To Be Decided: January 2013

Tonight as I was holding Lily, I was telling Bobbie Jo how much she soothes me. Life is stressful. Life with two kids is "stressfuller". When I'm alone with Lily, she makes all of the stress vanish.
Bobbie Jo asked if I remembered what it was like when we first heard the news that the second kid was going to be a 'she'; I was not too happy at that news so many months ago. Having grown up with only brothers, I never had any experience with girls. I was comfortable with another boy, a girl was going to be tough.
It didn't take me long to fully understand the stories that all men have told since the beginning of time; that all little girls hold a special place in their daddies hearts.

Lily hasn't gotten the blog attention that her older brother got. I updated the blog with every milestone that we experienced with Max. While some of the detail will never get written, I'd like to reminisce about these last 10 months with the Goat.

We've been lucky enough to have two wonderful babies. Lily was an even better baby than Max was. Initially we would put her to bed, and she would wake a few times a night for feedings. After a short time we would wake her up once in the middle of the night to feed her. At around two months she would sleep through the night without any additional feedings. At that time we put her to bed at 11. When we started putting her to bed at 9, we would feed her again at 11pm. It wasn't long until she was sleeping from 9pm to 9am almost every night, without the 11:00 bottle. I've talked to many people with babies at the same age and Lily is not the norm.

Bobbie Jo would frequently tell me that Lily would watch me when I entered the room, and that it looked like she had a special love for her Daddy. I used to chalk that up to Bobbie Jo trying to convince me to love this little girl as much as I do her brother (since Bobbie Jo still believes I wish she had been born with different plumbing). I quickly came to realize this was the case. She did really like me. The bond that Max has always had with Mommy (and so many boys have with their mothers), was now replicated between Lily and me. Lily has me wrapped around her chubby little fingers. I think I'm in trouble when she gets older.

Just like her brother, Lily has an awesome personality. She's comfortable around most people. Loves to laugh, play, and get attention. Initially she was very different from Max. Max could never be left alone. If we weren't in the room with him, he would cry. Lily was the opposite. We could put her in her exersaucer for hours. She would look around and talk to herself. She was totally content. She's still great on her own. She'll play on the floor with her toys for hours. She'll sit in her high chair for just as long. She's gotten more dependent as she's gotten older, but generally it's only when she's tired. It's very different than it was with Max. Not better, just different.

When she first started climbing the stairs, she would only climb them when there were people at the top of them that she wanted to see. We didn't need a gate, we knew that if she was downstairs she would only come up if we weren't. That lasted less than a week. Soon she realized that she didn't need to stay downstairs. She'd look over her shoulder at us, smile, and start up the stairs as an adventure. We'd chase after her. We'd laugh. She'd laugh. Now there's a gate.

As she crawls around the floor she "vacuums". Anything she can find in the carpet, no matter how small, goes in her mouth. I'm unsure if she is aware of what a goat is, but she is doing an outstanding job living up to her nickname. She knows she shouldn't be eating carpet fuzz. When she finds her snack she immediately crams it into her mouth in hopes we won't get to it first. Last week she and I were in her room and she found a nicely sized chunk of fuzz. She picked it up and looked at me. I shook my head and said "no". She then crawled behind the door, where she thought I couldn't see her. I watched her sit up, look at her fuzz, and happily put it in her mouth. She knows what she's doing. And she's trouble.

She is a great eater. I remember having to trick Max when we'd try to get him to eat baby food he didn't like (I think green beans were tough). Lily eats everything we've given her. Over Christmas as Max eats his chicken nuggets or Mac & Cheese, Lily has been eating mashed potatoes, veggies, rolls, eggs, everything we give her. I fully expect that she will be eating the foods we eat long before Max will.

There are so many things to tell about her. She loves her stuffed animals. She loves playing with her cups. Bobbie Jo loves dressing her up like a girl. She's teething and has hardly been fussy at all. She'll be walking any day now, she is already trying to stand and take steps between things. She is an incredible little girl.

I love my kids, both of them, more than I ever thought possible. Parenthood is tough. Tougher than I thought it would be. The rewards, however, are amazing, greater than I thought they would be. I am so glad I have become a parent. I am so happy to have these two incredible little people in my life. I'm looking forward to seeing where everything goes next. It makes everything worth it.

-James