When she's upset she does the cutest things lately with her mouth. It used to be when she was about to cry, she's stick out her bottom lip in a little pout and it was so *CLASSIC*. Sometimes she'd do it in her sleep and it would just make me laugh in the middle of the night (which was very needed). Well, so that was cute, but now she's stopped doing that and instead kind of sticks her tongue between her gums and makes this pathetic little "muh muh muh" sound with her lips all pursed together.

In a related cuteness observation, she has moved the pouty lower lip to the eating department. Often times when I feed her something, like yogurt, before she swallows it she'll just kind of let it sit in there and she'll stick out her lip and have such a set little jaw and it is just so darn cute! I did take a picture of it, but not a digital one, so maybe I will have to scan it in. It's not a sad face, because the rest of her face isn't sad, so much as a determined face. *sigh* Sometimes I wonder what she's thinking!

I've been having such morbid thoughts lately. I hate to even voice it, but I'm kind of of the superstitious nature that if you voice something, it won't happen. Well, anyway, whenever I leave Lilli alone for even a second, I keep having these terrible visions of what could happen while I'm away, and that I'll come back to some terrible tragedy. A friend of a friend of ours' baby died at ten months in some terrible accident in his crib, and I'm not exactly sure of the circumstances, but I really want to know in order to do the exact opposite. Can you imagine??? Well, I can, unfortunately. So everytime I leave her in her crib I wonder, maybe they left their baby with a block in the crib too, and he fell back on it and hit his head. . .or on and on and on. And everytime I come back and she smiles up at me I breathe a sigh of relief.

I think having children makes you emotionally vulnerable in a way nothing else ever can. They bring so much joy into your life (cliche I know), but they also have the potential to bring so much pain into it. I mean, it is inconceivable to me now to live my life without Lillian in it. I mean, before Lilli, I probably could have at least survived any horrible thing that happened to me or someone I loved. But if something happened to Lilli? I really don't know what would happen. . .She's my Achilles heel. Anyway, sorry for the silly overdramatic musings. I'm sure every parent thinks these things at some point, and some poor souls actually have to endure the reality. Ugh. . .I will try to move on to happier thoughts. . .

We went to the Mariners game on Monday night. Lilli's first baseball game! She was actually really good and enjoyed looking around at the people. And I'm pretty good at breastfeeding in public these days, so she had some snacks too. Plus she enjoys being outdoors. So actually Lilli and I had a pretty analogous experience. Except I wish I could have had a little nap too! And when she started to get fussy towards the end, that pretty accurately reflected my thoughts exactly! But it was fun. We saw a streaker so we had to cover Lilli's eyes. One funny thing that did happen was that Duyen and Jeannie got some garlic fries, which Bob hates, and they were sitting together in exile to eat them. When they were done, they passed what was left down the aisle for Ian and James to try and Bob was in the middle with Lilli in his lap. Well, lickety split Lilli had a fistful of pungent garlic and potato in her tight little grasp and then she promptly dumped it all over Bob. ha ha ha ha! Well, nothing a diaper wipe couldn't cure. It's really handy having those with you all the time!

We just got back yesterday from a trip to Spokane for Hoopfest. Not only do you have to take along a crapload of stuff when you have a baby, but a normally 4 1/2 hour trip turns into a six hour trip. Actually, she was pretty good. She had a nap, then awake time, then she got sick of it, then we had a break, then she got sick of being in the car again but kind of fussed herself to sleep. So not too bad. That was on the way there. On the way back I90 was closed because of an accident and we basically were parked on the freeway for over an hour. This during her precious nap/happy time! So on the way back it took us almost eight hours. Can you believe it? Halfway up the pass she decided she just couldn't take it anymore. Usually she might fuss and complain, but she's not really crying. Well, this was crying, no mistaking it. She just cried her little heart out, hiccoughing with tears streaming down her cheeks, for about three minutes, and then she hiccoughed herself to sleep, poor thing. By the time we got to an exit she was fast asleep so we just kept driving, hoping we'd make it home before she woke up.

She had a pretty good time at the festival though. Besides watching her daddy play basketball, she got to scope out the baby competition. There were soooo many babies there. Big babies, little babies, happy babies, cranky babies. Babies, babies, babies!! So that part was fun. I told Bob that next year it's my turn and we'll be going to the World Knitting and Spinning convention and he can watch me card wool or something for a weekend. whee!

New posts

Hey, I added a bunch of new pictures today from Easter onward, and I stamped the date they were taken on them, rather then today's date, so you may have to scroll downward if you want to see them. . .You may even have to check out the archives.

Ian's visit

Our friend Ian arrived yesterday from Halifax and Lilli has been mystified by his presence. She just STARED at him yesterday like she'd never seen a Canadian before. Honestly, one time she stared at him yesterday for about three minutes. She had her head craned back in order to look at him too. This morning she stared at him some more like, "are you still here?" She won't smile either. She's very stoic about it. Ian's very nice about it and just stares back. I wonder what's going through her little head sometimes, honestly.

Just FYI, I've been adding stuff to earlier parts of the blog, so new stuff might not show up only at the top of the blog. If you care. . .:)

commenting

For those of you who are interested in commenting, Duyen just told me that you have to comment as an anonymous user unless you want to sign up for your own blog. She said if you try to comment, the anonymous user part is kind of hard to find, but it's there. Just FYI.

I realized today too while looking through my posts and practicing my revisionist history, that all the pictures are from my side of the family. Well, that's because I'm too lazy to scan in all my regular film pictures into the computer so I've just posted digital pictures, and my dad is the one doing most of the digital photography. I do have tons and tons, as I'm sure you can believe, of regular pictures taken with my good ol' camera and that others have taken too. They are all semi neatly organized in albums, and I would of course be happy to sit you down and show them all to you if you ever happen to come visit!

Today I noticed for the first time that Lilli will put her arms up for you when you go to pick her up. It's probably the first time she's shown obvious understanding of something usually leading to something else and her taking an active role in that. It's like she's actually a little person capable of thought and reasoning! Okay, maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Hey, have you ever noticed that moms often speak using the royal "we" as though to take credit for everything their child is doing? Like, "we've been playing with our blocks all day today." I totally notice myself doing it all the time and hope other people aren't annoyed. Maybe it's just me who does it. I'm trying to stop.

She looks so old here to me! Plus you can see her little bottom teeth if you look close.

. . .but she still has *some* fat.

She's starting to lean out a bit. . .

huh?

It was a hot day!

Dad takes a turn at carrying.

Going for a property walk at Lummi.

Although this is technically not the Atticus page, we have to give him some love too. This was taken on Lummi Island. We went there for the weekend to keep my Dad company for Father's Day. My mom is in Japan right now, showing students around.

I left Lillian for the first time in months today with Mary so that I could go strawberry picking. It was SO HOT and there were so many women there with their children (will I be one of those women one day?!) and the tractor trolley was broken and it took FOREVER. And when I got home there was poor Lilli having finally fallen asleep after a half hour of hard crying doing those little pathetic post cry hiccups in her sleep. I felt SO BAD. GUILT!!! So, I swore I'd never leave her for that long again which puts a damper on Bob's plans for a date night. oh well. I just don't think I could enjoy myself knowing she was sobbing her little eyes out wondering where I was and thinking I'd abandoned her.

(For the record, Mary is an excellent babysitter. Lilli just has a little separation anxiety).

Bob returns

Bob just got home today after NINE WHOLE DAYS at a conference in Toronto for work. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the good work that single parents do. I think Bob was glad to see us too. (of course!!) We survived it though! But it was really hard, especially with Atticus demanding a lot of attention too. It sucks when the baby decides to be especially hungry one night and wake up three times and then the dog wakes you up at 4 am just as you fall asleep. Sucky! I'm glad Bob has dog duty again.