Well, I took Lilli to American Idol tonight. It's not exactly my idea of a fun way to spend two and a half hours with an almost eight month old, but there it is, he convinced me to go. His argument was partly based on the fact that our friends Kurt and Jo were supposedly taking their baby as well, but guess what? They got a babysitter! Probably what I should have done as well, but Lilli is still not really into being away from me yet. So off we went. Besides the fact that its horrible going anywhere its crowded when you have a twenty three pound baby strapped to you and the encompanying luggage, I couldn't find my seat due to the idiocy of a few ushers and was all stressed out about being late. Finally, all sweaty, I found my seat and Lilli and I settled in ok, before the music started at EAR PIERCING LEVELS. I knew that it would be loud, but we'd gone to the ice show and I had assumed the music would be about the same. But I was wrong. This was much much much much louder. Diana DeGarmo may have sounded good on tv but in person she reminded me of a shrieking banshee. Sorry. I tried to stuff cotton in Lilli's ears but it kept coming out and I kept having to stuff it back in, which probably bothered her more than the actual loudness. She actually did incredibly well. She enjoyed watching all the lights and she had a few (liquid) meals and jumped about quite a lot. At one point I think she was actually bouncing and kind of dancing in time to the music. Maybe we have a musical/dancing prodigy on our hands! And she was charming everyone around us with her bobble head. The guy behind her was totally cracking her up too. I couldn't hear her laugh but I could feel her little body convulsing with giggles. Anyway, we are home now and she is in bed, thank goodness. I was afraid she might have ringing in her ears and be fussy but she seemed fine. Maybe next time I should take cotton for my ears.
 
But in general she was very happy and good natured during the whole thing. Actually, lately she has just been a happy giggly baby all the time. She is laughing a lot more and just seems like she's made a quantum leap towards being a really real little person. It's just so weird to me! I can hardly remember what it was like when she wasn't so interactive. And everywhere we go people tell me how adorably cute she is. I try not to let this go to my head. Afterall, it's not merit based or anything. It's not like the better people get the cuter babies. But nonetheless, she is cute. I could overhear people in the crowd tonight saying, hey, look at that cute baby! :) And at Starbucks today, I didn't even have her with me, and the girl told me that last time I'd come in with her they'd all thought she was so cute and talked about her for a long time. Bob thinks she was just trying to get a bigger tip. Well, it worked! Those Starbucks baristas are no dummies.