It's not you, it's me...

Dearest Lilah,

Hm. So it's been 7 weeks since I last posted. That would seem to indicate that you haven't done anything in that time. But that's not true. In the past 7 weeks, you have turned from seven to eight months old, and as of today, from eight to nine. You've been on the outside for exactly as long as you were on the inside (39 weeks), and I have to say, you've had a very busy 18 months!

You are SO big! I don't have your exact stats, but I know that it's a struggle for me to drag you up off the floor when you used to be just a little feather I carried around. You are mostly wearing 9-12 month clothes, though the 9 month PJs are a little short on you these days. You wear size 3 diapers by day and size 4s at night to hold ALL the pee! You still only have two teeth...I would have thought that the top two would have come in by now, but they are apparently content to leave the bottoms without a matched pair.

You're still not interested in crawling properly. You toy around with getting on your knees to go, but you're far more interested in just getting places than getting there properly, so you always collapse and quickly army crawl yourself - pushing with pink little toes - across the room faster than I could ever imagine anyone traveling that way.

You have learned how to sit back up from being on your tummy. What a shock that was! The first time I suspected you did it was last week, but at the time I thought maybe you had just not really gotten all the way down on your tummy. But yesterday I knew for sure! You were crawling all around the living room and all of a sudden, there you sat like a big girl! You looked rather proud of yourself!

You also are practicing waving. You are not consistent, but when asked "Can you wave?" and shown an example, you will curl those little fingers up and down. Sometimes you throw your hand up and make it whole-hearted. Today, you got a wink from the very nice postman when you sleepily gave him a shy grin and a little bitty wave. Yesterday in Barnes and Noble, a man looking at travel books said, "Well hello!" and you smiled your sweet smile, and he said, "Boy, they just make you feel like a million bucks, you know?" and proceeded to tell me how his boys were both teenagers and he missed sweet little baby smiles.

You make people happy. It makes me happy. It makes you happy. Happy, happy, happy.

I'm probably just being a proud mom, but I also think you say the dog's name. "Nidney! Nidney! Nidney!" it sounds like you say whenever she comes in the room. I'm not really sure that I want you to be saying her name, since you never say "Mommy." That kind of works my self-confidence.

You're eating like a champ these days. Pears, apples, bananas, honeydew, cantaloupe, grapes, spinach, sweet potato, carrots, zucchini, and butternut squash are all high on your list of favorites. What do you hate? Green beans. They make you gag. Every. Time. You. Eat. Them. I've mixed them with squash. I've mixed them with spinach. I've mixed them with pears. You do not like them. Green beans are your eggs and ham. I keep giving them to you because I made so much. How was I supposed to know you'd hate them? You ate everything with a happy face until now. So I promise: After this batch, I'll be laying off the green beans. There are too many other yummy things for you to eat for me to force you to eat something you hate.

So, my big nine month old girl, that is what you've been up to. You bring me a lot of joy, despite being into EVERYTHING these days. And I even on the nights when I'm ready for you to go to bed, I end up missing you a couple of hours later.

Thanks for still being awesome.

Love,
Mommy

Movin'

Dearest Lilah,

This week you've gotten a lot more mobile - in more ways than one!

First of all, you are pulling yourself around now like a little army man on a secret mission. It's funny, because few things seem to warrant troubling yourself to get to them like a good magazine, piece of newspaper, or catalog. You will stop any and all play time if you spot the glossy pages of a catalog in your midst and immediately start your rocky descent from seated position to zombie dragging ready. You usually bonk your face. You haven't quite learned how to gracefully get from "seated" to "belly," and normally just lean forward farther and farther until -bonk!- you are on your belly. But once in this position, there is no reading material that is safe from your juicy jaws.

You also like to go after anything you shouldn't have: Mommy's nail polish bottles, the carpet (which, for some reason, pulls out so badly that we've decided against ever buying a shag carpet again) and bits of fluff. Your daddy has always wanted a clear coffee table, and as soon as you're crawling for serious, I can see that for a period of a few years, we will not be able to leave magazines, books, and papers out lest they become Lilah food.

You also have this funny way of scooting on your bottom, more like bouncing, really, to get from place to place. It takes forever and is terribly inefficient, but you seem pleased by the results. This technique is used more when you think I should nurse you. Sitting up, your face is pretty much even with your breakfast, lunch, and dinner when I'm next to you on the floor, so when I am playing with you for any length of time, you eventually look at my chest so long you make yourself hungry (I imagine for me it would be like playing with someone who had a cake strapped to their midsection) and start bouncing Tigger-style over to me, hands out to grab at my shirt and "tell" me what you're after.

Another way you're mobile is that you've learned to pull up to a stand from a seated position if I hold my hands out for you to hang on to. I'm thinking that we will probably go ahead and put your crib mattress down a level tomorrow, because I am having trouble sleeping at night for fear you are going to figure out you can pull up on the edge one morning when you get tired of waiting for me to come get you and you'll just propel yourself out onto the wood floor on your head. And this would be a much higher fall onto a less rugged area than when I let you fling yourself headfirst off the sofa. :-/

Finally, you are now legal to move among the neighboring countries of The United States. We went on Thursday to apply for your passport card! This is particularly exciting to me, who did not even go on real family vacations when I was a kid. The only family vacation we ever took where we did not stay with friends of Gramma and Grandpa was to Stone Mountain in Georgia, and that was only 2.5 hours from our house. That is not really a vacation. I'm not even sure why we had to spend the night. Anyway, I thought about getting you a for real passport, but they are quite expensive, costing nearly $90 and they only last for five years. I figured that you're not going to be visiting overseas before you're five, and possibly not before you're ten, but because your daddy works so often near the Canadian border and because Aunt Janice lives right across the river from Canada, we might actually want to go there. So we opted to get the $35 passport card instead of the $85 passport for now.

Here is your little application and your cute little passport card photos:

You did SO well for the picture! They don't want you to show teeth for your passport photos anymore, so we were lucky that you never smile for a photo until after the flash goes off (fashionably late, you are!) The manager at Walgreen's said you did better than any other kid he's ever taken a passport photo for. I was oddly proud. :-)

So that's it, baby girl! You are on your way, now! Soon you'll be crawling around eating all of my scrap paper and the kitty fur tumbleweeds, and one day in the not too distant future you'll probably go "international" for the first time!

So study up on those maps and globes in your room, baby. We've got a lot of trips to plan.

Love,
Mommy

Al Dente

Dearest Lilah -

Today I've mourned a little bit over the loss of a tiny piece of your babyhood: Your toothless grin. Oh how I've loved that little gummy smile of yours! So sweet. So precious. So cute and not like an old woman! I can't even imagine your mouth full of little white teeth but they're coming and the proof is in the sharp little shard of tooth on your bottom gum. Luckily, I didn't find out about your new gem the hard way - through breast feeding. No, I simply noticed as you laughed that there was a small discolored spot on your gum...it was pinker that the rest of your gum. So curious Mommy decided to feel it and lo and behold, it was as sharp as a razor! Oh how that must hurt your tender little thumb when you suck it! No wonder you've taken to putting everything in your mouth. I imagine having anything rub against that tender gum makes it feel some relief for just a moment.

I just can't believe you're going to have a mouth full of teeth soon. You're not even six months old yet? Sure, you will be in 6 days (please don't get me started on how unbelievable this is to me) but teeth? I just feel like your babyhood is slipping away, and I'm missing it...

I love you so very much I can hardly stand it. I never knew I was going to love you so much! I can't believe how incredibly blessed we are to have you in our family. I feel like I've been given such an incredible gift. I really didn't expect this at all. I'm sorry. I am sorry that I expected you to be difficult and a chore. Now I just expect that you'll keep me surprised for many years to come. Thanks for proving me wrong, though. I think your daddy especially likes that :-)

Love,
Mommy

I get no respect!

Dearest Lilah -

Well, well, well. As if it weren't enough to have you enter the world looking exactly like your daddy, but now you've decided that he has the best name in the world and you are going to say it and say it and say it and say it! Every morning at 6:00am, all I hear is "Squeaky squeaky, grunt DADADADADADADADADADADA." The funniest thing that has happened was yesterday morning: You woke up at 5:00 and I hoped that after feeding you, you would fall back to sleep until nearly 8:00am. Ha. Double Ha. You were up at 6:30, singing your little fuzzies songs and calling for your daddy "DaDaDaDaDaDa." Because you weren't crying and actually sounded quite happy, I decided to leave you a few minutes...just to make SURE you weren't going to fall back to sleep and give me the extra hour I so desperately needed. But you kept squeaking and "DaDa"-ing, and then all of a sudden another voice joined your choir: Sully Cat. He realized one of the "people" were awake and hoped you could help him out by putting food in his bowl. You said "Squeaky Squeaky" and he would say, "MEOOOOOOW! MEOOOOOOOW!" It was early, but I was lying in bed cracking up and wondering how long it would be before the two of you woke up your daddy with all that noise. So I after a few minutes I went in and got you to bring you into bed with me.

When I bring you into the big bed, you are always wide awake. It is so hard to get you to sleep, because you want to be AWAKE. I usually lie sleepily beside you and let you chatter away and poke me in the eyes and mouth and pull my hair. Occasionally I will nod off, and then you'll poke your finger in my eye and I'll say, "eye. Eye. You're poking me in the Eye." It's a teachable moment. I like to keep this supersoft fuzzy blanket on the bed and sleep under it instead of the comforter. It feels so good that I don't even care that it's 70 degrees in the room and I really don't NEED a king sized supersoft fuzzy blanket on my bed. And you like it, too. Daddy likes to wrap you up in it any time we end up in the bedroom during the day, and we say, "Oh-Wee! Look at the little bitty baby in her blankie!" and you LAUGH! This morning when I brought you into the bed with me, you thought it would be a good idea to puke all over both of us. So we got out of our pukey tops and just snuggled up in the blanket. I put you on top and wrapped it all around you to make you like a little baby taco, and I was under the big part next to you. We both got so comfy that within a few minutes, we fell back to sleep!

It was a good thing we got that extra sleep this morning since you took NO NAPS today! You dozed a few minutes at daddy's office and then a few minutes when you went out to the grocery store with me. I tried to put you down for a nap when we got home, but you popped your eyes open and started chewing on your elephant friend. I went back in because you were making so much noise, I knew you weren't going to fall asleep. While I stood there, you decided you were tired of looking at me from your belly and flipped yourself right over on your back! It's the first time I've seen you do that while you were trying! You seemed so pleased and surprised. You actually always seem pleased and surprised when you do something new. I guess that's pretty approrpriate :-) I probably look pleased and surprised, too.

You are just so much fun and we enjoy you every day. I cannot thank you enough for being the most awesome baby EVER.

Love,
Mommy

G'on with your bad self!

Dearest Lilah -

Well, well, well...guess you decided that you didn't want to be a one trick pony after all, since you rolled front to back today for the first time! I'm not sure how intentional it was - you were on your back on one side of the blanket and rolled to the front and I guess had enough momentum to just keep right on going until you were on your back again. You looked shocked but pleased. It was very funny.

As you had been playing, I saw you trying to pivot yourself back over onto your back, but you still don't quite have it down.

But that's ok, baby. You're growing up fast enough as it is. I'm in no hurry.

Love,
Mommy

Like a Rolling Stone -

Yesterday was HUGE.

You rolled over. Not for the very first time, but for the first time on purpose. Multiple Times. Three times in about 10 minutes, to be exact. I was so proud of you! I can't believe how big you are getting...you have almost grown completely out of your size 2 diapers, too. I'm very interested to see how much you weigh when we take you to your next doctor's appointment. I'm guessing 15 pounds. BIG GIRL!

We had a long week without daddy here, but we were able to do some fun things. You have been sitting in your Bebe Pod and actually playing with the toy that is on it for the past week or so. Before I would put you in there and you just fell over, having zero interest in that toy whatsoever. Your rapid development is absolutely stunning to me, and I can't even imagine if it went any faster, like some of your baby friends. You may not be ahead of the game, but I'm kind of ok with that. I want you to enjoy being a baby. I don't want to pressure you to do anything faster than the pace you are working at. It's too much fun to watch you learn.

You've also been sticking out your tongue lately ALL. THE. TIME. What is that? Is it because you like when I make the funny lizard tongue noises at you? Is it because you hear your name all the time and you're trying to figure out how to make an "L"? It is always stuck out and curled up over the right side of your lip. It's hysterical. And you lick EVERYTHING. "What's this? My toy? I will lick it!" "What's this? My bib? I will lick it!!" "What's this? A rock? I will lick it!" "What's this? The dog? I will lick it!" and so on and so forth. I know that they say that our tongues are the most sensitive parts of our bodies and that's why babies use them to figure out their surroundings, but it's just too funny watching that little pink tongue touch everything it can.

You are such a big girl. You turned five months old this week and I cannot even believe it. Everything is so different now. You have started taking regular naps in the morning and the afternoon, even if the times change a little bit from day to day. You go to sleep on your own most nights. I just put you down and you peek over the top of your crib at me and smile. I tell you "Night Night! I love you." and then when I leave, you have a little chat with your fuzzies and the next thing I know, you're out for your longest sleep cycle. I feel really guilty putting you to bed when you're asleep. I feel like I'm missing out on time that I could be looking at you or playing with you, but I know you are tired and you need the rest. It's in your sleep that your hair grows, I'm convinced. Every day when you wake up, it's longer!

I can't believe how much I miss your infancy. I mean, now you are a baby, but you aren't a newborn anymore. And that's wierd. To me, anyway. I feel like you're going to be grown up soon and I will have missed something very important. The first month or two you were here it was so much about just surviving...learning who you were as a new person and trying to keep you happy. As much as I would like to give you a sibling sometimes, I don't know how I could "survive" that time again with a new person and still give you all the love and attention and time that I want to give you. Of course, part of me can't even believe I'm talking about another baby but once you have one, it definitely is like a switch is thrown and you want another. Even if you don't want another. At least that is how it has been for me. I remember when you were two weeks old and I was sitting on the couch, holding you and looking at you and marveling at the perfection of you and I told your daddy that I wanted TWELVE MORE BABIES. I just could not imagine the rest of my life not having one of these little sleepy squishy precious dreaming babies in my arms. And that is still true, somewhere in the crazy part of me. But don't worry, sweetie. You will not have to contend with 11 brothers and sisters. I promise.

Love,
Mommy

Where has twelve weeks gone?

Dearest Lilah,

Your daddy took you out visiting today. You went to see one of his clients, and then you went to see Miss Kathy and Miss Lauren. You put on a good show for everyone, he said, because you are a great visiting baby. You smile and coo and show them all your good tricks. We appreciate your trickiness. :-)

You sat with me for a little while - maybe 30 minutes - while I sewed. When you got tired of watching me from your swing, I sat you in my lap. You did not care for the sound the machine made. This was funny to me, because when I used to sew while I was pregnant, you got all active and smacky and kicky then, too, and I always said, "I guess you don't like that noise!" and apparently that is still true.

Today you really were checking out my arm. You have looked at it and touched it a lot before, but today you were fascinated. I think it's the first time you realized you could touch it and that it was part of me. Surprise! I'm more than just boobs! :-) But you were very cute, touching my arm, and I'd say, "That's my ARM! Arm! Arm! Arm!" and you'd pull your hand back, look at me and laugh while looking away all coy-like. Then you'd start over.

You also did a lot of vocalizing tonight. We would say, "HEY!" and you'd make noises that sounded like you were trying to copy us by saying "HEY!" back. I think your first word will probably be something totally random...like "HAIR!" or something else like that. Definitely not "Mommy" or "Daddy." Maybe "Sully," though. We talk about him a lot.

We also played a little bit with a toy from Aunt Gina and Uncle Tripp. You liked the snake that made a rattle noise and kept patting it and being amused with the noise. You also liked touching the giraffe and looked a little bit at yourself in the mirror. I was glad you were reaching out and touching the toy - I had started to worry that you weren't going to ever show an interest in touching things with your hands. Of course, you're still not TOO keen on that whole "pushing up" thing...

I'm looking forward to what you decide to do tomorrow!

Love,
Mommy