A Joyful Chapter in Shiloh's Life (and a LONG blog!)

While every day with Shiloh up until this point has been filled with joy, the last few weeks I have especially noticed the joy in her life. It makes me think about how in the Bible, Shiloh was referred to as the town where God was dwelling, since the Ark of the Covenant was kept there. God definitely dwells in this amazing girl and we are so privileged to be her parents! We searched long and hard for a name that meant joy, because we wanted our daughter to have true joy. Instead we ended up choosing the name Shiloh, and it appears she has been blessed with abundant joy anyway! Wow!

Laughing with Shiloh has to be one of my favorite things in life. Chris describes her as having more of a chuckle, but occasionally, she will burst out laughing, and we have so much fun together. I'll insert a video here of her laughing at me, although this is the second time around, so imagine her laughing much more robustly the first time we played the game:

Shiloh is doing so much now! She is really enjoying music (big surprise there...). She has always been calmed by one of us singing to her, but since the band Go Fish performed a concert at our Vacation Bible Camp at church, something has changed. She gets the biggest smile on her face when I start up a Go Fish CD and starts bouncing and clapping. Her piano skills have improved considerably as well.

Shiloh is taking more and more steps every day (her first steps being June 20). I'm truly surprised that she's not running yet. She is so eager to just go, go, go and do, do, do. What a busy little girl she is! I really think that if she would slow down and not try to carry her largest stuffed animal and a book at the same time while trying to walk, that she could focus on her feet and would be off!! But she's developing this skill plenty fast as it is. I've explained to her that if she would just set some stuff down she could walk more easily, but apparently she's already ignoring my advice :o).

Some other things have just recently seemed to "click" for Shiloh. After signing to her for over four months she is finally signing back!! It is so exciting to have her tell us that she wants milk or more. She understands the signs for drink and eat as well, although she hasn't started using those yet. It seems that she's made up her own sign for dirty diaper as well, so we're ready to start introducing more signs. I think we'll find the actual sign for diaper to teach her along with help, hurt, please, and thank you next. Shiloh has also used her hands to communicate lately by pointing and (finally) clapping. She was slow to clap, but she's making up for lost time now! She is also waving bye-bye like it's her job. It's often delayed (like after Daddy leaves), but is almost always there. She is particularly fond of waving hello to Lucy, or any animal!



Waving also seems to be helping with bedtime. She's been going down without a fight most nights now and sometimes even sleeping from 8:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. Wow! Talk about a blessing! It all seemed to change the night I waved bye-bye. It was as if she understand that it was okay for me to leave. Of course things are always changing, but at least for this season, short as it may be, she's going to bed well and I'm sometimes getting some nice solid hours of sleep.

When it comes to eating, it's hard to tell what Shiloh is going to want from day to day. Some days she wants to feed herself, other days she doesn't want anything to touch her mouth. Anything that is, except cantaloupe. Or watermelon. Or honeydew. But mostly cantaloupe. I think it is her favorite food at this point. Melon is followed closely by cheese and yogurt. And we finally had success with applesauce:

We've started whole milk and I have officially stopped pumping at work as of this Monday. I am very grateful for a good pump and the opportunity to give Shiloh the best nutritional start I could, but I cannot even express what a relief it is to be done pumping at work. It is another job in and of itself! I love nursing, though, and am not in much of a hurry to wean Shiloh. I'll let her take the lead on that for now. And she mostly still enjoys it, when she takes a moment to actually slow down and eat, that is!

There's so much more to say, so even though this is long already, I'm going to keep going! Shiloh's top front tooth made a final appearance after taking a good week to decide it was actually going to stay put. It looks like she is super close to cutting her other top, front tooth as well. Shiloh is excellent at expressing her likes and dislikes. This is a good thing. Really, it is. (Yes, I am reminding myself this important point.) Her tendency to shriek very loudly lately when she doesn't get what she wants is, well, it's loud. Luckily, even with her new-found power to make really loud noise, Shiloh is very persistent, not getting frustrated easily when she has a task in mind. It is fascinating to watch her persist with a task she has determined for herself.

Shiloh likes to play catch, often initiating the game, even with dogs! She loves looking at books and loves taking them all off of her shelf. She has been showing affection to her baby doll by hugging her. We get occasional kisses from Shiloh too! Her language is developing like crazy, especially her receptive language. When I picked her up from Robyn's house one time last week, I saw the baby doll around the corner from where Shiloh was playing. After greeting her I asked, "Where's your baby?" knowing it was out of sight. She promptly stopped what she was doing and crawled right over to get her baby. She'll do the same thing with her monkey, and now her binky as well.



We've been so super busy over the last month...but some of the fun things we've done together include:

• Celebrating Chris' first Father's Day! Shiloh ate French Toast (Daddy's favorite) while sporting her new bib. She also suggested we get him a hammock stand for the hammock we've had for almost 4 years as a way to encourage him to rest and take a Sabbath. What a great idea, Shiloh!
  

• Enjoying Sturgis Falls parade and celebration. Wow...that jumbo corn dog just looks delicious...

• Attempt at swimming in our little pool at home (which resulted in unhappy shrieking but eventually happy play by the side of the pool). This was followed up by a spur of the moment trip last Thursday to successfully enjoy an hour at the Falls pool which has a zero entry area that was perfect for Shiloh. She also really enjoyed riding in an inner tube down the lazy river with Mom or Dad pushing her.

• 4th of July-no fireworks this year, but Shiloh was super good as Mom and Dad split up to help with different weddings that day. She was a great girl while I did makeup for Kristen and Charlie's wedding, hardly even getting fussy for an entire day away from home!

On the challenges front:

• We're still dealing with diaper rash and Shiloh scratching herself despite all the things we're trying (treated cloth diapers, disposable diapers, changing very frequently, only using water and cloth instead of diaper wipes, cornstarch on every diaper, letting her go diaperless-although you've read about my success with that!, a food diary, less baths, aveeno oatmeal in the baths, creams, creams, creams, etc).

• A possible egg allergy? Shiloh gave Robyn a scare one day after barely eating a little bit of a hard boiled egg and immediately getting very fussy and breaking out in a rash. We'll definitely be staying away from eggs for awhile...

• We also said goodbye to Edmund the cat and half of one of our trees due to a much too expensive bladder treatment (we were looking at a minimum $200 treatment for the cat vs. $35 to end his pain peacefully from a baseball-sized obstructed bladder) and a storm with high winds. We lost both on the same night. We do miss Edmund, but not enough to get another cat for a long time :o)

If you've made it this far actually reading everything, I'm impressed! Thanks for caring about our lives that much! Less than a month until the big 0-1. We're pumped to celebrate 1 year of Shiloh's life. Thanks for being a part of it!

A series of mistakes...and a taste of something gooey

Mistake #1: Getting a cat
Mistake #2: Taking a shower
Mistake #3: Leaving the diaper off
Mistake #4: Not bringing Shiloh into the shower with me the first time
Mistake #5: Not owning or even hoping to own a jumper or exersaucer or anything like that

So now that I have officially owned up to my mistakes, let me lay out the situation for you. It is Sunday morning. I am pleading with Shiloh to take a nap so I can jump in the shower and get ready for church. She doesn't comply. Usually when this happens, I bring some toys in the bathroom and she plays happily while I get ready. Or, one time I showered with her. But that was much too difficult and I decided against it this time.

This Sunday morning was different though. I couldn't bring Shiloh in the bathroom with me this time because of the cat (see Mistake #1). While I loved our cat growing up, little did I know how much work they really can be once you're the adult and responsible for completely taking care of the cat. Even when it gets a urinary tract infection and is peeing blood every 10 minutes. Yes, our dear little Edmund cat was peeing blood and peeing everywhere except the litter box and therefore was locked in the bathroom Sunday morning. It was not an appropriate place for a baby. It was downright disgusting and even though we had just spent the money on antibiotics, it was taking a lot of restraint to not throw the cat out the window! And to not throw up. Yuck.

So, to remind you of the situation, it's drawing dangerously near time to leave for church, I really need to get in the shower, Shiloh won't nap and can't come in the cat contaminated bathroom with me. Oh yes, and she still has yet another yeast infection and therefore I am leaving her diaper off as much as possible when I'm at home with her (see Mistake #3) . And, as my boss pointed out to me, we don't have any type of exersaucer or restraining device for a mobile infant (see Mistake #5).

I decide to get in the shower (see Mistake #2) despite these things and let her play upstairs in the safety of her room, with the ability to get into our room and the hallway as well. I close myself in the bathroom and jump in the shower and she starts crying because I've left her. But as I quickly shampoo my hair, she stops crying. I feel relieved, but pray that she's okay, and keep hurrying through the shower. Then I hear crying again and banging on the bathroom door. I assure her I'm coming soon, and pretty much do.

And this is what I find. My beautiful daughter covered in chunks and smears of poop, tasting and deciding she doesn't like the taste of her own poop, and crying because being covered in poop is not a fun thing at all. I also proceed to find poop smears in her room, my room and the hallway. Mostly, I understood the true meaning of the word shit. All I could do was laugh. And of course take Shiloh into the bathtub and clean her up (see Mistake #4).

After cleaning her up, I nursed her and as I was hoping, she got drowsy. Just as I was ready to put my sleeping babe into the crib so I could clean up the poo, she chokes on a swig of milk and is wide awake. There is no going back to the drowsy state. I decide we should just run away. But then I remember we're both pretty much naked and even though running away would solve my problem of cleaning up the poo, I really would miss Chris.....so I decide to stay. I put diapered Shiloh in her crib with some toys (even though it felt a little bit too much like sticking Lucy in her kennel) and wonder why I didn't do that in the first place (see Mistake #5). There was nothing else to do, though. She had poop in every room upstairs except the off-limits cat-infested bathroom and the off-limits office with computer cords, etc.

I find out from a quick google search that hydrogen peroxide works great to get poop out of carpets. Perfect! It's cheap and I have some! Well, I had a few teaspoons left, anyway. Of course I don't have enough. That would make something go smoothly this morning! So I use what I have and spray some cleaner on the rest while I go find the spot lifter. As I begin using the little carpet cleaner that was actually charged up and ready to go, I wonder if you're allowed to use it with other cleaners. I soon found the answer to that as out from the vents on the side shoots foaming poop water onto my legs (see Mistake #2).

In case you're wondering, we didn't make it to church this Sunday. And I'm proud to say I didn't once regret being a mom or doing anything it takes to take care of Shiloh. That cat on the other hand........

Our little go-getter

Shiloh has been super fun and entertaining as she's moved into her 9th month of life outside of the womb. Take a look at what she can do!

• Crawling with items, climbing stairs with items (don't worry, we're right behind her!), standing up with items, and bending down from standing to pick up an item and standing right back up!
• The item to crawl with is preferably a sock or Mommy's slippers
• She laughs when she hears/sees us laughing
• She loves eating. But lately only if she is feeding herself, or at least holding a spoon at the same time. Here she is enjoying her first homemade waffle and her first avocado (I know...no bib again, but I figure if the shirt is already dirty, why put on a bib and get that dirty too?!)
• Squeals when I come home from work (now THAT'S a good Mother's Day gift!)
• Puts the ribbon tied to her stuffed puppy in her mouth and just leaves it there while she plays
• Squeals in delight and laughs when she sees either her puppy or kitty and quickly crawls after them
• Starting to cruise along furniture and pulls up on everything
  
• Will play by herself for a little, but often comes to "touch base" with us before continuing playing
• Used to be on her hands and knees when she woke up from naps and in the middle of the night...now she's almost always standing.
• Waving bye-bye and playing so big
• Opening cupboards, drawers, and doors
• Turning off the lights when we leave the room
• Drinking water out of a cup (this was one of the first times she didn't spill all over!)
  

My first Mother's day was wonderful. It started with an early phone call to my mom. I was hoping to catch her in Colorado before she and my dad went to church, house hunting and then she headed back to Wyoming-and I did! Then Shiloh and I joined Chris at church and I decided Mother's day is more fun than your birthday because everyone knows you're a mother and so lots of people give you nice greetings! Then we headed to lunch at our favorite restaurant, the Cu, in Waterloo, treating Chris' parents for a Mother's day brunch. That was followed by a trip to the pet store to buy cat litter, but mostly for a field trip for Shiloh. Next we all found some great deals shopping at TJ Maxx and finally came home. Chris surprised me by planning ahead and ordering me a fun new bag/purse that is sporty, functional, yet nice enough to take as a purse even when I don't carry anything for Shiloh in it. Thanks, honey :o)

The only unfortunate part of the day was when we arrived home and took Shiloh's temperature to find that she had a fever. Monday led me to the doctor again (for the 3rd week in a row) to find out she has an ear infection. This did however, allow me to find time to write....she's sleeping on my chest wrapped up in our still very functional moby wrap sling. I took my first sick day ever (except for maternity leave) so I could stay home and cuddle Shiloh today, and I don't regret it. We've enjoyed lots of naps and lots of laundry as she has managed to puke on or spit medicine on everything in sight today! On a better note, the diaper itching/yeast infection is almost better after 3 different prescription creams and an oral. I've felt like I've spent more time at the doctor than at home the last 3 weeks!

That's all for now, I'm planning to get some more pictures uploaded to the picasa site if this nap continues :o)

What a big girl!

So once again, I apologize for the length between posts! Shiloh continues to be such a joy and delight and we are working hard at carving out time to enjoy her and be together as a family and actually resting! It's been a blessed journey, trying to discover the meaning of taking a Sabbath and we're trying hard at making some lifestyle changes. We continue to stay quite busy with our work and jobs, both experiencing some highly challenging weeks lately! We remain grateful for all the love and support we have and for a loving God who keeps us close!

During the last month and a half I have managed to jot dates down in Shiloh's baby book, so even though the news is late, at least it's here now! (You'll notice the date at the top for this blog entry says April 1....I had good intentions even though it didn't actually get finished until April 19!!) Enjoy her updates and pictures and I'll keep doing my best to keep everyone up to date!

• She is officially off and crawling, and is quite fast even on the "slippery" floors now She started going forward Mar. 11 and started crawling Mar. 26. This video is from Mar. 27.

• Wakes up on her tummy almost always, or is at least on her hands and knees when we come to get her.

• Has two bottom front teeth that came in as rather a surprise (March 31 & April 5)
  

• Took a spring break trip to visit lots of family and friends in Colorado and Nebraska (making Shiloh's state count 10 in her short 8 months!)
  

• Pulls herself up to standing on furniture and people (April 2)
  

• Was, of course, adorable in her Easter outfit

• Continues to love eating and trying new foods

• Loves the cat and dog water bowls and dumping them over
  

• Developing her pincer grasp and showing it off when she eats her cheerios
  

• AND, we are so thankful for God's blessing upon Shiloh's thumb that appears to be working almost flawlessly now! I doubt we will even go back to the specialist at all! Thank you for your prayers!

That being said, here are some more videos and be sure to look at the spring 2009 photos on our picasa site

Trigger Thumb

Just a quick update to let you know that the doctor does indeed believe that Shiloh has trigger thumb. Basically her tendon gets stuck and can't fit through the space it normally should, causing her thumb to lock. We go back in three months if it is still locked to discuss surgery which would fix the problem. We're definitely praying that it will unlock on it's own! In the meantime, enjoy this quick video of Shiloh attempting to move. She's gone from hands and knees position to hands and feet...

Eating, crawling, and all that good stuff!

It certainly hasn't been the lack of new things to write about that has kept me from writing this past month! Shiloh is growing and changing daily, and Mom and Dad (and everyone else who sees her) have been enjoying her greatly.

We started introducing some solid foods right around Shiloh's 6 month mark. We've done squash, brown rice cereal, and banana so far. We're making as much of our own food as possible and trying hard to feed her foods that are organic and without dyes or added sugars for the first 3 years. That means Mom and Dad will have to stop eating those things before long too so as to be good role models... :o) This picture is the official first tasting, although we were rather rushed and it wasn't the best time to actually try out the food.

A few days later, you can see her (and us) enjoying the experience quite a bit more....
Along with food we're introducing three sign language signs to Shiloh: more, eat, and milk. Research shows that these three are the easiest for babies to learn and that if you start around 6 months they may be able to use them by 8 or 9 months! It is crazy to think that in a couple months she could tell us that she wants to eat or nurse. And I have a feeling she will since she loves doing things with her hands and since she appears to have inherited a love of food from both Momma and Dada!

Speaking of Dada, Shiloh has been developing her babbling skills quite well. She has the dada down, along with bob (not quite sure which Bob she's referring to...), the occasional mama and gaga as well as other random noises that always make us smile.

Shiloh is getting very close to crawling. She enjoys her time on her hands and knees so much more now than before. She's rocking back and forth in the correct position and will pick up one hand to grab a toy in front of her. It won't be long and we have a feeling life will completely change once again!

No teeth yet, despite many people being sure her sucking, chomping, and chewing early on were indicators of soon-to-be-teeth. We're definitely okay with waiting for that process as well! The way Shiloh attacks things with her mouth certainly makes us wonder when those pearly whites will make their grand entry.


Shiloh has joined all the other boys and girls in the world who love to blow snot bubbles. We have yet to capture one on film, but are grateful that her colds haven't gotten worse than congestion, some snot, and now a little cough. We will however be taking her to a specialist in Cedar Rapids next week to have her left thumb checked out. It is almost always stuck in a bent position, making it difficult for her to use her left thumb (understandably so). We have noticed for a while that Shiloh uses her right hand far more than her left, but Robyn actually noticed the thumb a few weeks ago (thanks Robyn!). We're hoping they will say it is something she will grow out of, although the doctor kept asking me if "trigger finger" runs in the family. Maybe Shiloh is just destined to a career of duck hunting or being a sharp shooter. We'll be sure to update once we find out some more.

Otherwise, we're gearing up for Chris' birthday on the 22nd. We already went on a much needed date last night to celebrate while Larry and Emily watched Shiloh for a couple hours. Several friends are getting together tonight to celebrate and the Tripolino fun will happen after church on Sunday. Birthdays are worth dragging out as long as possible, right?

As always check out the picasa photo album for more pictures! And keep hoping I'll post more than once a month....maybe I will :o)

Snow and bubbles

Our little baby is 5 1/2 months already! She is becoming more and more fun each day and I often think about how amazing it is that we are her parents. I love loving her! There are so many things to catch you up on, so I decided to just give you some highlights from the past two weeks and let you look at our picasa photo album to see pictures of Christmas, etc.

Shiloh's biggest developmental milestone is that she is sitting on her own for a good 10-15 minutes! She started sitting for very short amounts of time right around Christmas, and by her 5 month birthday, she hardly needed assistance anymore! Of course she tends to be wobbly sometimes still, but it's amazing to watch her learn how to control her body and begin to think about scooting (she can go backwards already.....we're not quite ready for this!) Along with sitting, Shiloh is spitting up much less (yay!) and it is evident that she is really starting to develop object permanence. Shiloh's new favorite activities include eating paper and playing with tags. Her taggie blankets are getting lots of good use now!

The following videos remind me of what I do at work. It is so much fun to be able to apply what I do with low-income families at work to my own daughter. I never knew how my job would prepare me so much for being a parent! Okay, now for what you've all been waiting for...watch the videos!