It what seems to be the blink of an eye, Lily has gone from crawling, to taking assisted and very clumsy steps, to walking independently. She walks everywhere now, and it’s honestly weird for us to see a little person casually strolling around the house. She’s still got the little T-Rex/Frankenstein arms, but her balance and coordination are getting better every day.
And speaking of moving, this is it. In two days we go to settlement, then will move over the weekend. The stress of the entire process, plus a baby, plus both of us working long hours lately has really worn us down. But many thanks to our family and friends who have helped out in so many ways over the recent weeks! We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a smooth weekend, and should be enjoying our new house before we know it!
Lily had some follow-up blood work done recently (just the RAST test – not that awful scratch procedure down her back) and we were elated to see some encouraging results. Of her formidable list of allergies a few months ago, it appears that she’s down to only three now: eggs, wheat, and peanuts. While this will still require us to stay on our toes about what she eats, it opens up all kinds of great new food possibilities for her – things like oats, rice, dairy, soy, and corn. We’ll just need to keep a close eye on her as we slowly introduce those previous allergens into her diet.
And this comes at a good time – Little Miss Opinions is starting to get very bored with her limited menu. Perhaps now more food will go into the mouth than thrown onto the floor.
As predicted, we’re now in the thick of it. Immediately after our last update, we did indeed get our house on the market. We had at least a dozen potential buyers just over the first weekend! It was tough to keep the house clean, live in it, and take care of Lily while all that was going on – but nice to see so much interest in the property.
Luckily, after only two weeks, we received a great offer! There was only a little bit of back and forth, and we’re now into patching up a few findings from the home inspection. The offer isn’t fully ratified yet, but was more than enough for Stephanie and I to turn our attentions to placing an offer of our own. We ultimately had to sit down and make a very tough decision between two great properties, but were very happy to present an offer on a great place off route 7100 just a few miles down the road. Incredibly, we were lucky to hear our offer was accepted with only a few very small changes!
At this point, everything truly is happening all at once. Since neither the buyer’s nor our own offer is fully ratified yet, there are several contingencies in place and we can’t really call it a done deal just yet. Hearing a “congratulations” from our agent made us feel good, though. Lots more paperwork to go, but it’s sounding like May 28th will be the big day (coinciding settlements will make for a long one).
Over the past few weeks, Lily has been teasing us with her slow and steady progress in learning to walk. She’s been able to stumble around for a while, but she’s always needed to hold our hands. Well after tons of practice, she finally took a few steps on her own last night! It was probably due to mommy and I cheering at her, but she thought the whole milestone was just hilarious.
We couldn’t believe how much more carefully we needed to watch her once she started recklessly crawling, so I’m not sure we can fully appreciate how crazy it will be once she really starts running around. Yikes.
Walking has also coincided with another fun milestone this week. She’s been babbling like crazy for months, but has only recently been articulating genuine words (with real meaning). Well rather than waking up each morning with her usual nonsensical discussions, we’ve heard a loud and sing-song “DAAAD! DAAAD!” for the past few days. Ug. Why not mommy? Daddy’s not ready to wake up yet.
A few months ago, we started talking about moving. Two biblical snowstorms and a family-wide stomach bug later, we realized it was suddenly March and we’d barely done anything besides some financial planning and minor online house-hunting. So we mustered up all our discipline and sat down once again with our agent to pull the trigger on this adventure.
Fortunately, I think we’ve accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. My parents were gracious enough to open up a full corner of their basement, and we’ve packed it to the brim with random junk in an effort to declutter our place so it’s suitable to get on the market and show. We’ve seen enough of those TLC shows to know there was just too much stuff in the way. We have also been cleaning like never before and are now ready to actually get a sign out on the lawn.
Within the next day or two we should be on the market, and then despite the fact that we have no need to rush through this process, I imagine things will start happening very quickly.
Lily entered her teens the other day, but thankfully it’s the good kind (as measured in months). I don’t even want to think about the chaos that will be my baby girl at thirteen years. She’s just so much dang fun to be around these days, so I suppose I should savor it now!
Photo updates today: I renamed her original album to “0-12 months,” and created a new one to cover the coming year. These are always available via the “Photos” link along the top of the website. Enjoy!
