Marco Loves Lily

Watching Lily and Marco play together just melts my heart.  Watching Marco smile, laugh, and play with his older sister makes me just want to jump in and squeeze both of them.  My days are made brighter and my worries forgotten when I watch the two of them interact.  And while I may have already documented a number of these photos in other blog posts, I wanted to share these specific photos because each smile was caused by Lily being a great big sister.  Every time Marco looks at Lily he does so with amazement, with fascination, with love.  And each smile is full of pure happiness and love.  Each of these photos really emphasizes his feelings towards Lily.

(Look at the way he just watches her)...

...(or plays with her).

This is the most recent photo (taken June 24, 2015).  Lily and Marco had their car seats right next to each other in PaPa's truck.  As I was siting on the other side of Marco, I watched Lily reach out and wake Marco up because she wanted to hold his hand.  This is the reaction that Marco gave her.  He smiled.  He was happy and he looked at her with such adoration. For the next ten minutes they sat hand in hand as the world passed them by and just held on to each other.  I was like a fly-on-the-wall and was able to absorb this tender moment and reflect on their actions.  It made me realize that sometimes the world is in such a hurry and things are going by so fast, but what really matters in life is those that you love and how you choose to hold onto them and cherish them - or get caught up in the fast-paced busyness of the world.  Watching Lily and Marco made me realize I need to slow down and show others around me how much I love them and how much they mean to me and not get caught up in the mundane things that can make life seem so crazy.  And that I need to be happy when others reach out to me, and not let go, but hold on to them and show them love back.

Jealousy

Lately, Lily has been going through this kick where anything Marco uses, touches, shows interest in, or looks at... Lily has to somehow be involved also.  

Some things, like bath time, are great!  Baths, that used to take a half hour, now take no more than three minutes.  

Marco's seat has been a little trickier than bath time.  I didn't think that Lily would fit into the things I place Marco inside of... but apparently I was wrong!

Any time we take Marco out of the bumbo, she sneaks her little bottom right in and gets all cozy.  But, this isn't the only thing that she has wanted to use.  She uses his baby bouncer (also seen in the picture above), she wants to lay where he is in the stroller, and she has even asked to be buckled into his carseat once he awakens and we take him out at church.  We will buckle her right in and she sits all comfortable and strapped in for a good twenty minutes before realizing that she is bored of "Marco's toys" and wants to get out and participate in whatever he is doing instead.

But where he sits, lays, and sleeps, aren't the only things that she also wants to be a part of.  She wants our attention more than ever before.  And doing things where I need to give a LOT of attention to Marco, I need reinforcements.  And Michal sure makes a good handy reinforcer.  Sometimes I just can't hack it alone, and I am so, so grateful to him for all the additional help that I receive from him.  He is truly a blessing when it comes to handling two children during difficult times.

But jealousy isn't necessarily a bad thing, because Lily plays so very well with Marco.  She wants to show him how to play with his toys and interacts with him when he is trying to figure things out.  She wants to share and make sure that they are doing the same activity together.  And normally, Lily would never be interested in most of these toys/activities, but now she exemplifies what it means to be a good big sister!

Through this whole experience of Lily's want and need for additional attention (ahem... jealousy), I have realized many things... one of them being that Lily needs more interaction with children her own age until Marco is old enough to really play along with her.  We've tried to get out and visit other Moms in the area who have kids the same age as Lily, and that has helped.  And I've decided that come Fall she will be attending a pre-school a few days a week to help her get involved with boys and girls in similar situations. But the quickest fix to this problem was, deciding last minute, to take a trip out to Utah where Grammy and Pa-Pa could shower her with loads of attention and make sure that she felt loved and the need for jealousy didn't arise.  

She is really such a good kid and loves her baby brother so much, but sometimes a little too much and  I can't get upset at her for wanting to be involved and wanting love.  However, sometimes I don't know how to give her the attention she needs so I'm experimenting with different options.  Each brings new understanding: some positive and some negative.  But overall, I'm growing to love these children, and their love for each other, more and more each day.

Marco 4 Months

May 22, 2015 

FOUR MONTHS OLD

Marco is growing and growing.  He is becoming pretty interactive and is full of smiles.  

Likes

* Classical Music - He settles right down when we play classical music for him.

* Lily

* Sucking his thumb

* His gumbo

* Being swaddled/wrapped in a blanket

* His swing - he still falls asleep in it super easily and sometimes prefers to sleep in his swing at night

Dislikes

* His car seat

* His pacifier

New Skills

* Grasping and holding on to things

*Talking, or squealing, to us

Expert Skills

* Smiling right after eating or waking up

Favorite Toys

* Lily

* Oball

* Any blanket

Firsts

* The first time I heard him laugh was this month

Other

* has trouble pooping consistently

* can't figure out his schedule

* Lily loves him

* Wakes Mommy and Daddy up 1 to 2 times at night

* gets distracted nursing unless i give him all of my attention (no more reading for Mommy)

* loves to fall asleep on Mommy or in the baby carrier on Mommy or Daddy

Marco Dress Up

Have I mentioned that Lily loves dressing herself now?  In addition to her coming up with some pretty interesting clothing choice combinations, Lily also loves to "dress up" Marco.

Here's some of my favorite "dress ups" that I was able to capture on photo.

This particular day I was in the shower.  I came out of the shower to witness Lily having gotten into her bows and making sure that they were all in her hair and all over Marco.  She sure didn't want him to feel left out.

I'm absolutely horrible at remembering to do tummy time.  And this is why... 

Every time I do tummy time with Marco he get smothered by Lily.  Today Lily wanted to make sure that Marco felt loved by giving him her princess stickers that were on her hands and putting them on his hands.  If you look closely you can see Lily's generosity on the back of Marco's hands.

I can't tell if he wasn't happy to have tummy time, or to have princess stickers on his hands... but Lily made sure that Marco was a happy baby once tummy time was over.

Lily also has an obsession with hats lately.  And by obsession I mean sometimes she has to go to bed wearing a hat.  (or when we take a bath, or go to church, etc.)  

This particular day she wanted to make sure that we didn't feel left out by not having a hat. Lily had her winter had on from Babcia, I had a summer hat on, and Marco had a swimming hat on that Auntie Bailey gave Lily last year.  This is what Michal came home to.  He walked in on us "dressed up" and took a photo right away.

Each day is filled with surprises and you never know what you're going to get!

Monday's Garbage Truck

Every Monday the Garbage Truck comes at around 9:30 in the morning.  And to help motivate me to get up and going on a Monday morning... we go and chase the garbage truck.  Lily just loves finding the garbage truck.  Normally when we go on walks I have to give her treats, or my phone in order to get her to sit still.  But the only times where she is able to sit and be complacent with just looking is when we are at the zoo - or when we are searching for the "Big Truck."

The Monday mornings that are the best are the ones where the recycle and the regular garbage truck comes.  Usually if we hit it just right (on a regular Garbage only day) we can see the truck about 9 times.  When we go on the recycle day (if we are lucky) we will see the truck about 14-15 times.  Lily has such an ear for when the truck is right around the corner because she will make sure that I know the garbage truck is coming.

Every time the garbage truck passes us he gives us a nice little honk on his horn... and Lily waves as he goes by.  We don't get the same kind of "love" from the recycle - but we are working on it.

Monday May 18 Lily was so disappointed because we searched for 90 minutes and didn't find either the recycle or the garbage truck.  Normally we only go out an hour, but I wanted to make her happy.  There must have been a different garbage man collecting in our neighborhood that day since we didn't run into him once and he didn't take the usual "normal" route we always see him take.

Until Next Monday...

Marco 3 Month Pictures

Marco is now 3 Months old.

I really wish that I could be better at writing down his milestones and achievements, but I try to make up for it by taking photos.

He now smiles and sleeps and smiles and sleeps and if he is every unhappy we just have to make sure Lily gives him some love and it makes him forget why he is upset.  

Even though Marco's eyes look dark in this photo, they are still a light grey... and I'm convinced that he has red hair (from how many people have commented on it).

I do know that Lily just adores and loves him... sometimes a little too much... but I think that he adores and loves her back.  It just warms my heart when I watch Marco watching Lily.  He looks at her with such amazement and it makes me so happy to know that they feel connected and love for each other.