That's just too cute to correct! Still says "mao" for cat.

Signs “more” all the time!!! This was the only sign she was ever really taught.

Loves pink! She says “car car pink”! Everything is pink. I think she is getting the concept of colors but can’t really identify any of them accurately.

If she likes something, like getting lotion put on or enjoying her food, she’ll say, “i want this” or “happy!”

Says “pool!” or “I wanna go to the pool” when she sees daddy’s swim trunks or towels or beach bag. She is loving swim lessons and much more comfortable in the tub now too!


Pretends she is a cat. Crawls and meows. Feeds her dolls and toys.

Those are our random updates! She is so much fun and has such a personality! We love you Lila Bean!

Seventeen months!

Our Fabulous Fourth

We had a great but extremely HOT 4th of July! Despite the heat, we still were able to do some of those quintessential July 4th activities - watching a parade, wearing red white and blue, drinking beer, eating watermelon, hanging out with friends, watching the kids playing in the baby pool, and doing some relaxing inside in the A/C as well.

We were thankful that all of our families had power restored from the storm the weekend before. My parents were without power for 4 or 5 days! I'm just grateful overall to have a nice, pleasant happy and healthy holiday! It really hit me this weekend just how lucky I am for everything that I have - health, friends, family, an awesome little girl and husband and sweet sweet air conditioning. And yes, freedom. It's not free, you know. I learned that from Team America. I'm not super patriotic, but yes, I'm glad I live in the good ole USA. Even in these 100+ days, what a wonderful summer it is!

My shining star!

Cute Ft Thomas, KY parade... for some reason there was a ton of Corvettes

Daddies and babies

Something was clap-worthy

A little concerned about the fire trucks

Our cute toddler duo - Lila, 16 months & Emmett, 13 months

"Look, I got stickers!"

Playing in the pool

I'm excited for the cool down we are supposed to get next week... mid-80s ya'll! So excited. It's almost been too hot to go to the pool! My mom is coming tomorrow and Neil and I are getting a date night! July 1st was our 6 year anniversary! Can't believe it's been 6 years since we got married. Time really flies. I hope everyone else had a great 4th of July too!

My baby girl is 16 months old!

Lila keeps on growing and as I say every month, she is getting more fun and funny every day! She says and does the craziest things! Gotta love this little girl.

Love this little face

We finally got her 15 month checkup done last week. I'm finally not worried about her weight any more. She is fine. Just on the small side and extremely active. She eats a ton so I'm not worried. I was so happy to see she was over 21 lbs!

Weight: 21 lbs, 6.5 oz, 30th percentile

Height: 30.5 inches, 50th percentile

Head: 18 inches, I think? Not sure of percentile, but I think pretty average.

Great report at the doctor's appointment! She's doing so well with eating and diet, sleeping/naps, etc and seems ahead of the curve developmentally too... especially with her language. We are so happy and proud of her! I'm just amazed by how much she has grown up in the last few months. She got one shot and they want us to get the MMR shot at an allergist's office because of her egg allergy. I'm concerned about her having a reaction to the egg in some vaccines because of the severity of her allergy. We haven't scheduled it yet, but I'm happy to have a referral for a good local allergist for her! 

And just so I can remember, here is her bedtime routine at 16 months. We finally ditched the bedtime bottle (and all other bottles) this month. It was a very easy transition. After dinner and milk, we start around 7:30 with her bath, teeth brushing, try out the potty (no success yet), then play in her play room as a family, then one of us reads her 4-5 books and lays her down for bed with her lovies and her glow seahorse... and sometimes with a book. Sometimes she cries for a few minutes and then rolls around in bed for awhile, but other times goes right to sleep without much protest.

This post is going to be really scattered, but I just have no time to organize my thoughts but I just want to record what she is doing at this age so I don't forget!

She is obsessed with this cat stuffed animal that we bought her at FAO Schwartz on our trip to NYC in April. I don't like cats at all.. hate is a better word. But it's a super cute doll that teaches the child how to dress. It has zippers, snaps, buttons etc... so anyway, it's a cute toy, but it's still a cat. Ugh. Anyway, we've started calling it "Mao" which is how she says "meow". So it's a Chinese communist cat, I guess. She has to have Mao near her at all times, and if she can't see it she will look all around and yell "I want Mao!" So funny.

She did a perfect somersault this month! We try to encourage her to do flips and she actually did one perfectly and luckily Neil's parents were there to witness it. Sometimes she evens includes a "ta-da" for extra effect.

Loves hats

A few days ago she pinched me and it actually hurt so I was acting really sad to see what she'd do... she looked at me, patted me and said "Sorry!" It was so sweet!

She loves to spin around in circles!! She also loves to climb in and on everything. I just took her bumpers out of her crib because she has been trying to use them to climb out.

She is speaking in sentences now and almost all of them start with "I wanna" or "No wanna"... her favorite is "I wanna cookie!" which are sometimes the first words out of her mouth in the morning. That is far more endearing than when she is whining and yelling "I wanna cookie" over and over at 6pm while I'm making dinner! Cookies can be anything from teddy grahams, animal crackers, cheerios, shortbread cookies, etc.

Had to document the hair growth! It's out of control!

Her other favorite sentences: I wanna go, I wanna dance, I wanna cracker, I wanna baba, I wanna baby!!? , I want daddy.

Since she is now totally off of bottles and drinking milk from a cup, we've been trying to get her to stop calling her cups "baba". Sometimes we have to correct ourselves and we end up saying "baba cup". She is now calling her cups "babocks" or "bocks". Took awhile to figure that out.

She used to call Neil "daddy" all the time and would rarely call me "mommy" or "mama". Now she calls both of us daddy and almost everyone daddy including the 3 and 6 year old little boys at her daycare and random neighbors who are most definitely not daddy! 

Crazy face!! Not sure why the camera blurred her hair. Look at all that drool.

She's starting to like to dress up and do other imaginative play. She says, "I wanna hat" and I'll get her hats to try on. She also loves to put on bows, bibs and necklaces! She tries to feed her babies with a spoon and puts them in the high chair. So much fun!

When we play out back with her water table and baby pool, she keeps running away to other people's yards! I'm constantly chasing her which is both funny and annoying.

My mom wanted me to try to list all of Lila's words... let's try it out:

Daddy

Baba

Bye

Mommy (almost never says it)

Hi

Hey

Yay

No 

Dog

Teddy

Baby

Duck 

Moo

Uh oh

This

That

Oh

Car 

Truck

Balloon

Eye and I

Wanna

Bubble/bubbles

Ball

Look 

Book

Shoe/shoes

Hat “aat”

Cookie/cookies  “googie”

Cracker

Sorry

Meow “mao”

Hot

Go

All done

Outside

Park

Ta-da

Ouch

Ow

Yeah

Peas

I'm sure there are more, but that's all I've got right now!

Seems to understand everything we are saying.. which is awesome. for example, if she is getting in to something she shouldn’t.. I'll give her a task like “go take this to daddy” and she will do it!

My happy little Lila bean

She is loving the pool (we broke down and joined the Y again!), her play kitchen, baby dolls, Mao her cat, her Melissa and Doug farm puzzle (she's mastered it, I guess we should get her another one!)... but right now she is mostly loving being outside. We've been to the park, splash parks, King's Island and the pool a lot already this summer! She gets a lot of time outside at daycare too, which she loves! She is getting a bit of a tan too! Even with all that SPF 50.

That's all I have right now. I am hoping to do another post about all of the new egg-free recipes I've been making for my little love! We'll see if that happens...

A Photo Post

Playing with her water table in the backyard

Daddy, Lila and Mommy outside by the fire in Brown County, IN

She's always dancing

"Is this right?"... early experiments with potty training

Emmett and Lila, BFFs

Hiking with Daddy

Splash park

Upside down in the side table

Cooling off

Summertime and 15 months old

Well, hello there. I think I almost forgot I had this blog! I have to admit I've been more in living and enjoying life mode instead of living and recording life mode... but I don't want to neglect these updates too much. Poor Lila's baby book is pretty pathetic so I have to keep up with the posts on here or we will forget everything!

Lila is 15 months old now! She is in full toddler mode complete with mini-tantrums, teething and hilarity. She is just SO funny and full of personality. She is a handful but we just love her to death!


Lila's BFF/boyfriend Emmett turned 1 on May 19 and had the cutest little outdoor party. Lila is jealous of his spring/summer birthday... her February birthday pretty much guarantees snowy weather. Emmett seemed like he had a blast splashing in the baby pool, playing with his cousins and opening his presents. Lila was being prissy and didn't want to play in the water and just walked around in her swimsuit! I just can't believe baby Emmett is ONE. Our babies are growing up!

 Lila had another egg allergy incident a few hours before the party at my parent's house. I don't want to go totally into it because I'm still traumatized, but I'll say a few things: Morningstar Black Bean Burgers ARE NOT Vegan and contain EGGS, my parents are probably going to have to get new carpet in their den, and I vow to read every single food label twice before anything gets remotely close to my child. Her egg allergy is severe and extremely frightening. Poor Lila.

Lila's been loving the outdoors lately and has been playing in the sand, dirt and with her new water table. She is going to have such a blast this summer! We can't wait to take her to King's Island and the Cincinnati Zoo.

As far as updates for Lila, she is just getting smarter and more funny all the time. She has learned a few new words this month: cracker, cookie, hot (and asks if her food is hot before she eats it), outside, and can meow like a cat. She understands so much stuff and tries to mimic us a lot more. Tries to put on shoes, brush her own hair, etc. She can eat very well with a spoon now, I even let her feed herself oatmeal this morning and she does very well.

She is drinking out of the sport bottle type cups now which she really seems to like. She is still drinking milk from a bottle 3 times a day, morning, lunch and bedtime. I didn't think she'd still be drinking a bottle at 15 months but I'm not ready to let it go yet. After her 15 month appointment (which I haven't even scheduled yet) I may cut out the morning bottle for a cup and start working on the other ones after that.

Lila is a great eater! She loves yogurt, smoothies, oatmeal, peanut butter, bagels, crackers, meatballs, ground beef, chicken, mac and cheese, peas, broccoli, beans, carrots, teddy grahams and animal crackers. She does not like cottage cheese, melon, strawberries, or anything too sweet like cake (even egg-free cake).

She got her 7th tooth, bottom left lateral incisor. She is getting them in the textbook order that they are "supposed" to arrive. The molars are next, eek!

She is totally on one nap now (12:30-3:30 or around about there), unless she is super crabby and then she might take a little morning nap. At night she usually sleeps from 8-ish to 7-ish, but I've been much more lax with her sleep lately. I know she gets enough, so I need to stop obsessing about it!

So everything is going pretty well for Miss Lila bean! We are excited for a Memorial Day weekend at home and for our cabin vacation next weekend in Indiana! Life is good!

Lila at 14 months

This little girl is changing so much I don't even know where to start. She turned 14 months old on the 23rd. We've been having such a great time with her. She is practically running around everywhere and is so solid on her feet now. She can squat and get back up and walk, climbs much better (help me), and  is talking up a storm. She is still a sweetheart but the girl can throw a mean tantrum if she wants to.

Weight/Height/Sizes:

We don't know exactly, but I think she's 20.5 lbs from weighing her on the scale with me. She looks a lot taller so I am betting 30 inches. Still wearing 12 and 18 months clothes and size 3 and 4 shoes. We are letting the size 3 diapers run out and will be getting size 4s next.

Talking:

Her language and vocabulary skills are going crazy! I can't keep track of all the words she knows and understands. Here are the ones I remember off the top of my head:

Mama, dada, baba

Bye, hi

No (of course)

Dog (and will bark back at dogs)

Baby

Duck (and quack)

Uh oh

Oh

Car

Truck

Balloon

Eye (can identify)

Ear (can identify, but not every time)

Bubble

Ball

Look 

Book

Shoe

and more I can't think of at the moment..

Phrases: I want it, I got it, What's this, etc..

Developmental stuff:

Knows some body parts. Can point to head, hair, eye, ear, nose (sometimes), shoulders and belly.

Can identify some animals and sounds: Barks like a dog. Baa for sheep, Moo for cow, quack for duck, "sniffs" for bunny, monkey sound for monkey. 

Lots of outside play lately! She loves to play with chalk, bubbles, ride on toys and her play lawnmower. She also likes to eat chalk, dandelions, dirt and mulch. I try to discourage that!

Tries to put on hats/bows, socks and shoes herself. Loves to put things around her neck like a scarf.

Can throw her own diaper in the trash when I ask her to. But this has backfired on me with her piqued interest in the trash can. I've found her clothes, the remote, and sippy cups in there!

Follows directions like "Bring mommy the ball", "Take the doll to daddy" "Go to your room".

Can throw and kick a ball! Not very coordinated though.

Getting better at simple puzzles, stacking games, sorting things, can put lids on things

Loves to carry baskets and boxes around the house

Hugs, rocks and pats dolls and other toys. And says "aww".

Will sometimes give us kisses and hugs if we ask. She pats us on the back when we get hugs!

Still scared of some men. Like terrified. Still a little scared of the vacuum.

Dances all the time. She has so many crazy moves. Our favorites being "Deep and wide" arm movements, head banging and the butt shake.

Tries to sing the ABCs (of course she is way to young to know her ABCs.. she just tries to sing along) and the Bubble Guppies song.

She is a super happy, expressive, funny and social child. I love her personality! She's a lot like Neil and I... silly and laid back. She fits in really well. 

Motion:

Walking readily. She is so adorable!! She's almost running. Pivots around in a circle! Dances. Can squat and get up. Climbs up to standing on her kids size chairs. Tries to climb in and out of the tub. Still can only go up stairs and not down. We've taken her to the park and an indoor play place Jump n Jacks and she is loving her new freedom and skills!!

Sleeping:

Still mainly 2 naps a day. Short one in the morning, longer after lunch for around 2-3 hours total. 11-12 hours at night. 

Eating:
Still eating very well, especially at lunch! She is completely on cow's milk now (will only drink 2%, not whole), but its still from a bottle. Still 4oz 3-4 times a day. If she gains weight at her 15 month appointment I think I might ditch the bottles for the cup. She will only drink 1-2oz of milk from a cup each time and I still worry about her weight, so I'm okay with her taking a bottle until I know her weight is okay.

She loves yogurt, meat in any form, peas, broccoli, graham crackers, beans, bananas, peaches and applesauce. She is getting pretty good with a fork and spoon. And I'm starting to let her use a plate.

I wish I could find my camera bag so I could post some of the photos I took from the last month or so. All I have are these crappy phone pictures. I have some really cute ones from Easter. Oh well!

Well, I think she is doing well all in all! She's happy and healthy. Our next steps are getting rid of the bottle. Probably dropping the morning nap in the next month or two, and we'll be getting a potty soon just to start exposing her to it. This is a super fun age. We are just having a blast with her.

Our Walking Girl!

So I've been a bit MIA lately, but wanted to post that Lila has reached a big milestone! She is a walker! She took her first steps at 11 months and has been cruising and walking a few steps at a time since before Christmas. It took her until now, a few days from turning 14 months old, to put it all together! I'm so proud of her and she is clearly very proud of herself.





On top of walking, her language and level of understanding is just exploding! It's so fun to see. She can point to some body parts (she is particularly fond of "eye" and poking people in the eye), can identify some animals and their sounds, and says phrases like "I want it" or "what's this?" all the time. She is just hilarious. I missed out on doing a 13 month update post, so I hope to write up an update for 14 months. She is such a little toddler now!

Just say no to... Eggs?

Just in time for Easter, we have without a shadow of a doubt that Lila is sadly, allergic to eggs.

She had what we thought was a little reaction to eggs a couple of months ago, but with Benadryl she was fine. At the time we weren't totally sure it was egg that did it, but after ruling out other things she'd had that day we figured she had a mild intolerance... possibly. I have avoided giving her eggs since, but really just figured she didn't like them and maybe had a slight sensitivity. She eats things with eggs in it, like cake, muffins, pancakes, etc. with no problems that we've noticed.

Well, Wednesday morning I made myself an egg white omelet. I used the whites in a carton which I buy sometimes because its quicker and easier than cracking and separating eggs in the morning. I gave Lila two or three small bites of the omelet. She seemed to like it okay, but then started coughing a bit so I gave her some water. She wasn't interested in eating more. A few minutes later I noticed she had a small rash around her mouth and chin.

I watched her closely as I continued to get ready, but she was acting normal. She was happy and playing and the rash faded by the time I dropped her off at Amanda's. Well pretty much as soon as I got to work Amanda called me to say that Lila had thrown up everywhere during her nap and that it was probably the eggs that did it. I told her to give her Benadryl and call me back if it got worse. Well I got a call a few minutes later from a very concerned Amanda that she had hives everywhere, was not breathing normally and her feet and hands looked kind of purple. With that I dashed to my car and my 40 minute drive to her house was about 25 minutes. During that time I called my pediatrician and Neil and my mom and tried not to speed too much or cry while I was driving.

Luckily when I got there she looked much better and the Benadryl was doing its job. Most of her hives were gone but you could see some on her back. As soon as I got to Lila I just cried. It's so hard to be away from your child when she needs you. Both times when Lila has had reactions like this I have not been there. On one hand its good, because I'm not sure how I'd do in that situation, seeing Lila like that and obviously Amanda did a great job handling it. But on the other hand, I was not there to help my daughter when she needed me!! I was 40 minutes away at work! Cue Mommy guilt x100! It was terrible.

I was going to take her right to the ER, but I decided to just observe her for a little bit before I put her through anything else. I'd talked a nurse at the pediatrician's office and a friend with a child with a peanut allergy and they both said if the Benadryl is working they won't be able to do much more at the hospital. So I went to Walmart with her to buy more Benadryl (just in case I didn't have it at home) and to just kind of watch her.

Luckily, she did fine the rest of the day. I wiped her down with a wipe when I got home, as I was told that a bath could exacerbate hives, and just looked at her body and she really did seem okay. She took a 3 hour afternoon nap and I cleaned, made brownies and sat outside and read Catching Fire while she napped. She got better as the day went on, thank goodness.

So, no eggs for Lila. Since I've heard that subsequent exposure to eggs can cause worsening reactions, we are going to be extra cautious and really avoid all egg products and anything that has eggs in it. Hopefully by avoiding eggs all together she will not have any more reactions and will eventually outgrow it.

My poor Lila. I'm just glad she recovered pretty fast and that Amanda reacted so expertly and quickly. I'm also thankful that I was able to leave work and go be with her for the rest of the day. So no hardboiled eggs or deviled eggs for my girl this Easter. No eggs at all... not for a long, long time.

Spring and sickness

I've been loving the nice weather we've had recently, but this week has kind of been ridiculous! We've had record-breaking 80+ temps here in Ohio. Lila has been enjoying her time outdoors and I've been loving dressing her up in cute new outfits! Luckily I already had some 12 and 18 month summer stuff for her and I've been getting a lot of things secondhand. I cannot wait for yard sale season to really get going. My favorite time of year! I love getting deals!

In her hand-me down outfit with her crocs

But yes, we are so loving this weather! Lila loves the outdoors! Of course Lila gets most of her outdoor time at Amanda's, where she spends her days while mommy and daddy are at work. Can I tell you how thankful I am to have this daycare arrangement!? Lila is thriving there and I love all of the opportunities she is getting!

She is getting exposed to so many fun things.. feeding ducks, petting zoo, the park, story time at the library, arts and crafts, playing in the water and with dirt, and of course interacting with the other kids. My girl is usually a sunblock-caked, dirty mess when I pick her up after work, but I LOVE it. She is clearly having fun and is learning so much!

Of course, all this fun in the sun while I'm at work is bittersweet. I would give almost anything to be home with her, at least part time. This is hard to admit, because I really never pictured myself wanting to be at home... parenthood changes you, people! I feel like I'm missing out on so much, and while I value my career, I find that it's only getting harder to leave her each day. The hardest part is my commute... but that's an entirely different post (one I may or may not write) but I know she is in good hands and this is our reality right now, and it may always be. Moving on!

But of course we've been taking advantage of the time we do have with our Lila bean. She is staying up a bit later these days and that coupled with the time change means more time outside with our girl. Now all she needs to do is walk on her own and she'll be set!!

Yep, our girl that's been crawling since she was 6 months old is still not walking at almost 13 months! She takes about 4-5 steps on her own, runs with her push toys, climbs stairs with ease, crawls on top of chairs and stands and jumps on them... but is still not walking. I know I shouldn't rush her and it's totally a confidence issue, but come on, Lila! You can do it!

We usually multi-task on the weekends... Playing outside while daddy weeds the garden!

Anyway, it hasn't all been sunshine and roses around here. Our little girl was pretty sick over the weekend. On Saturday, I got back from a big consignment sale around 9:30am (we got there super early and I felt like a bonafide crazy person - booyah!) and Lila was clearly not herself. She didn't sleep well that night and she seemed like she was getting a cold the day before. Well, Neil had texted me during the sale that they weren't having a good morning... that she was was lethargic, wouldn't eat, and the weirdest thing of all - she fell asleep on his chest for 20 minutes. Very unlike her (though I'm sure he enjoyed the snuggles).

When I got there she was very fussy, had a bad cough, felt feverish (but we couldn't get an accurate temp), wouldn't eat any solid foods and barely would drink any milk. She seemed miserable! Most concerning to me was her wheezing and labored breathing. She seemed like she could not really get a good breath. And as someone who has asthma, it looked all too familiar. We called the pediatrician's office (love those Saturday hours) and got in for the last appointment of the day.

They thought she had RSV or even pneumonia, but after checking her oxygen levels and doing a 10 minute breathing treatment she perked up a lot. We got a prescription for a breathing treatment and she's been doing so much better ever since!! After her follow up yesterday, the doctor is pretty sure she has asthma and that when she gets a cold it goes into wheezing/asthma symptoms. Poor girl!

Luckily she is so much better now and we are having a pretty normal week. I can't believe Lila will be 13 months on Friday! She is so funny and we love her so much! I hope to write a monthly update at some point because she has changed a lot since her first birthday! I cannot believe she is already 13 months old! It honestly just keeps getting better and she just keeps getting cuter!