Lily’s Nursery

I wanted Lily’s nursery to be girly without being over the top, and the bedding I found in stores was not what I wanted.  I did find this bedding with polka dots, paisley and  bows. Girly and modern, but not too much so.  Not enough to send Todd into hysterics.

Todd’s mom, aunt and grandmother gave us all our bedding and matching accessories and they are beautiful!

Thanks to Pinterest, I made the cutie puffs for over Lily’s crib.

Although I have never recovered anything, ever, I decided to recover the glider and ottoman.  The glider was originally maroon and the ottoman was blue.  I looked into professional recovering, but it would be $300. Seriously. I could buy a new set for that. So instead I spent around $30 on fabric.  My original fabric choice (with coupon) would have run $15/yd, which was too much to spend on the off chance that it would actually turn out.  So $6/yd seemed like a more plausible option. And it worked!  I wanted to refinish the ottoman to match, but I ran out of time. Oh well.

I needed an endtable next to the glider to have a place for bottles, burpies, glasses, etc. but I couldn’t find anything that I really liked that wasn’t ridiculously expensive.  As I was cleaning out our office, I discovered a scrapbooking “file cabinet” in the closet and mod-podged the top using leftover fabric.

This is an older pic of the shadow boxes, but it’s close enough.  The shot above is updated.  I used Luke’s old shadow boxes that had been painted in a baseball theme and repainted them in pink and green, along with modpodging the outside. (Have I mentioned how much I love mod podge??)

I purchased this pink birdcage at Ross for $10 – it is super cute!  The topiaries are from my fireplace mantle and I had moved them into the nursery during Christmas-time as the Christmas mantle décor took up all the space.  So I bow-ed them and they are now in the nursery.  I love ribbon. And bows.  I have a ribbon problem.  The pink champagne was a gift from one of the parents from my 3rd grade class from last year.

I absolutely adore Lily’s nursery – it is one of the brightest rooms in the house and is so sunny and cheerful.  I love the colors and how comfortable it is.  It will be a wonderful room for Lily to grow up in.  And a big thanks to my mom for helping me clean out the room/closet and decorating, as it had become a dumping ground once Luke moved out and also thanks to Linda for helping with decorating.  It is fabulous!

Lily at 2 weeks

 

This week, Lily had her two week check-up.  I was anxious about the appointment because I haven’t supplemented with formula at all with her, and I was nervous about her weight gain, or perhaps lack of.  We love our pediatrician and I was excited for him to meet our little miss. 

So here are her stats:

Weight: 9 lbs 8 oz (up 1 lb 8 oz from birth)

Length: 21 inches (up 1 inch from birth)

Wahoo!

A few things about Miss Lily at two weeks:

• She is pretty much a rock star.
• She sleeps. She eats. She poops.
• She is fulfilling her end of the deal. I love that.
• At night, she is averaging anywhere from 4 to 6 hours of sleep at a time. 
• During the day, she’s eating regularly every 2 hours and napping frequently.
• She doesn’t cry or scream when Luke is in her face or poking at her.
• She really doesn’t cry or scream at all.  She squeaks. And grunts.

This is all completely opposite of Mr. Colicky-Baby Luke.

I don’t know if this is just a Second Kid Standard, but I’m sold on this kind of kid.

A little about Luke being a big brother at two weeks:

• He is quite “Lenny” about his little sister.  (from Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men)
• He doesn’t quite get the idea about being “gentle” so we’re working on “don’t pet the rabbit so hard, Lenny.”
• Luke wants to be around Lily all the time. Mostly he just wants to wake her up to talk to her and poke at her.
• I love that he loves her, but holy cow . . . relax, Luke!

We are loving having Lily in our family – she is such a precious, sweet little girl.

The Arrival

Miss Lily is 2 weeks old now, and I have my life together enough to be able to share her arrival story.  I went into the doctor the day before her date and was pleasantly surprised to discover that I was already 4 cm dilated and 50% effaced.  That was much further than I had ever been with Luke prior to my induction.  Knowing that she wasn’t going to be on time (I just knew) we scheduled an induction for Saturday, August 25th at 1:30 pm.

On Saturday morning, I started calling the hospital to see if there was a room for me so I could go in and have this baby! Alas, they were overbooked and understaffed, so they asked me to call back at noon.  And then when I called back at noon, they told me to call back at 5 pm.  While I was spending my afternoon calling, I also started having contractions.  This wasn’t the first time during this pregnancy, I had contractions earlier in the week and the week before, but had never progressed.

This time, they were progressing quickly, and I thought my water might have broken.  I called the hospital around 4:30 and they told me to come on in.  I arrived at the hospital at 5, was checked and admitted and into my room by 5:30 pm.  While I was in observation, a nurse came in to tell me that he had called my cell phone to tell me there still wasn’t a room for me for an induction.  He told me to ignore the message, since, you know, I was having a baby and all.

I progressed quickly and was asked if I wanted an epidural. I had originally wanted to go without pain meds, as that had been my goal with Luke as well.  I reflected on my first delivery experience, I remembered how I hadn’t progressed and both Luke and my blood pressure plummeted.  I remembered being given the choice of an epidural and a c-section.  Knowing this, I didn’t want to get to that point again with Lily, so I took the epidural.

The epidural worked quickly and I couldn’t feel a thing. Score!  Before I knew it, the nurse told me it was time to have this baby as I zipped right along to full dilation.  She brought the doctors in quickly, as they had just delivered another baby. 

I still couldn’t feel a thing at this point and when the nurse informed me to push during contractions, I told her she was going to need to tell me when those were.  4 minutes of pushing, and Lily Grace was born.  Apparently, she was sunny-side up and as she came out, she twisted herself out like a little corkscrew, which reduced my tearing. Good job, Lily!

The nurses flopped her on my chest and of course I cried and cried.  I was so happy to have my sweet little girl.  The doctors rushed out to go deliver another baby.  We had some time to enjoy skin-to-skin contact for a bit and then the nurses asked if they could take her to clean her up and weigh her.  As they took her, Lily’s foot hit me in the face (thanks) and I realized she left behind a present. She pooped ALL over me.  Now, we’re not talking a little poop, we are talking a HUGE GIANT impressive, shock-the-nurses kind of poop.  It takes a lot to surprise labor/delivery nurses.  They just kept saying, “I have never seen a newborn poop that much!”  As I still had no feeling from my waist down, I was stripped down to nothing and had all the poop cleaned up off of me. Bleh.

Our L/D nurse made a sweet little bow for her hat and we took a ton of pictures.  She immediately latched on and started nursing, which was an improvement over Luke.  

Isn’t she pretty??

Todd was so glad Lily had a round head. Apparently, when you push for 4 minutes verses 1 hr and 15 minutes, you get a better shaped, less “alien-like” head.

 

3 generations

Guess what? I’m your mom!

“Todd! Take my picture too!” (Thanks, Mom)

Love our precious little girl

Daddy and his little girl

This is where I am at right now.  Having a *ahem* rather "precocious" 4 year old is a challenge on a good day.  I love my Luke-pie, but boy can he be frustrating.  I have to remind myself frequently to have patience, to remember that he's only 4 and that he is a sweet, funny boy who does mean well.  I know that my expectations can border on the ridiculous/impossible, as I am used to working with much older kids who respond to my redirection.  Luke certainly has a mind of his own and things have to be done his way. Unfortunately, with Todd and I - we are just as stubborn and things have to be done our way. *sigh*

My grandmother said that you should never be surprised by your children's personality - you get back what you put in.  So perhaps the most frustrating part of all of this is that Luke is so much like Todd and I.  It doesn't help that he really does listen (even though he doesn't always do what he is asked) and will often repeat what we say to him.

Example:

Luke: Mom, you frustrate me. But I love you. I will always love you.  You need to listen to my words. 

Me: Luke, you frustrate me, too.  And I will always love you, too.  I am listening to your words, but we are still not watching TV and you need to listen to my words because I'm the mommy.

Luke: But MOOOOM.  

I think I have a 15 year old trapped in a 4 year old's body.

I know I need to slow down and enjoy my time with Lily, as it will go way too quickly.  I already feel the time constraint of going back to work (November) and a little of the sadness of knowing that she will be my last baby.  I want to speed up time and slow down time concurrently. 

In Love

 

I’m still trying to compile pictures all about Miss Lily and her entrance into the world, so for now, I am simply passing along the fact that I am positively in love with my sweet little girl.  It certainly helps that as a baby, she is nothing like Luke. I find it to be much easier.  Not easy, but easier.

 

The entertaining birth story of Miss Lily to follow soon!

Welcome Miss Lily!

 

Lilian (Lily) Grace Bickel

Born August 25, 2012 - 10:29 pm

8 lbs, 20 inches

She's beautiful. She's amazing. She's ours.

Baby Shower

When I started this post, I was having contractions every 15-20 minutes.  I had to stop. Now I have a baby. More to follow on that!

In July, Shannon, Stacie, Sabrina and my wonderful MIL Linda, threw me a fabulous baby shower to welcome Lily to the world.  It was all decked in pink and green (the nursery colors) – it was amazing!

I was clearly having pregnancy brain as I planned to arrive a little early and ended up being a half hour late.  Linda called, wondering where I was, and I said I’d be there in 5 minutes or so (thinking I was coming early) and I heard Shannon shout in the background, “DOES SHE KNOW WHAT TIME IT STARTS??”  Clearly, the answer was no.  I was mortified that I was late.  How embarrassing.

Delicious brunch – with Shannon’s homemade scones! Yummy!

Game time!

I’m so competitive, I’ll play the games at my own shower.

Gift time! Let’s just say, everyone was really excited for me to be having a girl.  There was a great deal of pink that was unwrapped.  Let’s be honest. I was excited, too!

 

 

 

I wear flowers, so clearly baby girl will be wearing flowers, too.

I am explaining Luke’s theory on how baby sister will come out.  Can you guess?

The answer is: “She is going to EXPLODE out of Mommy’s tummy. There’s going to be blood EVERYWHERE.”

What a boy. I have no idea where this idea came from.  At least he gets that it will pretty much feel like that, whether that is the actual exit route or not.

My ladies after the shower.  Putting on a shower is exhausting.

I am so grateful to everyone who came and spoiled baby girl. We had so much fun – I love having all my special people in one place, celebrating such a special little girl. Thank you thank you thank you!