Lilli and Addy (our dog) are best friends! Well, Lilli thinks they are best friends and Atticus has repressed seething levels of resentment and is being very nice. Lilli loves to pull his ears (which he hates) and pull on his collar (pretty colors) and try to get his feet and tail, but LATELY she has been playing a game with him that they both can appreciate. She gets one of his balls or toys and holds it out to his mouth until he mouths it and then she moves it around. When he finally gets it from her than she tries to get it back and they start over. Not a particularly exciting game to our way of thinking, but hey, it keeps them both occupied at the same time! Hallelujah!

Bob's blog

Oh did I mention Bob started a blog? Probably inspired by yours truly ;) Anywho here it is: http://fadeawayj.blogspot.com. He used to have a prep basketball website. This will be different but I'm sure he'll put in his two cents about sports too. . .

Empathy

As I mentioned in a former post, I've been checking out some other baby blogs, not to COMPARE, but just to see and enjoy reading other people's experiences. Well, I found one at http://sj.javamama.net that I really like, partly because I enjoy her sense of humor and also partly because I totally relate to what she's going through. Her baby is like two months old or something, and I remember feeling like the feeding/not sleeping/not eating/looking schlumpy extravaganza was never going to end. Poor woman, she is right in the thick of it. Of course, I think she's also really enjoying it, but it helps to whine. Oh my goodness, it all takes me back . . .(imagine Wayne's World type doo doo doo, doo doo doo psychedelicness here).

I remember what it's like to stay at home all day with the baby and put in so much hard work and not feel like it's really appreciated how hard that job is. By society, I mean, not Bobby. Bobby was very supportive, but I don't think you can fully understand it unless you've DONE it. I remember him coming home and telling me how he's been to lunch that day and I would scream "you went OUT to lunch! that's not fair! I haven't even eaten yet today!" and be so jealous that he got to be out there in the world. I would be so resentful that the poor man took the time to eat. I don't know if I can fully express how isolating it is to sit at home all day with a baby on your breast. Yes, I was lucky to be able to do it, but I don't know that I was fully emotionally and mentally prepared for it.

And I don't think our society prepares us for the breastfeeding itself. We grow up viewing our breasts as sex objects rather than as milk producing glands. I know I've much more often seen breasts, covered or uncovered (like in movies, not real life!) in sexual situations than in mammary ones. We forget that we are mammals and that our mammaries are for feeding our babies. Then one day we find ourselves hooked up to huge automated double breast pumps, feeling like cows, and wondering how this happened. Then, we have this notion that breastfeeding is this easy thing where you sit in your rocker with your sweet little baby every four hours or so and cuddle up and that's it. HA! HA HA HA! Lilli wanted to eat, at random, like every half an hour to two hours and not much would put her off. And she wasn't always easy to get on there either.

ANYWAY, sorry for the rant. I just found myself plunged in reminiscence. Thank goodness that babies start doing things other than eating. I might have gone crazy! And now I can really appreciate the time we get to spend together feeding. And maybe I even miss it a teensy weensy little bit, her being little. . .

Last night was one of those nights. You know, one of those nights she WOULD NOT GO TO SLEEP. She kept waking up, up and UP and everytime I went into her she looked so happy and pleased and she'd snuggle up to me and smile and close her eyes and when I thought she was asleep I'd sneak quietly away. WELL. As soon as I was three feet from the bedroom door I hear naaaaa. She must have a secret super baby power that can sense my absence just as soon as I get up, even through a deep sleep! Honestly though, she was so cute and cuddly I didn't mind too much, and finally, after the FOURTH TIME, I waited until she was breathing really deeply before I got up and SUCCESS! Of course, that meant I didn't get much done until it was bedtime for me and of course she got up at her usual bright and early time. Fun, fun, fun. Sometimes in the mornings now though she will play in bed with me while I lay there unable to move. . .

This sleep talk brings to mind something I've wanted to blog about but have forgotten. . . how dang cute she is after a nap. Don't you remember how when you were a child sleep was so REFRESHING? What happened? I used to wake up just rarin' to go. Well, Lilli is no exception. A nap will do wonders for her. She'll be a grumpy head, then have a nap, and like magic she is a new little baby. She won't even cry when she wakes up. She just makes these little noises and is so happy when you go in to her. The other day I heard this strange sound on the monitor and couldn't figure out what it was. Then I realized that she had woken up and she was clapping her hands together!

She's just standing up everywhere now. Her new favorite thing is to use the headboard of the bed to stand up and then she pulls back the blind a bit and looks out the window. I know I've said this like ten thousand times already in this blog, but, here I go. . . it's so cute!! I find it particularly fascinating that she knows now that there is something interesting behind that blind. She's been playing peekaboo for at least a couple of months now, but just in the last few weeks or so she's been figuring out that if I'm a little bit out of sight she can crane her head around to see me or come and find me. So maybe she's figuring out the whole concept that things exist even when she can't see them. What's that called? I can't remember the term from child psychology. . . Or maybe she's just figuring out that some things are behind other things!

Also, two new teeth poking through. Seems like she's getting teeth awfully fast.

What else? She's been doing a lot of new things lately and I keep thinking, oh I have to blog that, then I promptly forget. I think that's one of the side effects of sleep deprivation. (She's been waking up a lot lately. Maybe the teeth?)

I've also discovered that there are literally THOUSANDS of baby blogs out there. Don't get me wrong, I already knew that this was nothing original, and like I said in the beginning I wasn't trying to enlighten the world or anything. This is more just for me and Bob and to easily keep in touch with friends and family, and actually I started it because the sister of a friend of a friend (is that right??) had one and I thought it was a good idea. So I KNEW that there were others, but there are SO MANY. I am so UNORIGINAL. Not having one is almost more original than having one! And of course now that I realize there are others I want mine to be as good as the others which is giving rise to feelings of inadequacy. . .BAD! It's bad to compare. Better to just be satisfied. After all, this is just for ME, right? And the people who love us. (However, if you want to compare, go to http://taleofahumanbaby.blogspot.com. She has multimedia and albums and slideshows, etc. etc. However, as Bob knows, I tend to compare with lots of things. Like, I have house envy. Does anyone else have that problem? I always want other people's houses.) ANYWAY, as I have been rationalizing to myself in an attempt to quell the need to immediately fill every gap in this blog, probably having a less perfect blog actually allows me more time for the things that really matter. And this blog is a reflection of us, so it need not be like other people's blogs, which are reflections of them. Right? But then how do these people find time to do scrapbooks and take walks to Starbucks and have multimedia blogs?? ARgh.

Grandpa! Look at me! I'm so cute!

I think I was making Mr. Lion talk here. She loves Mr. Lion.

Doesn't she look chubberoo here?!?

Her hair looks red here! Some people say she is starting to look more like Bob. . .

Showing off all her teeth! She has a new upper coming in which means she's been biting a lot. :(

My dad took these pictures today at our house.

Lilli is starting to be a lot more social. When she sees people she recognizes she gets really excited and happy and waves her arms and bounces and laughs. It's very cute and obviously makes the people she's greeting very happy as well. She also is so happy to see Bob and gets upset when he leaves the room. This is great and wonderful. However, I have to admit I feel a certain sense of sadness that she's not so wholly dependent upon me anymore. It's the end of an era. I am happy that I have a little more freedom but it was also nice to be needed so much!

When we left her with my parents on our anniversary last week and she was TOTALLY ALRIGHT and didn't even seem to notice when we left or came home, I have to admit I was a little disappointed. I checked in like three times but she was totally fine each time. But that's a good thing right? She's getting more independent right? RIGHT??

She likes my mom's stuff!

These were taken the other day at my parent's house.

Here's another. . .

My mom took these about a month ago before she left for a trip to Japan. Lilli was helping her to pack! :)

She's been happy today. I wonder what determines this? Food? Sleep? The stars? I have no idea. I am just thankful!!! She's been very content to play by herself. This evening though when I was sitting on the couch and she was playing on the floor she kept going to places she knew she shouldn't go (like to the mat by the front door because its dirty) and then waiting for me to come get her. As soon as she heard my footsteps approaching she'd start to wiggle and giggle and be so pleased and laugh and scream when I picked her up. Now I am in a dilemma. By going to get her when she goes places I don't want her to go, I am just encouraging her to go to those places! On the other hand, I don't want her to go to those places! Hmmm. . .

Bobby and I are also discovering that she is getting too big for most of her toys! We already put away her swing and her jumper (she was getting a running start to try to reach things in the trashcan) and we have to put away her little bouncer/entertainment center thingy. You know, it's like a walker, only she's not supposed to be able to actually walk in it. Ours has three legs: one is weighted and the other two have wheels so that she's supposed to be able to move in a circle around the weighted leg. Now she's so strong though that she can pretty much just muscle that weighted leg right off the floor and go anywhere she wants. This is a problem, not only because it is dangerous, but imagine a twenty five pound baby walking around with a three foot diameter of demolition! It's like the marshmallow man from Ghostbusters! Yesterday I put her in it while I was washing dishes in the kitchen and she managed to walk it out into the dining room and get to the CD player. And that was just while my back was turned for a second! So I think that the ExerSaucer may soon be living in the basement as well. Pretty soon we're not going to have any place to put her when we don't want her getting into things!

AND, today she ate millet mixed with tofu, carrot and flaxseed oil with great gusto! Yay! I also managed to get almost half an avocado and some plain yogurt into her. I also read how kale is one of the best green vegetables out there which is lucky for me because I froze three ice cube trays of it! So, she better really like kale. I've already gotten her to eat it a couple of times and you wouldn't believe the poops that came out of her!

Swimming!

I don't know how I've forgotten to mention this but Lilli has been going to swim lessons! She had her first one last Monday and today she had her third one. I guess I don't know if I'd really call it a lesson. It's more like just getting her acquainted with the water. All we do is sing songs and stuff for like ten minutes and then the teacher says go play by yourself for ten minutes and then sing songs again for five minutes and then free time for five minutes and that's it! She seems to like it though. The first day she just kind seemed perplexed by the whole thing and didn't have much expression either way. Today she was much more excited. She splashed around a lot and made lots of noises. (All the other babies were looking at her :)). If we throw a toy out and put her on her stomach she definitely moves her arms and kicks her legs to try to get to it. The teacher also encourages us to teach her how to blow bubbles but this isn't my favorite thing for two reasons. First, I have to demonstrate, and I am not so keen on putting my mouth into water that is shared with ten other babies (I have noticed in the locker room that not ALL the babies have swim diapers). Secondly, everytime I do put Lilli's mouth in the water, she just tends to open her mouth and lap it up! Yuck!

She's also getting faster at crawling! Today she was really scooting around the living room chasing the dog and his toy. She's starting to do the "cross crawling" thing where they alternate arms and legs and that has really speeded up the process. I am happy for HER, but it is really making my job more difficult. I can forget trying to knit and watch her at the same time; I have to get up like every five seconds to get her away from something, even though we've childproofed pretty much as much as we can.

Lastly, I'm trying to teach her how to give kisses! This is a very slow process :) This morning I asked her for a kiss and to my surprise she actually moved her mouth slowly towards my mouth. But then at the last second she gaped her mouth open wide and then bit onto my lip and wouldn't let go! OUCH! Boy, she thought that was funny.

Oh, and she ate millet today! I am continuing the saga of homecooked baby food. She didn't really like the millet so I had to strain it but by then she was tired of the whole thing so the dog is getting to eat some really healthy food. Oh well, maybe at least he will gain some weight. I did get her to eat some plain yogurt though!

I am NOT perfect! Gasp! Ha ha ha!

Sometimes I am a perfectionist. Sometimes I am not. When it's something that's not such a big deal, I think for the most part I am able to let go. But raising a baby is such a massive responsibility. It seems irresponsible almost NOT to be a perfectionist. Ironically, I am also aware that being too much of a perfectionist, even well intentionedly, could actually mess your kid up! So. What a seemingly irreconcilable position! I wasn't even thinking about trying to be perfect when, in an effort to be a well informed parent, I recently purchased a few books. One was on homemade baby food. One was on getting your child on a routine and other techniques in order to get them to sleep better but without letting them just cry it out. They are both very good books. However, upon reading them, I instantly went into panic mode. These books informed me that my current complacency was ill founded!! Alarmingly, there were so many things, apparently, that we have failed to do or have (gasp!) done wrong in the last ten months! Irreversible, precious ten months! Bob says, hey chill, we've done a good job, Lilli's healthy and happy. All I can think about it is, I have not been perfect! I have failed in my duty as a mother! Eek! And then I go into this totally stressed out mode where I tear around trying to rectify the situation because of course I want to make it perfect as soon as possible. So. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed the last couple of days. That's probably why I haven't written in awhile. Today I managed to take a step back and say, hey, take what is positive for you out of these books and just do it a little at a time. Changing things too fast would probably make it worse for Lilli anyway. So I've been trying to take a deep breath and relax. Lilli IS happy and healthy.

ANYWAY, I have been busy! First I had to go to the store to get all the equipment needed to make homemade baby food. Then I had to go the natural food store and buy all the ingredients. Then I had to cook all the food and puree it and freeze it and store and label it. Then I had to try to get Lilli to eat it, which was probably the hardest part. She likes her food commercially strained, apparently. THEN, I've also been trying to get her on a schedule to go to bed earlier and have a bedtime routine and all that, and it worked last night, but she has sabotaged me at every turn today. Oh well. Baby steps.

Enough of the complaining. I will end on a note of cuteness. Lilli has figured out two different methods of crawling, one for the carpet and one for the hardwood floors. On the carpet she crawls normally, but when she's on the hardwood, it's so funny, she uses the sole of her right food to get more traction. So she has her left knee and her right foot on the floor and she kind of jerkily scoots along. Hey, whatever works. She is getting a lot faster and we have to keep even closer track of her now. What a job! I can't leave her for a second! And she's doing this funny thing now where she shakes her head back and forth when she's excited. Not so much wiggling, though, which I miss. . .:(

Going to tea is hard work! (Duyen made Lilli that cute sweater by the way!)

Here we are with the tea shop in the background. Lilli is always interested in ceilings for some reason.

Lilli and I went to tea with my Grandma and my former dance teacher, Pak. We ate pastries. She ate pureed spinach. Mmmm, yummy!

Very disturbing. . .

I just discovered an interesting feature on site meter, which is the counter at the bottom of my page. (If you click on it, it tells you all sorts of stats about who's visiting my site.) Anyway, the other night I was bored, and I discovered that you can find out if a person used a search engine to find your site, and if they did, what engine they used and what search words they used. WELL. If you are offended by disgusting things, I don't want to disgust or offend you, so please read no further. If you like disgusting things, please read on. Just kidding, ha ha ha. But really, what I'm about to relate is about perverts, so please be warned.

ANYWAY, I discovered that somebody in Europe had used google to find my site, and that the search words they had used were "enormous toy" and she, stretches, and ass. At 1:45 in the afternoon! YUCK!!!! It is so disturbing to me that some pervert chanced upon my site and possibly read about my dear, sweet baby and looked at pictures of her! Gross! It totally gives me the heebie jeebies. I guess it's my own fault for writing about (albeit totally innocent) enormous toys and using the words she, stretch, and ass. AND, the irony is that I've written them again, thus once again practically hanging a sign out for unsuspecting perverts and inviting them in! I guess however that that's part of being on the internet. However, if you are reading this, and you are a pervert who found my site by searching for gross words, I hope you are very very ashamed of yourself.

Here she's being momentarily satisfied with a straw (also blinded by the flash :)).

Here we're eating at a Mexican restaurant and she wants to see the menu too.

Here she is again, playing with her favorite green cups at my grandma's.

Ok, it's official, Lilli is a GENIUS!!! She's talking a lot lately in her own little language. The way she chatters along, we're sure that at least SHE understands what she's saying and that what she thinks she's saying is probably very smart. Anyway, last night we had some friends over, and she was chattering along and crawling on the floor, looking at the dog, when all of a sudden she said "Atticus." Ok, ok, I hear you now, how could she possibly have said "Atticus"? I understand your doubts. And even though FOUR people in the room heard it, even I am doubtful that she actually said it. Coincidence maybe? Maybe she hasn't quite graduated from "doggie" to "Atticus."

HOWEVER, I have not a shadow of a doubt that this morning she said "baby." We were reading the paper, and I had let her play with some of the circulars. There was one with a bunch of babies on it (a baby sale) and she was looking at it very closely, pointing at the babies. Well, since I am interested in all baby sales I took it from her to look at it myself, and then clear as a bell she said "baby." Then she said it, albeit less clearly, like three more times. Is she smart or what?? I know I'm getting quite insufferable lately. But what can I do in the face of such prodigious precociousness? I guess be more insufferable. . . sorry!

We went shoe shopping for Lilli yesterday. I generally let Lilli go barefoot, because if I put socks on her she just ends up kicking them off anyway, but when I take her out I have the sneaking suspicion that people think I'm a bad mother for letting her go shoeless and sockless. And with winter approaching I thought the strength of their imagined or unimagined moral reproach might be too much for me, so I thought we'd better invest in some shoes. Do you have any idea how much baby shoes cost? There are cheap ones out there, but for kids who are really going to use them to stand on and stuff, they're EXPENSIVE. We went to Stride Rite and the pair I wanted for Lilli were $41. $41 for a pair of tiny little baby shoes!! I couldn't bring myself to do it, because I wanted them to last to when she starts walking if I'm going to pay that much, and who knows how big her feet will be when she starts to walk. They are already a size 5 and the salesperson informed me that Lilli's feet are very wide (he seemed to be insinuating that I had birthed a bigfoot) so that seems to me that her feet will only keep growing. Plus, I was so totally off the mark on when she was going to start crawling, who knows when she'll start walking.

Anyway, I found some other soft soled shoes that can also be worn as slippers that were about half the price and way cuter. The problem was: they were half the price and way cuter! That tempted me to buy two pair! BUT, I resisted. It took quite a bit of willpower however. Because I only bought the one pair I had to buy white so they could go with everything. If I had bought two pair, I could have bought a pink pair with any combination of cute decorations (fuzzy animals, ribbons, hearts, etc.) and a blue pair too! But no, twas not to be. Just a plain old serviceable white pair that will go with anything. I'm just hoping she won't kick these off too. Maybe, if she likes them, I'll buy her another pair :). ha ha ha

Plus, I did buy her a pair of baby keds at a used store. I don't even count that though. They were only $5. I could have bought eight pair for the price of those Stride Rites!

In other news, Lilli is just getting so smart. I know I have been particularly and obscenely full of pride lately, but she just keeps learning new things! And she's been so cute and lovable. I love it when she is so full of joy that she just starts wiggling and smiling and squints her eyes and laughs out loud. I don't know if you all realize what restraint I exercise in my blogs. I could go on and on and on and on. You think I'm longwinded! You don't know my potential! Well, to practice restraint, I will stop for now, but let you all be warned, I'm saving it up. . .

CUTE, CUTE, and more CUTE!!!

She look so demure here. OHMIGOD, my child is SO CUTE!!! Is that conceited? Oh well!

I took Lilli over to my Dad on Tuesday so that he could see the miracle of crawling. Here she is going for the remote control, her FAVORITE.

As an official crawler, Lilli has been much more accident prone today. And, naturally, she's also gotten into a lot more stuff that we have to take away from her, which she doesn't like one bit. So this has been quite a day of crying. I read somewhere that the trick is to put all the bad stuff out of sight so that everything she has access to is okay for her. After all, babies this young don't get the concept that there are some things they can't have, so by leaving stuff out they can see but can't have, you're just setting yourself up for a battle of wills. This all makes sense, but you don't realize how hard that is until you look around and realize just how much stuff she can't have and how much stuff you would have to totally put away. Bob and I have to spend a lot of time in the near future doing some childproofing. . .

This has been a week of milestones though. I didn't really realize that she was doing this, but I think that she has been waving for awhile. She's been doing this thing where she flings her hands around, and I thought it just meant that she was happy, but I've just noticed that she mostly does it when I first see her or she first sees anybody she's happy to see, and lately she's just been doing it with one hand. So I think she's been waving for awhile and we just didn't know it! She's also starting to get better at the more compact "fold the hand" type wave, but she tends to do it backwards so that the back of her hand faces her intended wavee. I guess that's the direction she sees it from when people wave at her.

AND, for the piece de resistance she said "doggie" today!!! Okay, so it sounded more like "da ghee" but we were in the kitchen and the dog was on the floor on the other side of the island and she was craning her head to try to get a better look at him and I said, "do you see the doggie?" and she looked right at me and clear as a bell said "da ghee." I was in shock. Of course no one will believe me except Bob. They just scoff at my doting ways.

Just cute :)

Wants to eat the camera.

Interested in the camera. . .

Skeptical of the camera. . .

Now she's no longer pleased with it.

She's captivated by a toy. . .

My dad took these a couple of days ago.

Success!!

She crawled!!! We were playing on the living room floor this morning and she was doing a lot of wriggling, trying to get to her beloved video game controllers. Well, I put another toy on the other side of the carpet, and all of a sudden she starts doing this lunging and wriggling, but all the while on her knees and hands. I was AMAZED. It wasn't very graceful or efficient, but she must all of a sudden figured out that she could do it. She's getting better at it now, and isn't a master yet, but now she's acting as though she's been doing this crawling thing all along. And indeed, as everyone has warned us, she IS getting into everything. A new era has begun.

I rescind my earlier comments on Lilli's crawling. I think now that crawling may be achieved! We were over at my grandma's today, and she has carpet, and that made all the world of difference. We have all hardwood floors and so it's hard for her to get any traction with her knees. We have area rugs, but they are a little slippery too. So anyway, we were over there and we were trying to get her to crawl at first, and she wasn't doing it but she would stretch all the way out for a toy but then manage to bring the toy back with her to a sitting position. So I was thinking, hey! if Lilli can manage to go from tummy to all fours to sitting, then she probably has the capability to crawl. She probably just hasn't managed it with our silly hardwood floors. So we persisted and she started to get it. She crawled backwards some and she managed to wiggle her way forward more than she ever has before. She still hasn't mastered the use of her knees. I think she will just need some more carpet time. I think it's a mental thing rather than a physical thing. It is the funniest thing though to see her all stretched out, straining with every ounce to reach some desired object, with her mouth WIDE open. I'll miss that when she starts to be able to crawl.

She's been giggling a lot more recently too. She really hasn't been much of a laugher up to this point. She's always smiled a lot and expressed joy in other ways, but not really a belly laugher. Well lately she's always giggling and Bob even got her to belly laugh the other day without resorting to tickling. It was the cutest thing! Bob was holding a toy in his mouth and shaking his head like a dog and Lilli just laughed and laughed and clapped her hands. We were in a restaurant and Bob looked a little silly, but hey, anything for a laugh from a baby. It's funny how silly adults can get around babies.

However, all these nice new developments have been offset by her waking up way more than usual lately. I'm not sure what's up. The other night she woke me up like every hour wanting to nurse. So I went on line to see if I could get any ideas (www.askdrsears.com is a great site) and people kept mentioning the "pantly pull off." I couldn't figure out what that was! No one explained it; they just said they were doing it as one of the steps towards getting your child to sleep better. All I could imagine was parents pulling off their children's pants right before they fell asleep, and somehow this was lulling them to sleep? Seems like it might bring in a draft on their warm little legs! I couldn't figure it out. Well, FINALLY, someone had the goodness to not assume I knew what they were talking about. It seems there is a book called the "No Cry Sleep Solution" cowritten by Dr. Sears and a woman named Elizabeth Pantly (wouldn't you hate to have that name as a kid??). She recommends unlatching your baby from the breast when they are done eating but not yet asleep. Hence, the "pantly pull off." I will have to buy this book and see what else Ms. Pantly has to say.

I have a feeling Lilli may skip the crawling altogether and just move straight on to walking. She's getting better and better at pulling herself to a stand, and lately she's been better about moving her feet and hands to get to a new position. She's not exactly cruising the furniture yet, but she's figuring it out. Yesterday though she had a sad moment when she was literally *jumping* in her crib because she was so pleased at her little standing self and all of a sudden she banged her chin on the crib rail and she just stopped, gave me the most surprised look and then burst into tears. I felt so sorry for her. But then I left for like two seconds to get something and when I got back she was standing again, happy as a clam. It's a good thing babies have short memories.

I was also very amused yesterday by something she did. She had a very bloated belly (that was not the amusing part). Her belly was so huge that she looked like a little Buddha, and the roll really hung over her pants. Anyway, she too was astounded by THE BELLY. She kept looking down at it with both her hands on it, kind of like Santa Claus when he laughs, and she kept scratching it with her index finger like she does when she is feeling a new object. I think I would be amazed too if I were just a little baby and had a tummy on me like that. By the way, why is it that babies are so cute when they are fat (but not so for adults)? It must be some sort of genetic instinct to like fat babies, just like the voices parents use when talking to babies. . .

Congratulations!

My cousin and his wife just had a baby boy! Whoopee! More babies! Their new baby keeps drawing my thoughts back to when Lilli was a baby and all the joy and confusion and sleepiness that went along with it. I think that no matter how many books you read, you are not mentally prepared for never getting more than two hours of sleep at a time, for what seems like in perpetuity. But on the other hand, you get to spend all those waking hours marveling that you actually produced another human being. It's all so BIZARRE.

Anyway, enough of the deepness. I can't believe I have failed to mention two cute new things Lilli has been doing. One is that she can make kissy noises. The other is this thing she does when she gets excited or happy: she scrunches up her nose like a rabbit and then breathes really fast through her nose. I don't know where she picks these things up. Although tonight she was playing with Pat, Bob's grandma, and Pat was whistling to her, which Lilli thought was pretty funny. Well, all of a sudden she started to take these long deep breaths and she would kind of choke on them they were so long and deep. It was like she was taking in too much air. Well, I don't think I would have had a clue what she was doing, except that Pat was whistling at her, and I think she was trying to copy her. So maybe her scrunchy nose breaths are some imitation of something she perceives us to do.

Lilli also takes great joy in hitting Bob on the head. She really likes the sound it makes or something. And she LOVES to bite me. She is really orally fixated. She often gets this gleam in her eye and then she opens her mouth wide and goes in for the kill. Her favorite places are my shoulders and upper chest and knees. Usually she just gets a mouthful of shirt and she will really bite down and get a determined look and shake her head like a dog with a toy and then finally let go and smile really big. This is kind of cute if all she has between her teeth is a scrap of shirt. It's not so cute when it is my very sensitive skin. It's like a horse bite, you know, those little pinches kids give each other that really hurt. It seems particularly malicious when she smiles so big and triumphant after she's just torn off a piece of flesh. I have to remind myself she has no concept that she is hurting me.

The cutest thing she did today though was very very gently feel my eyelashes with her index finger. She loves exploring things with her finger. It's so funny to watch her palpate little objects with the utmost intensity. I only wish she could be so gentle with her teeth!