Pure Joy

One of the greatest things about having a baby is getting to see everything through her eyes. I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true. Things that I take for granted are so interesting or fun to her. She finds joy in the littlest things.

Case in point: we bought Lily a little $5 inflatable baby pool yesterday. She LOVED it. It made her so happy and she had such a good time all by herself, splashing around in 4 inches of water. It makes me happy to be able to make her happy, so yesterday was a win-win for us all!

Just Because...

Our little explorer discovered that she can see herself in the reflection of the brass kickplate on our front door. She stared at herself for about 15 minutes!

She wants Dixon to be her friend SO badly. He's thinking about it...

9 Months Old

Yesterday Lily turned 9 months old and boy, things are starting to get interesting! As I mentioned in the post below, she's starting to get into everything. One thing she really likes to do is scoot herself over to the table by our front door where I keep my reusable grocery bags. She then proceeds to pull them all out on the floor and push them around in front of her.

Lily has mastered the art of feeding herself and it's her preferred method of eating these days. Trying to get her to eat from a spoon is met with either her grabbing it and food going everywhere or she purses her lips together and refuses to eat. She likes to eat cheese, bread with jelly, banana, pasta, Cheerios and anything we put in front of her. Self-feeding is also a great way to keep her occupied while I make dinner for me and Ethan!

Lily is teething like crazy and has (almost) SIX teeth. Her upper and lower central incisors are in and her upper lateral incisors are just about to pop through. I've learned the hard way to not stick my finger in her mouth to check. She's a chomper!

She can sit up by herself in the bathtub now, so we have put away her infant bath seat. She loves the water and bath time is her favorite. She likes to splash, splash, splash so she manages to get herself and whoever is bathing her very wet! We went to Cathy's pool in early July and she had a great time in her float. We'll definitely head back to the pool before it starts to cool off.

At her 9-month appointment yesterday, we learned that she's 20 lbs, 2.8 ounces (75th percentile). As someone who carries her around all the time, I can personally attest that she weighs every bit of that 20 lbs! The nurse said she's 28 inches long, which I'm not sure is 100% accurate. When I measure her, I'd say she's already 28 1/2 inches. Either way, she's a tall one!

Getting Into Everything

We knew it was coming and we were looking forward to it with a mixture of anticipation and reluctance: Lily is mobile. While she's not quite crawling yet, she can sure scoot/pull/push herself around enough to get where she wants to go. In the video below, we learn why we will soon need to relocate Dixon's toys:

A Trip Out West

(Grand Teton Range and the Snake River below it.)

On July 4th, Lily, Ethan and I boarded a plane for Idaho to visit Lily's Grandpa Dan and Grandma Charlotte. We had a good time seeing Ethan's parents and Lily got to meet several of her aunts--Jane, Marlys and Lavonna--and uncles--Dick, John, Roy and Rodney, in addition to seeing her Uncle Luke, who was also there. Everyone was in Idaho Falls to celebrate Dan's recent retirement from the USGS.

On Tuesday, Ethan and I drove Luke to the airport in Jackson, WY, which is 2 hours from Idaho Falls. Lily stayed behind with Grandma and Grandpa, who had a great time taking care of her, while Ethan and I went on a 10-mile rafting trip on the Snake River in Jackson. It was gorgeous and relaxing.

We also visited the Idaho Falls Zoo, where Lily was really, really interested in the swinging apes in the primate house. Monkey see, monkey do!

On every leg of our airplane trip to and from Idaho, Lily was a gem--especially on the return. We flew to Denver from Idaho Falls and got on our last plane to head from Denver to DC. After we pulled away from the gate, passengers (including us!) heard a loud thumping noise, which eventually, after much investigation by the crew, sent our plane back to the gate.

We were all allowed to disembark while the mechanics tried to figure out the problem and ended up spending a long 8 hours in the Denver airport. It was quite an adventure--Lily spit up all over herself, so she ended up with a brand new t-shirt from the airport gift shop (Future Ski Bunny!); we ran out of diapers, but luckily you can buy almost anything in the airport; and our stroller was gate-checked and they wouldn't get it off the plane for us, so we had to carry all of our stuff and Lily back and forth through the airport.

They finally found a new plane for us and we took off over 5 hours late. As consolation, United offered all of the passengers free cocktails. Lily's mom and dad could use one after our long day and let's just say that airplane "mini bottles" are the perfect size for baby hands! We screwed the lid back on the empty bottle, cleaned it off and handed it to a travel-tired Lily.

She was such a trooper and only cried the last 15 minutes of our flight...then passed out on Ethan's shoulder from exhaustion!

Happy Belated Father's Day

Sunday, June 21 was Ethan's first Father's Day and Lily and I did our best to make is special for him. Lily gave Dada a new framed photo of the two of them and I got him a new stereo receiver.

We went to brunch in Old Town in the morning. We have been having incredible weather here this summer and Father's Day was a great day to be outside so we walked down to the Waterfront Festival. We listened to Lily's favorite kid's band, Rocknoceros, checked out a "tall ship" and navigated the crowds of dads.

Later that afternoon, we took Dada out to an early dinner at his favorite restaurant, Lost Dog. It's his favorite for its great beer selection and pizza.

We capped the afternoon with a stroll around the neighborhood. It was a fun day for all of us, especially Ethan.

Eight Months!

Here it is...your monthly Lily post! This one marks her 8-month birthday and she has had a big month. Lily continues to amaze, entertain and charm us every day.

She is learning lots of new things--it seems like she does something new every week. The funny thing is that with some things, she only does them for a week then she moves on to something new. Here are a few of her newest "tricks":

• Playing pat-a-cake: I had to go to Dallas for a week for work. My mom came up from NC to help Ethan take care of Lily Bean and she taught her to play pat-a-cake. Lily caught on really quickly and when I got home, she was patting up a storm.
• Waving bye-bye: When we were at the airport last weekend, heading to NC, everyone kept waving at our adorable Lily and she started waving back!
• Peek-a-boo: I usually cover my face and then say peek-a-boo when we're playing, but yesterday, I took a burp cloth and held it up in front of Lily's face. I then dropped it and said PEEK-A-BOO. She laughed then took the cloth out of my hand. She held it up on front of her face and dropped it. Each time, I'd say PEEK-A-BOO and she'd laugh. We did it over and over again.
• Feeding herself cheerios: I have started giving her 3-4 Cheerios on her high chair tray and she has really gotten the hang of feeding them to herself.

Lily also took swimming lessons, went on her first airplane ride, took many, many strolls and bounced her little heart out. She is a happy, happy girl!

And her stats? She weighs 19 lbs, 8 oz and is 28 1/4" long.

Up, Up and Away!

Lily went on her first airplane ride last weekend. We headed to North Carolina to visit my family. Since it was only a 40-minute flight, I decided it would be a good first flight for her (and me). She did great! She slept in my lap on the way down; in fact, she was asleep within 5 minutes of takeoff and slept through the landing.

On the way back, she slept about half the flight, then bounced and played on my lap for the last half of the flight. She was very squirmy and wanted to grab everything but managed to charm everyone around her with her cute smile.

I think we're ready for our long flight to Idaho next month!

Swimming Lessons

We enrolled Lily in Baby and Me swim classes in May. She loves the bathtub so we figured it wouldn't be a great leap for her to like the swimming pool too. And we were right. She loves the water! We bounced, splashed and kicked all over the rec center pool. She really is a good kicker!

Updated with video!

Mother's Day!

Somehow I forgot to do a post about my first Mother's Day! It was a really, really great day. My mom and sister were here from North Carolina for the weekend and Ethan made breakfast for all of us. After they left to go home, I opened my Mother's Day gift from Lily and Ethan--they got me a gorgeous necklace and earrings.

After a leisurely day of watching Ethan clean our house (he told me he'd do everything so I just hung out with Lily while he did the hard work), we went to dinner. It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day so we sat outdoors then went for stroll along the Potomac.

It was a fabulous first Mother's Day and I can't wait to celebrate many more with my family!

7 Months!

Lily is 7 months old! At this age, she is definitely developing a distinct personality and it's fun to see how it manifests itself in how she acts and the things she does.

She has mastered rolling over now and does it constantly--all over her crib (we find her in different spots than where we left her all the time), our bed and the floor. She has figured out that it gets her where she wants to go so between rolling and scooting, she's quite a little mover.

She weighs approximately 18 lbs and is 28 inches long. Still a big girl! Her two bottom teeth are moving on up and out of her gums. I let her chew on my finger the other day and she drew blood! Lesson learned, I guess.

She can sit up really well now. We have started putting her in a high chair when we eat out in restaurants and it makes for a much nicer time for all of us. She also likes to ride in the shopping cart at the grocery store, where she can look around and see everyone and everything.

As side note: It used to be really easy to get a picture of her each month with her little sign, but the older she is, the harder it gets:

What Has Happened to My Sleepy Baby?

Since she was born, Lily has been a really good sleeper. At around two months old, she started (almost) sleeping through the night, going to bed at 7 p.m. and waking at 7 a.m. with just one middle-of-the-night wake-up. She really spoiled us.

In the last couple of months, we've had our sleep ups and downs. When we stopped swaddling her at around four months, there were a few weeks of repetitive night wakings as she got used to not being wrapped up like a mummy at bedtime. She still went to sleep easily, both at 7 p.m. and when she woke up at night.

Now, we have entered a new sleep phase that may be the end of Ethan and me. Lily is now staying up until 10 p.m. It's been going on for about a week now. She just will NOT go to sleep any earlier. We have spent countless hours sitting in her room in the dark trying to get her to go to bed at 7:00, 8:00, 9:00, but any attempts at putting her down before 9:30-10 p.m. result in screams, back arching and flailing of arms and legs.

At first, I hoped that Lily would compensate for the later bedtime by sleeping later in the morning but that has yet to happen. She wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 6 a.m. every day! She apparently needs less sleep than we do!

We are hoping this is just a phase she's going through, possibly related to teething (I think her uppers are starting to come in), a growth spurt, or just generally adjusting to growing up and learning new things.

Until it passes, we will be the ones with dark circles under our eyes pushing the adorable baby down the street in her stroller!