Timeout

Lily's little dupa seems to be wearing out the fabric on the futon here in the basement. She is now consistently getting a timeout just about every day. This whole business of being jealous of the new baby is getting old very quickly. Hopefully we're dealing with it up front and won't have to do so much later.

On a more positive note, I think Lily is starting to try harder about learning the alphabet. She tends to fight learning something new, but then once she's motivated she learns it very quickly. I understand that I was a bit like that. Maybe I still am in some ways...

A Little Grumpy

Lily is having a hard time with the late stage of the pregnancy. She is starting to get very upset when Amanda won't carry her down the steps. Last night she had a fit after her nap because I gave her water to drink (which she asked for) instead of juice or milk. We ended up having an extended timeout in the basement. We got back upstairs and she sat with Amanda for a while. Amanda asked her if she was sad about the baby coming and she said that she was. Unfortunately, she kept whining and crying so much that we sent her to her room. Amanda and I ate for about 5 minutes while she kept whining. I eventually came to get her.

It was a little disheartening that her first reaction to seeing me was to plop down on the floor and yell, "NO SPANKING!". I sat down next to her and explained that I didn't come to spank her, but to talk to her. She started to settle down and eventually ate a good meal and enjoyed a small hot fudge sundae.

Everything just has to be so difficult with her sometimes.

A Pain in the Neck

Overall, Lily was pretty good yesterday. We finished up a good visit with Grandma Judy and enjoyed a nice day. She had a good nap and, overall, it was a good day.

Then dinnertime rolled around. I got some beef at Sam's Club and grilled it. It certainly wasn't the highest-quality and probably would have profited from more marinating, but it was certainly edible. Lily decided to put up a fight at the end of the meal, which turned into a timeout and spankings in the basement. In the course of picking her up I managed to throw my neck out again and it is sore this morning.

Once Lily realized that we were serious about her punishment (no Memory, no games) after dinner, she turned on the charm. It's amazing how hard she will work to curry favor when she thinks it is in her best interest. We've got to watch out for this one.

More Memories

Lily is definitely my daughter. She played Memory against Grandma Judy yesterday and beat Grandma pretty soundly. We kind of predicted that as Lily could make money if there were Memory boards set up in parks like there are chess boards. What was funny was that my mom didn't make very neat rows and columns when she set up the cards. Lily didn't like that and asked that they be straightened.

My mom does want for me to write the disclaimer that we were discussing my new ice cream cookbook while she was playing.

Making a Good Place Better

I'm not sure how the topic came up, but Amanda and Lily were discussing heaven yesterday. Lily decided that heaven can't be that great because she's not there yet.

A Visit

My mom is coming down for a visit this weekend. We have a bevy of activities planned including:

- Lunch on Friday
- A trip to the beach on Saturday
- A potential trip to Fearrington Village on Sunday
- Going out to Beef O'Brady's to see the Cavs and the Indians play on Sunday evening

It's always good for Lily to get to interact with a grandparent. Unfortunately, there really is no way for us to live closer to any one set of grandparents without alienating the other two. It's good for Lily to spend time with them and I know that they consider it a treat to spend time with Lily (leave a comment if you disagree).

Now if we can just get Lily's 'tude to settle down...

Still Going Backwards

It turns out that Lily is still asking to have her hands washed. I keep trying to explain that she needs to be a big girl for mommy before Sweet Pea comes, but I'm not sure that she is really getting it. I do know that we enjoyed having Brenna, but that it was nice to have the house back to normal tonight.

And, for those who are keeping score, I beat Lily in Memory 23-13 tonight.

Going Backwards

I got a call from Amanda this morning that Lily is moving backwards. She demanded that Amanda help her wash her hands after breakfast. Of course, we currently need to help Brenna wash her hands. Lily has decided that she doesn't like being independent.

I just hope that she doesn't decide to have accidents.

What's killing me now is that I'm in this stupid training when I could be working from home and giving Amanda some help. My selfish side doesn't mind too much, but my trying to be a good husband side does.

Going Shopping

I took Lily and Brenna shopping yesterday. We got back from church, had a pancake and bacon brunch, and then I took them out so Amanda could get a break. I also wanted to see what it was like to be out with two kids. It was certainly harder than one, but not as bad as it might have been. It's good that Lily is pretty well-behaved and that Brenna is fairly angelic.

I will say that it was a bit tricky at the mall. I had Brenna on my shoulders for much of it and Lily did not appreciate that one bit. I think it's something she is going to have to get used to though! Her little brother will be on my shoulders in a year or so, Lord willing.

It should be an interesting time for Amanda today. She plans to take them to the park, perhaps for a picnic. If nothing else, it will kill part of the day. If she can just make it to naptime I think she'll be OK. I think she'll make it. It's just a matter of how much chaos one can stand.

The Big Sister

We've got Lily's cousin Brenna visiting for a few days while her parents spend two nights in Savannah. Lily is just buzzing to get to play with Brenna. She may think that she is going to have a more active role than she is really going to. I think that Lily is ready to be a bossy big sister.

I'm plan to take the two of them to Sam's Club today. We'll see how it goes.

Camping

Lily and I went camping last night at Umstead park. The good news is that the park is only about 15 minutes from our house. It was nice to have that exit plan just in case things didn't go well.

I don't know how things could have gone much better. We had hot dogs for dinner. We had s'mores with Nutella for dessert, though Lily didn't want marshmallow. We played a little checkers, but Lily decided she didn't like it. We played some dominoes. We also played a few rounds of War. Lily didn't have it in her to keep going until one of us had all the cards.

We went to bed around 9. I decided against bringing the air mattress, which was a mistake for me but not a problem for Lily. I found that I couldn't sleep on my side. Basically my night was a series of naps. I still feel pretty good today. The airplanes from RDU stopped around 10:00 or so and didn't start back up until about 5:30.

My main miscalculation was this morning's weather. It was pretty chilly, so I ended up having Lily in the car with the heat going while I packed us up. We got some donuts on the way home and saw Amanda at 8:30. Overall, it was a good time.

Good News!

Lily had no fever yesterday. She doesn't quite have her full appetite back yet, but at least she isn't feverish anymore. It seems that every time she gets really sick we get to the point of saying, "If she's still sick tomorrow we'll go to the doctor" and she gets better that next day. We're very thankful for that.

I have an idea to take Lily camping tonight. We'll have a campfire, cook some hotdogs, and I'm sure she'll play with some rocks. It should be a fun time if we do it. I am, however, a bit concerned about the 30% chance of rain tonight. Fortunately, the place where we'd camp is very close and we can make a gametime decision.

Fever

Poor Lily has been battling a fever since early Monday morning. She will feel boiling hot and then we'll give her some Motrin and she'll be OK for a while. What's incredible is that her temperature was nearly 103 tonight, yet she was still pretty perky.

If she's still feeling low tomorrow we'll take her to the doctor.

Memory

Lily and I play Memory almost every night now. As those of you who read this blog know (since you're probably family or good friends), I have a fairly sharp memory. I may not be able to play sports, sing, or do a lot of physical things, but I can remember some arcane stuff. It would seem that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Last night Lily beat me either 21-15 or 22-14 (I'm not sure which). The point is that she beat me pretty soundly. When she concentrates she doesn't miss much. Imagine that one of us turns over a pair of cards that don't match (train and banana, for example). We could go through a few turns without matching, but if I turn up the matching banana for my second mismatched card, she will often turn that banana over as well as the one that we saw several turns ago.

I'm not keeping close statistics, but I'd say that in the past week it has been pretty even. I really thumped her on Sunday night (I think it was 27-9), but generally we're pretty close. We have had one tie. I also beat her 19-17 one time.

She is a sharp one. We've got to keep an eye on her!

Airshow

I posted this story on my regular blog. It was a good time!

Picking up the Mannerisms

This morning Lily made the statement, "You can just forget it!" She clearly got that one from mommy.

Amanda decorated a cookie cake last night. Apparently Lily provided a running commentary on each of Amanda's actions. As Amanda did each little star Lily would say something like, "Oh, that's a good one!" or "That doesn't look so good." Amanda realizes that there is some justice to this as she knows how she was as a little kid.

Tomorrow is the airshow. I hope the weather holds.

Gag Order

Lily has had some problems with eating over the past few months. She has developed a knack for gagging and vomiting her food when she doesn't like what she's eating. Last night we had leftover pork chops for dinner and she didn't really want to eat hers. She was on the last bite, but we could tell she got the gleam in her eye that told us she was getting ready to toss her chops. We warned her that if she gagged or spit out her food she would have to go right to bed. Despite our warnings she did spit a bunch out. It wasn't a full-fledged vomit, but it was still gross.

Lily ended up going to bed around 6:00 last night instead of her usual 7:30-8:00. We read the two sections out of her "Bible" and then knelt down to pray. First, through tears she asked me to say what I was thankful for before she said anything. Then when we got to "Lily, what do you want to tell God you're sorry for?" she started to break down. Her bottom lip curled as she cried and said, "For gagging on my food." I said her prayers for her and put her to bed.

We ended up having to do two spankings before I got downstairs. For some reason this week she has started getting up in the middle of the night and opening her door a crack. I was going to start trying to work on that, but last night I made a concession that she could do it "after mommy and daddy go to bed." Somehow it eventually "clicked" with her and she went to sleep around 6:30. She actually slept until 7:00 this morning.

Going through this was not very much fun. However, we know that in the end she will benefit from our consistency.