We're Going to Pump You Up!

Lily shows off her big muscles. Super strong baby.

June is Strawberry Moon

The color is a little brighter than real life on this, but I had night lighting so it looks redder than it is. Anyway, it's a bit more pinkish and there's sort of a red painting at the top of a strawberry vine with berries on it. I made this today, finally finished it, for a project my local art group did, a 2009 calendar with a theme of the full moons. I picked June because that's when Lily was born, and then one night I was inspired to write a poem about her eating strawberries. So I used that and did a packing tape transfer of the poem and the month title, and then hand-lettered or drew or painted the rest on to thick watercolor paper. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Now I'll just make color copies of this for the rest of the group and I'm done! It's nice to finish a project I've been pondering on forever. (If you click on the picture it will show the larger size and you'll be able to read the poem.)

Oooh!

Daddy and Lily making an "O" noise while reading the book And the Train Goes, one of her favorites right now. We read it every day, sometimes several times a day. I think this might be at the end, where the train goes "Woo-wooooooooooo!"

Lily's recognition of objects in books is getting really good now. Of course she points to and says "dog" to every dog she can find in any book. Doesn't matter what the book is about. Baby Jesus, the Nativity story? Who cares about that, look! There's a dog next to the manger!

Today we got a new book in the mail (from my favorite book swap service online--Paperback Swap) with woodcut pictures of animals. When I pointed out the gorilla, and said "Just like the gorilla in Goodnight, Gorilla," which is a book and Scholastic DVD we have, she went and got the DVD for me, so she understood exactly what I meant! How cool is that? And when I asked her where other animals were, like "Can you point to the sheep?" and "Where is the milk?" she pointed right to them.

Of course, I have to be more careful now because she really is listening to everything I say. So the other day while she was eating and I said to John, "Hey, she hasn't dumped her food tub!" she promptly dumped her food tub. Oops.

Big Girl

If you can believe it, the baby doll Lily is holding is the first outfit she grew out of in the hospital. She was that tiny! And now look at her! What a big girl! Her hair is getting really long, too, growing out all over the place. It always looks really funny after a nap. We are talking about maybe getting her a haircut, just to get it shaped somewhat, so it's not so crazy. But I so want it to get long and thick enough so I can play with it and braid it and make pigtails and put hairclips in it (which she'll probably pull right out like she does when she sees my hair clips).

monkey happiness!

It's funny, Lily has really gotten into her stuffed animals lately. She hugs them all the time and wants us to hug them, and then with Curious George she laughs and holds him out in front of her and runs around laughing. She's still partial to the brown bear Steve gave her on her 1st birthday, and he's the one who gets crib time and nap duty, but sometimes lately it's been difficult to decide lately. Yesterday it was brown bear, white bear, and baby doll. Eventually white bear won out, but it was a tough choice.

Lily Reading

John caught this shot of Lily studying the Children's Museum newsletter. I should send it to the Museum.

Another Reason We Like Children's Hospital

They have good books in the exam rooms. This one was about a dog and a duckling who become best buddies, and it's based on a true story.

Cranky Virus

Last week Lily seemed to be not quite her perky self. She had a fever a couple days and a runny nose, but then nothin', just cranky and clingy and not sleeping well and not much energy. I tried to get an appt at the clinic to check for an ear infection but they were all booked up so we ended up going to the ER on Friday. She was sooooo goood. First of all, after battling with her for 3 hours to nap (including 2 meals, lots of books, playing, and snuggling), she fell asleep on the 10-minute drive to the hospital...but that was good. Then it was easy for them to put on an ankle id tag and take her blood pressure and stuff. She woke up after about 30 minutes and we saw the doc, who checked her ears while Lily sat on Daddy's lap. She didn't like the pokey ear thing but she didn't scream or cry either.

So here she is in her hospital gown, which luckily for us had dogs on it, so she was happy to wear it. No ear infection, but probably a virus. In fact, her discharge papers identify her condition as having "1 of 200" possible viruses. That will probably last another week. Can't treat it, except to give her some Ibuprofen at night to help her sleep better. Sometimes it helps, but she's still waking up in the middle of night crying sometimes and just wants to be held by Daddy.

Art Supplies In Action

This was one of Lily's favorite things to do today: take the colored pencils out of the jar. Then put them back in. But maybe not all of them. Then take them out. Maybe dump them out. And pick them up and put them back in the jar again. She was very focused on this experiment and took it very seriously.

I am trying more and more to stop using the word "mess" around Lily. Like this, it's not a mess. She's even kind of cleaning it up. But she's exploring picking up small things, using her fine motor skills. And learning to put things back after she's done with them. So it's all good. I was amazed at how long this entertained her. Which is good, because it was like -20 outside today so we were stuck in.

Silly Happy Baby

This baby is blurry a lot, because she's laughing and movin'. The top one has Lily throttling Fisher Price Mommy. In the bottom pic, she's wearing a long string of cranberry-colored beads that never made it on to the tree because it's too fun to drag around and make Mommy or Daddy hold the other end or shake it. Amazing how the simplest things can inspire so much fun.

Hey I'm Brushin' My Teeth Here

In my candy pajamas. See my tummy? My belly button is just peekin' out.

Adventure Peak Again

We went back to the indoor playground/climbing tower the Friday before John went back to work after Christmas and Lily had a great time. She's getting more adventurous, or maybe it was just because Dad was there that she wanted to explore more. Dads have that effect.

Pimp My Crib

Bling bling! Green rope light on the crib! Oh, put down the phone. We didn't leave it on there, don't call Child Services. Jeez. Just havin' a little fun. This is actually the first picture in a project I started on Flickr called Project 365. You post a picture every day and it has to be a pic you took that day. Several of mine so far are of Lily. You can see them here. I'm also doing another one that's similar but it's of the same object every day for a year. So the object I'm using is an old Fisher Price Mommy. You can see my pics so far on that one here. I like taking pictures so it's really a fun project so far. I'll put links on the sidebar here so you can look at my project periodically if you want. You can click on each individual picture to see my description or you can do a slideshow by clicking on the tiny gray tab up near the right corner.

Dog Burglar!

Well, she's not a cat burglar, obviously, because she's wearing a dog outfit. And she looks like a little burglar with the hoodie up. So here she is grabbing the jewels, and then making off them, right past the camera. No fear. No guilt. It's just MINE.

Experimenting with Sound

Hahaha! The past couple of days, Lily has found that if she smushes her face on this footstool and blows real hard through her mouth, she can make funny noises. They're basically fart noises. They're hilarious, and we can't help but laugh. She also thinks it amusing.

Mom 'n' Lily nappin'

I generally nap with Lily at least part of her nap every day. This is from a few days ago and we'd just gotten home from errands and baby was too asleep to get out of her jacket. So I just snuggled up next to her. We almost never put her in the crib for naps. I can't fit in there. She can get down off our bed ok by herself now and today I had gotten up after we were asleep a while and about 10 minutes later she came running quite wobbily to me looking upset, her arms outstretched. I don't know if she had a bad dream or what but I scooped her up and we went back to the bed and she slept on my chest for a while, which I love, love, love. Even when she rolled off to be on the bed, she didn't let go of me, wanted me close. So I stayed there. It's nice to feel needed. Today was John's first day back at work after Christmas vacation and during the time he was home I have to admit I felt a bit jealous at times that she always chose Daddy over me if we were both available.

Some Christmas Morning Pics

The bottom pic is Lily in her new Santa jammies from Aunt Wendy, she's climbed up on the buffet to look at the Christmas decorations, including a tiny train that goes around a little track.

In the top pic you see Lily wearing a new pink sweater from Auntie Kath, and playing with a fun toy from Dave and family. She figured out how to make it work right away. You press down on the ladybug.

We had a really nice time with Lily on Christmas Day. It was just the three of us, and we took it slow, letting her open a gift and then if she wanted to play with it for a while, we did that. No rushing. Then it was time to feed her again, so we took a break. Then when it was naptime, John put together the doll stroller Aunt Kath sent, and we threw a blanket over it so it would be easy for her to "unwrap" when she woke up. I think she had a very good time, which makes us happy. It's funny how Christmas changes when you have a kid, you focus on them so much that any presents you get for yourself seem like a bonus. Just seeing your kiddo happy is a big present in itself.