14 Months Today

This girl has just taken off.  She is full-blown walking now. Of course, she still likes to hold our hands and pull us along at times.  Even though it felt like it would never end, and we even hired a mother's helper to deal with the finger-walking, it seemed like the 5 months we spent bent over wasn't that bad.  Don't get me wrong, it was BAD, but we've rebounded pretty quickly. 

Some of her favorite things:

• Sitting down to read books.  She loved to flip through them standing up.  We wondered when she'd start to sit with us and look at them.   And, now she does!
• She loves her baby doll stroller.  She found it the other day and loves to push it around.  At first, she couldn't steer at all, though after lots of help, she's learning to steer on her own.
• She loves playing in water.  In her bath, while washing her hands, and in puddles outside.  I almost let her play in a puddle last week, until I realized that we didn't have a change of clothes for her in the bag.

Cute things she did:

• Put the play phone up to her ear like she was talking on it.  We talk on the play phone. When I put my hand up to my ear and pretend to call her, she will answer!
• The Hollidges gifted Lily some slippers.  They were just sitting in the living room, though my mom hadn't seen them yet.  She was so excited about them, she opened them up and put them on the baby, then realized that they could have been bought for someone else.  LOL!  The baby, who hates socks, walked around all morning with them on.  When my mom took them off, she got so upset, she walked over to them, picked them up, and tried to put them back on.
• She started blowing kisses!  I blew her a kiss yesterday, she caught it, and put it in her mouth.  Then, she blew me a kiss!  MAH!
• She started singing herself to sleep.  When she's tired and laying in bed, she will sing herself some of the songs we sing together.  
• She is giving high fives!

Other things going on:

• She hit the developmental period ("wonder week") of principles about two weeks ago.  That means bad sleep and more fussy.  We have two more weeks to go in that, according to the Wonder Week app.  It always happens that the best night of sleep she has is going into a wonder week.  

Postpartum Depression

I knew going into Lily's birth that my stressful pregnancy put me at a higher risk for winding up with postpartum depression.  I thought that escaped it by some luck.  I've dealt with my fair share of stressful situations. But, it slammed us all into THIS reality when we used 4 oz (1+ days) of breastmilk because traffic kept me 30 minutes longer at the gym during vacation on a day when the baby should have been good for hours longer.  The 2-hour trip to the gym was not worth nearly a day and a half of milk.  I cried for days.  I resented the baby.  I was so sad. 

I knew what was wrong and I scheduled an appointment with a therapist immediately. I don't think that helped at all after 8 weeks of therapy.  Eventually, our appointments became about trying to convince me to hire a babysitter (even at 5am), as well as other pieces of parenting advice.  I just didn't connect with the right therapist, and after 8 weeks, I was just wasting my free time. I had to arrange rare outings alone to get to therapy.  I could have spent those two hours having brunch my myself or shopping!  So, I would use my free time in therapy that wasn't useful and still need more free time.

There have been several stories in the news recently of folks with PPD who have lost their grip on reality.  And, mental health treatment in the U.S. has been a hot conversation since Creigh Deed's son attacked his father and killed himself.  Not to mention the weekly shootings that are all too familiar this year.  In my opinion, it is very difficult to get on with daily life while trying to say "Hey! I need some help!"  Our system is missing something major.  To find a therapist, let alone one covered by my insurance, I have to wade through a list of names and addresses, most of whom do not have websites, and try to figure out who would be a good fit for me.  Then, it takes several appointments to figure out that a therapist isn't going to be able to help you, so the search starts all over again.  And, I've wasted covered appointments on my insurance plan trying to figure that out.  How long before I find the right therapist?  And, so many people don't have insurance, or their plans don't cover therapy.

What I need most is someone to take the baby out of the house for hours on a regular basis.  That happened for the first time two weeks ago.  Sean took Lily to Ikea and Silver Diner.  My therapist thought that it was imperative for me to enlist a babysitter or nanny, to spend weeks getting Lily to trust that person, and to spend time seeing if I would trust someone to take her out of the house.  The answer is NO.  I will not trust any person who is not family to drive my daughter anywhere.  But, that weekend was a success.  Hopefully, we'll have another one of those soon.

13 Months

Lily turned 13 months old last week.  She is still walking, but will now army crawl a bit, if the mood strikes her.  She is walking across large spaces and is falling less.  She learned to fall on her hands instead of her head (most of the time).  I muse that maybe this month, she'll be fully walking on her own.  She started getting onto her hands and knees and trying to stand up.  I just laughed at the sight.  Why now, after all this time?  It is like a dream.  Cannot be true.

She has so many words.  She tries to say some and she knows so many.  She says ox, sock, and rock, which come out as "ock"  She also tries to say cat, truck, and some other things. 

She loves to put the hat, sock, and shirt pieces back into her play suitcase.  It is very interesting to watch her turn them the right way. She loves instruments.  Anything you can shake, bang, or press to make noise is a hit.

She loves to touch other people.  She walks up to other kids and grabs them.  These toddlers and preschoolers don't know what to make of it.  Today, another little girl freaked out that the baby touched her. 

Lily is hugging now a lot.  It's so good to have her arms around you after a year of her smacking you away.  Lol.