Orange ball

I just think this picture is kind of funny. Lily is really puzzled by and a little wary of this ball. She tends to walk around it if it is on the floor. She certainly wasn't sure what to make of it sitting next to her!

Contentment

I have been relishing my time with Lily a lot lately...understandably so, I think. She has so much personality! Right now, we have a morning routine down: when she wakes up, I go in and she hands me everything out of her crib-dolly, bunny, two blankets-before she will let me pull her out and into my lap. Then, I do a slightly painful balancing act next to her changing table while I change her diaper and she begins her morning repetition of "apem-bau?" When we finally make it to the kitchen to eat breakfast, she starts bopping from side to side in her high chair to the imaginary music-girl LOVES to dance! So, we end up with our daily dose of Michael Buble or Natalie Merchant or some such music. Really, most children grow up with Itsy-Bitsy Spider...mine gets Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Eating typically takes an hour. We chat and dance and sing along to our morning music. These are the memories that will be with me for the rest of my life.

The best part is that right now Lily's favorite thing is our Christmas tree. We go in and I turn on the lights. Every time I do, she makes this delighted gasp with eyes widened. She promptly sits down on the ground to stare up at the tree and point at all the ornaments. Once I get myself down on the floor, she will get up and back into my lap for a cuddle. We sit there looking at the tree and the sparkly lights and I tear up just thinking about what "coulda been." This is going to be a very special Christmas indeed.

Her other favorite thing right now is walking with Momma in her electric pink, bedazzled walker. Cute, huh?

Baby Talk

I love listening to Lily talk. Her babble is so precious-especially when she tilts her head to the side a raises her eyebrows to make a point. Now, she has started to mimic everything we say around her. My favorites:

thank you = dane-koo

applesauce = apem-bau

amen = AYE-meh!!

Refocus

I've decided on a lot of things the past couple of days. Something about massive amounts of family around will do that to you. My mom's mom, dad's mom and aunt were all here for Thanksgiving which was fun for everyone-especially the kids. Gram and Auntie kind of dive right into baby care. Within minutes of unpacking Lily, Jake and Evie, they are on the floor with them playing, or pushing them around the backyard in toy cars. Needless to say, Lily has slept in past 9:00 every morning they've been here.

I digress. I've decided that my personal well-being, physically, mentally and emotionally are extremely important. I've decided that I will make every effort to build a fantastic relationship with any family member interested. I've decided that the alone time Lily and I get will be the best mother-daughter time I can manage. This, of course, will be much easier once I am more mobile. In the meantime, I will sing, play and boogie along with her to the best of my ability.

I missed a good solid month of her life. That's a pretty large chunk right now, but in another year it will be a small blip on the radar. She waited to walk until I could see her. The only new word she picked up is "uh-oh". She stopped using a pacifier and a bottle. On the other hand, she maintained the words she had uttered before the accident-I still think her first words are "thank you"...very polite child! Also, she has saved the joys of teething for me. Thanks, Lil.

But looking forward, I know she will be able to wax nostalgic over her childhood. She will have memories of her mommy playing games, teaching her songs, reading books and creating art and imaginary worlds. I will be that mommy. The one that relishes life and will pass that onto her daughter.

What can you get for $25?

Apparently, that is all it costs to get out of a traffic ticket given for hitting a car, killing the passenger and critically injuring the driver. Well, that's all it cost the woman that hit me.

Drama

We've had all sorts of drama going on around here lately. I'll choose to focus on the drama that really affects me...Lily drama.

The other night, she woke up around midnight and talked and talked and talked for about an hour and a half. Then she kind of fussed a bit and slept and fussed a bit and slept. Around 2:45 am, she started wailing. By this time, I was already up in my wheelchair to go get her. I opened up her door and she just got quiet and still. She reached down to get her bunny she sleeps with and then waited patiently for me to get across the room to her. When I put her in my lap, she clutched my pajamas so tightly and buried her face into my shoulder. I decided to bring her to my bed to see if she would sleep...just like the old days when she was learning how to nap!

I think she understands that mommy does not move as easily as she used to, because she held tightly to me and did not wiggle while I maneuvered back to the guest room (I'm still in this transitional bed) Once I laid down next to her, all the tension left her body and she went limp. She slept, unmoving, for almost four hours straight. I didn't sleep too much, though. I was pretty wistful about days gone by and what I could have missed if things had been a bit different the day of the accident.

Tonight, we went to my nephew's fourth birthday party. Lily threw up twice while we were there. First time ever for her. Yipee. The bonus for me on this one is that I can't get into the room very quickly to check on her if she throws up again overnight. Looks like this stomach bug is daddy duty!

Halloween

Lily is a lamb, Evie a duck, and Jake is the cowboy.





































I hope thes two will always have this much fun together...
and that Jake will always look out for his little cousin...

My reason for living...

Yes, before you wonder, I am going to continue the therapy that I started in the hospital. I have been having a lot of "mad at the world" days lately. I'm angry that I'm in this chair, I'm angry that my daughter won't get to know her Nanny Pam, I'm angry that months of my life have been altered in ways I could never have imagined, I'm angry that I'm letting myself feel this way when I know that there is nothing that can be done about my physical state until I am completely healed. Mostly, I'm angry that I can't run around and play with Lily in the way that I should be. Everyone is doing a very good job of taking care of her, but no one can care for her the way that I would...simply because I'm her mommy.

But, when I watch her walk all over the place in her wide-legged baby gait, I am so grateful to be here. I have these moments-like today when I watched her walking around the deck at my parents' house with a flower clenched tightly in each fist-that I realize that I almost missed this. Just a slightly different angle of the SUV during the accident, or a wrong move by a doctor, or God simply deciding that now was my time and I would have missed her grow up. The scariest part of that is that she is so young now that she wouldn't have had any conscious memories of me.

So, in between my pity-party moments and rantings to my new therapist (poor lady!) I revel in the moments that Lily looks up at me and grins her still toothless grin.

The worst of times...

Well, this is the post that almost wasn't. On August 9, 2006, I was driving home from the airport with my mother-in-law and Lily when a large SUV crossed the center, grassy median and struck my car head-on. My mother-in-law and I had to be removed from the car from emergency personnel. Lily, thankfully, was unhurt. My mother-in-law, Pam, died in the helicopter ride to the hospital. I was transported via helicopter as well to a large trauma hospital in Memphis. My prognosis was bleak. In fact, the doctors asked my family if I was an organ donor. That tends to put my family (and all their friends and acquaintances in non-stop prayer mode.)

In the hours/days that followed, I had surgery to remove my spleen and part of my pancreas, repair two collapsed lungs and a broken right kneecap. I don't remember those days at all. I am told that I was awake after a few days and trying to communicate even with machines doing my breathing for me, but I don't remember. What I do remember shortly after I was breathing on my own, is the hallucinations. I had something called ICU psychosis-coupled with the morphine being pumped into my body-which made me see and experience terrifying things that were not really there.

Once I was taken off the morphine, reality started to get a small foothold. I began to realize my state of being, which was sort of a blessing and a curse. In addition to the surgeries that I already had, I found out that I had several cracked ribs, a broken collarbone, cracked C7, ligament strains in my left leg and no movement in my left arm due to nerve damage. I still had two surgeries to endure on my right ankle, and another lung surgery to remove fluid, but I was still trying to come to terms with what had happened to the rest of my body and my life. I was pretty broken. I remained in the trauma hospital, trying to wrap my brain around the situation for 20 days.

After completing the remainder of my surgeries (and experiencing a level of pain I had never felt before-childbirth included) and having the first round of staples removed (32 from my abdomen) I was discharged to a rehabilitation hospital. There I was pushed to do things that had always been done without a thought-dress myself, brush my teeth, feed myself, get in and out of bed, etc. Now, each action required intense concentration and superhuman effort. I was trying to teach the fingers on my left hand to move on command and trying to withstand the discomfort on my right side whenever I moved my arm. The hardest part of it was/is the emotional turmoil.

As thankful as I was/am to be alive...

I missed my baby girl's first birthday. I wasn't even lucid that day. I didn't get to make the choice to stop nursing-it was made for me. I missed weeks of being the first person that she saw in the morning and the last person that she saw before going to sleep. So many people jumped in and helped, and I am so grateful. But, now my Lily was being cared for by other people. Mommy was someone that wasn't around anymore. I will never, ever get those weeks back. Even now I can't take care of her like I want to. I can't pick her up, roll around on the floor with her, stand with her perched on my hip, get her in and out of her crib, or even change her diaper and get her dressed. I am so grateful to God for being here, but missing these things cuts me to the core.
I am improving, though. Everyday I try so hard to make some little improvement so that I can stay on track with my rehabilitation. I want to be able to start walking at the end of November. I want to be able to pick my little girl up and hold her in my arms. She has learned how to kiss me when I ask for one, but I can't bend far enough down in my wheelchair to claim it. I want to pick her up and nuzzle her neck just like I used to. I'll get there, but I have a very long and hard road before me. Bear with me; I'll make it.

A kiss is worth a thousand words

Lily loves to cuddle with her toys, but today she decided that mommy looked like a good cuddling partner. I was holding her stuffed frog and she cruised over to me while holding onto the front of her crib. She pulled the frog out of my hands and tossed it to the floor (she has a pretty good arm for a baby!) I told her I wanted a kiss and she pressed her nose and mouth against my cheek. Later, she crawled up into my lap, put her head on my shoulder and patted my back. Certainly can't put a price on those moments!

A few of our favorite things...

Some of the things Lily loves to do:















Playing the piano-either the keys or playing with the pedals on the floor-doesn't really seem to matter!
















Reading and turning the pages...and she loves, loves, LOVES her dolly!
















Throwing herself across soft toys on the floor. She knows she is cute when she does this and she plays that up pretty well!

Just standing around...

Yep, Lily is standing around...not actually walking...just standing. And, no, there are no teeth yet. I'm pretty sure that her cousin Evie will have teeth before Lily does. Luckily, birthday cake will be easy to mush without teeth!

My friend, Heather, came to visit from California a couple of weeks ago-fun! Lily loves having some extra attention (like she doesn't get any otherwise!) I do have to say that bringing obnoxiously screeching plush bunnies along is not a requirement for visiting our house. Heather brought one for Lily and, of course, Lily loves it. She throws it around until it starts making "music" and then she dances to it. Heather won it in Vegas. "Nuff said. (Heather did offer/threaten to get us another one if we need it. Pete's birthday is in February, Featha-start planning!)

It was so nice to hang out with a girlfriend I haven't seen in awhile. We hit/smelled the oh-so-lovely Beale Street and had some sushi at a really nice place in downtown Memphis. We also got our Johnny Depp fix by boosting the opening weekend gross for Pirates. Fun for all! Luckily for Heather the weather was relatively mild for most of her visit. Now, she'll have to come back next summer when it is 101 every day.

When did THAT happen?

Lily had a VERY rough night last night...there seemed to be very little sleep going on. I would like to think that she is actually getting some teeth, but its not really true. Normally, I let her fuss a bit when she has already gone to bed because if I go in there, it just seems to wake her up even more. Last night, though, I finally went in to rock with her for a bit when she just didn't seem to be calming down on her own. I went to her crib in the dark and picked up my little girl, only...

she wasn't so little anymore. I'm not really sure when she got SO big, but it has certainly happened. I think that picking her up in the dark and not seeing her first really brought it home for me that my little angel is not a tiny baby anymore. I know in my mind that she is getting close to that first birthday and I can see on a daily basis her new accomplishments, her vibrant personality and physical growth, but in my heart she is still my little baby.

I finally got her settled enough to get to sleep, but then I couldn't...too much to comprehend.

Then, today-after a rough day of partial naps-the only way I could get her to sleep was by curling up with her in my bed. She spread her little body out over the mattress and laid her head down on my shoulder and fell asleep. She didn't move for an hour-very unusual for my active sleeper! As I drifted in and out of my own little nap, I smiled realizing that even though she is getting to be my big girl, she will always be my little angel.

Whew!

I just finished a week of solid workdays for the first time since before Lily was born. I spent the past five days teaching two back-to-back sessions of art camp to 17 students ranging in age from five to eleven. Of course, being in a classroom with a bunch of germy kids again got me sick on day two...so it has been a very long week! I'm not really sure how working moms are able to do it. I don't think I could do this regulary-the exhaustion and simply missing time with Lily was a bit much.

Little things kept popping up in my brain while I was working...things that Lily does that makes me smile. It probably made me seem like such a pleasant teacher-all that smiling. On the inside, though, I was picturing how Lily sits on the ground with one foot propped up on top of the other with her ankles crossed in front of her and no matter how I try, I just can't seem to sit the same way without throwing my balance to one side in order to keep from falling over. I could see her sitting on the ground and leaning over to the side with her head almost on the ground in order to put her cheek against one of her stuffed animals sitting beside her (SO much easier than picking it up!) I think if I were to be working full time all the time I would be a very distracted worker. This part-time gig really fits my brain pretty well!

In the back of my mind this week I kept wondering if Lily was going to do something for the first time while I was away. She is so close to standing and walking on her own and since I don't really know the full process of this learning curve, I kept hoping that she would just hold off until I could be home to see her. Of course, she didn't take any steps without holding tightly to her walking wagon, so my fears were unnecessary...but a mommy can wonder, can't she?

Smarty pants

This little angel-face may be hiding something... Like the fact that she climbed up on the bottom shelf of her changing table in order to fling out all the socks that were there...
or...how she has now figured out how to get the CD out of the CD player. Needless to say, we are listening to a lot of radio in her room while we play now.

To Your Corners!

I have noticed an interesting little habit of Lily's when she is sleeping...

When I put Lily in her crib for the night, she is usually somewhere near the middle of the mattress. Of course, she has flipped herself over in protest before I actually get out of the room, but that is a different story. Before I go to bed, I stick my head in her room to check on her and every night she has crammed herself into a different corner of her crib. She always has her head pressed against the rails, her arms at her sides and her legs pulled up under her tummy so her bottom sticks up. Every night it is a different corner-and it doesn't seem to matter which way she is facing when I put her down at night.

Looks rather uncomfortable, but-as always-very cute.

Elation

Lily had her first ride on the swings today...you can almost hear her squeals of delight!

No more hiding!

Well, there will be no more hiding things from Lily...at least things that she knows are there. I gave her a sip of my iced tea this afternoon and then put the cup on the ground behind me. She proceeded to crawl around behind me looking for it while I moved it silently in front of me. She kept going around and around me looking for the tea-then she stopped and looked up at me with this expression on her face like "Mom, I know it's there. Knock it off!" I had to resort to putting it in another room and finishing it later.

Lily is pulling herself up so easily now. She cruises a little bit, but mainly likes to stand holding onto something so she can gum it. Yep, gum it...there are still no teeth in that precious little pink mouth. My mom told me that my teeth came really, REALLY late, so Lily seems to be taking after me again.

But Lily's standing has renewed my obsession with her little feet. I adore them. She is so funny about gripping the carpet with her toes and rocking back and forth on her heels as she tries to balance. I know that once she starts walking in earnest they will start to lose their soft, new sweetness. I know that she will still like Mommy to play with her feet, though. One of her favorite games is her laying on her back with her feet in my hands and I will jiggle them all over the place in a crazy "dance" while I sing songs to her. She just giggles and giggles until she is to the point of laughing with no sound coming out. Then she will twist out of my hands and sit up only to push her feet into my hands again to start all over.

Bathing Beauty

I blew up Lily's baby pool this week...who makes these things without a pump attachment anymore-I almost passed out! Anyway, Lily had a ball splashing and playing. I have a feeling this is going to be a very popular toy this summer.

MORE!

I have been slowly adding some sign language into my communication with Lily. Today was the first day that I could see the sign for "more" really click. Of course, she does the baby version-banging her hands together in a clapping motion-but she knows how to use it! I usually put a few pieces of cheese or cheerios on her high chair tray and when she finishes, I ask her if she wants "more" while signing. Today, I was across the kitchen when she finished and when I turned around to look at her, she was banging her hands together and slapping them on her tray. When I asked her if she wanted more, she just lit up and started banging her hands together again. She was so excited that I understood what she wanted.

Right now, the "more" sign is connected tightly to food. I'm trying to use it with other things like music, toys and playtime. But, I'll take this as a very strong start!