Reflections on the past year

So this year has been pretty crazy. I don't have anything to compare it to of course, but I think Lilia hit the ground running and never stopped. Here are some interesting facts about Lilia's first year here on Earth!

- She spent more than 40 hrs on airplanes and visited three different countries! (Different parts of Japan, The United States, and Singapore.)

- She has been to the E.R. five times and the first time was when she was only 12 days old. The second time was when she was 7 weeks old. Both visits were because of high fevers and the first visit actually ended with me and her leaving the base in an ambulance for a Japanese hospital!

- Speaking of which, she has spent 3 weeks in a Japanese hospital for Group B strep.

- She didn't crawl on her hands and knees until she was 11 months!

- At 12 months she weighs 25 lbs 6 oz! She is 29 1/2 inches tall.

- Her first word was most likely "Mama" and her second was "Puppy!"

- She and I BOTH made it a full year with nursing! I am very proud of us as the first few months were really tough. (Mastitis is a killer)

- She has been in the ocean (Ft. Walton Beach.)

- She is an extremely social child and loves to be the center of attention. Everyone comments on this whenever we go out. She makes friends quickly and knows how to work a crowd.

- She has only seen her daddy 4 1/2 months this past year! That being said, she definitely knows who he is, talks to him on the phone, and recognizes his picture!

- On the downside, Lilia has never been a good sleeper and she still isn't. I can count on one hand how many times she has slept longer than 1 1/2 hours during the day. Most of her naps are 20-30 minutes. 45 if I am lucky. She used to go to bed at the same time every night and we had a great bedtime routine, but she has apparently outgrown this now that she can pull herself up to standing and crawl around in her crib.

- She is still a joy to me and I don't know what we would do without her! I never knew what to expect before I became a parent and in a nutshell, here is what I have learned. It is ALL TRIAL AND ERROR! I feel like such a punk when I think of how much I expected of my parents. I thought that they should have ALL of the answers and know what they were doing! I apologize and hope that my child will have patience with me and with Cliff and we struggle to find our way through this crazy wonderful maze!


She was never "tiny," but she was definitely a LOT smaller! So cute! (the pen was for a size reference...)
She still makes this face when she sleeps :)
Such a BIG girl!




Playing in a box!
Watching Elmo... in a box!
Going for a stroll on her birthday

One Year Old!!

Cliff isn't here right now so we are going to wait a little bit before we have Lilia's birthday party, but that doesn't mean we can't celebrate today! Chrissy and Mike and Kristin and I took Lilia out to lunch for her birthday today and even treated her to her first slice of cheesecake! At first she wasn't so sure about the candle business, but after we blew it out for her and she tried a taste she decided it was pretty SWEET!

Japanese Jammies!

I had to take a million pictures of this little cutie in these JAPANESE JAMMIES! They are called "jinbei" and my English student bought a pair for Lilia. Too cute!

I have a friend whose little girl occasionally gives the camera a look called "the stank eye." If this isn't Lilia's version... I don't know what is.


And ... she's off!
Can't sit for you all day, mom. I've got things to do.

Oh the places you'll go...

These were all taken a while ago back when Lilia was first really crawling and rolling around. She decided that under the coffee table was just about the coolest place in the house.








With her new found mobility Lilia has been a lot harder to put down for a nap. She rolls and kicks and screams until she wears herself out... in some strange positions..

A little behind! More Cherry Blossoms!

So apparently there are over 100 different kinds of cherry trees. Who knew? They can vary in size of blossom and color and different varieties can bloom at slightly different times too! Mari invited us over a about a month ago to see some of the other blooming trees by her canal.

Stop foolin' around Lilia! We have more cherry blossoms to see!
Kristin and Madelyn enjoying the beautiful weather and scenery

Squinty-eyed Lilia
Snacks
Mari and Heather
A Japanese lady taking a picture of her dog...her dog that was definitely posing for her. Too funny!
Close up!

Goegeous!
Our friend Heather
Lilia and I under the cherry tree.

Sometimes I wish I lived where Mari lives! So pretty!

Update

For those of you that don't follow me on FB, Lilia's culture came back positive for the UTI. We will be going to Yokosuka sometime soon to have further imaging done and she will continue with the antibiotics. She will have to have an ultrasound and a catheter with dye. I am both relieved and frustrated. Relieved that we figured out what was causing the high temps and frustrated that the doctors were SO SURE that this was viral.

In other news... we have been having some absolutely GORGEOUS days lately and I am really glad that Lilia is feeling better so we can go out and enjoy them. Her first birthday is coming up in a week and my parents will be here in two weeks! Lots of things to look forward too!!

Some thoughts

I was thinking the other day, (this is something I do on occasion,) and I thought about all of the thoughts that I imagine myself writing down (typing) and how I never actually get around to doing that. I am going to make a concerted effort to write more. Or maybe rant more. I don't know. That's what blogs are for, though, right? I used to have a live-journal page that I ranted away on multiple times a week. I liked it. It was... therapeutic. So here goes. Here are some of my thoughts.

Lilia is always sick when Cliff is gone. I have dealt with fever, projectile vomiting, Emergency Room visits, blood tests, catheters, chest x-rays, Japanese hospitals, Yokosuka, incompetent doctors, not to mention the usual annoying congestion and cough, ALL ON MY OWN almost always. I am grateful that Cliff was here last year when Lilia had group b strep, but otherwise it has always been just me. It's not fun. In fact, for the most part it is pretty awful and sometime down right terrifying. Lilia had a 104 temp this past week that lasted nearly seven days. The first doctor we saw told me it was teething. I didn't agree and got a second opinion from another crappy doctor who told me it was a virus and gave me the incorrect dosage for tylenol, (do they even GO TO MEDICAL SCHOOL??) I went back in after the 4th day of the fever and they told me that fevers don't normally go that long and that I should come back in a couple more days if the fever persists because that wouldn't be normal and they would be pretty concerned at that point. Well sure enough, it persisted and we had to run a bunch of tests on Lilia ( who literally fought kicking a screaming,) and all we came up with was that it MIGHT me a UTI. *sigh* I just feel helpless out here. Navy medicine is really great if you are healthy. Most of the time I don't want to complain because it is free... but you pay for it in other ways. You always end up paying. I don't want to get into a huge health care debate here, because this blog is for ME, not for you, but I am looking forward to the day when I can choose my doctors again and decide for myself whether I want to use the Navy's program exclusively.

Anywho, Lilia is on antibiotics now for a possible UTI. Her fever finally came down today, but we may never know if that is because of the medicine or if this really was a virus that just took a really really long time to run it's course. Either way it is tough to watch your little one suffer and not know what to do for them. It's even harder to get a call from your husband who is India or Thailand or Indonesia or Mars and have to explain what is going on knowing he is listening and sulking because he can't help. They got a urine sample from her but were unable to draw blood, (they couldn't find a vein through all of her chub,) and so we are waiting on the culture from the sample to confirm if it really was a UTI or not. If it is, she will have to go down to Yokosuka for further evaluation and imaging and if it was negative for UTI we will have to decide whether or not to keep her on the antibiotics. By we, I mean the doctor and myself. Cliff will hear about the decision long after it has been made. This is the way it works around here.

Now please, don't get me wrong. Most days I love our lives here in Japan. Cliff has a wonderful job and he is an amazing provider, husband, and father. I just need to make very clear that the military has it's ups and downs. You learn to turn your lemons into lemonade out here fast or else you are going to wander aimlessly and despondently through life with a nasty pucker face. I have made some WONDERFUL friends out here. Chrissy left work to go to Singapore with me when we found out that Cliff's ship wouldn't be pulling into port. She also came to the E.R. with me yesterday and stayed by my side and even helped us pin Lilia down for her catheter. Friends like that don't come along every day. You also have the chance to BE a great friend out here and you learn about service. You learn to bake an extra batch of cookies when you are in the kitchen and to wave and smile at EVERYONE you see. You learn to surround yourself with uplifting encourage people and let go of the gossips and the pessimists. You become more compassionate. More adventurous. More independent. You learn what really matters and to discard what really doesn't. You learn to be flexible. You learn a lot about calendars.

That is my rant for today. Thank you for enduring (it) if you made it this far.