Lilly Rae - Week 48

Sunday, May 12

Today was Mother's Day!  It was my first official Mother's Day (last year, Lilly was still cooking).  Darren and Lilly made me breakfast in bed and we had a great day together.

It's strange how Mother's Day is different now that I am a mother.  I know that sounds obvious and silly to write, but I didn't realize how different it would feel.  It made me feel different about recognizing my mom more than anything else.  Now that I am a mom and I know what it's really like (because you never truly know what it's like until it happens), I feel like for the first time on Mother's Day I understood how amazing my mom is.  Being a mom is the best job in the world and the hardest job in the world all rolled into one, and I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I have wanted to be a mom for as long as I can remember; not just a mom, I wanted to be just like my mom.

We started trying to take Lilly's weekly picture with her sitting, like we normally do, but trying to get her to sit still for a picture is almost impossible (though we did snag this one!)

She was on the move after about 3 seconds...

so we decided to just go with it and show off our big girl standing up instead :-)

Mother's Day walk with my girls!

Monday, May 13

Lilly was very happy at Kristi's today.  She loved sitting in her seat and eating Cheerios!

This picture is too funny!  Fish pacifier?

Tuesday, May 14

Lilly enjoyed some pasta and spinach at Kristi's  She left a little on her face for later ;-)

Lilly is quite the problem solver!  Since she can't use her hands to carry things when she is crawling, she has started to use her mouth!  She carried this bowl all over by carrying it in her mouth.  Thankfully it was empty.  It was really cute but also interesting to see her actually come up with a way to take her bowl with her without carrying it in her hands.

Lilly loves her ball pit!  We actually bought a pack of 50 extra plastic balls for it to really fill it up.  They arrived today, so Lilly was extra excited! She loves kicking her feet and watching the balls all bounce around while she giggles and screams.  We love it!

See for yourself in this video!

Wednesday, May 15

I think Lilly looks the most like a little girl (and not a baby girl) when she is sitting in her high chair.  We had a fun time eating dinner tonight, so I snapped some pictures.  Lilly doesn't like it when we wipe her face and hands, so I try to make it silly and use the wash cloth like a puppet.  I also let her wipe my face first to try to get her to laugh and not yell.  It was working tonight.

I also put the washcloth on her head sometimes because she thinks that is really funny.  You can see her little smile poking through here.

Then she grabs the wash cloth off her face and drops it.

Then she gets upset that it's gone.

But then Mommy picks it up so it's all better!  :o)

I laughed out loud when Kristi sent me these pictures today.  The caption was "Lilly found a new place to play" so I was almost nervous when I opened the pictures.  Luckily she had just crawled under her exersauser and was using it as her own little fort.  Apparently she just wanted her own private place to enjoy her water ;o)

She also really enjoyed a banana and thought it even deserved some applause!  Yay banana!

It's great that the weather has been nice enough to go outside because Lilly loves it out there.  Kristi has a nice shaded deck where she can play and Kristi's daughter, Jessica, took Lilly out for some deck time.

Thursday, May 16

Lilly not only crawls, she climbs!  It's crazy that she doesn't see anything (even a person) as an obstacle anymore so she just climbs right over!  She is much more adventurous than I thought at first and she is very durable.  I used to get really nervous when she started crawling and standing because I was always scared she would fall and hurt herself.  I have learned that she will fall sometimes, but she doesn't really get hurt.  Truthfully, she is falling about 6-10 inches to the ground and she doesn't weigh enough to really make that hurt.  So we let her learn and explore a lot on her own and see what she figures out. 

Lilly has always loved the iPad, but what she loves the most right now is that Darren has a big picture of Lilly as the lock screen background.  So every time he turns it on, there is a big picture of Lilly.  I don't think she knows that it's her, but Lilly loves to see pictures of herself (or any babies!).  So she opens the iPad and "gasps" whens he sees her picture.  Then she giggles and usually kisses the baby on the screen.

Friday, May 17

It was such a beautiful day today!  We had Lilly trying on her sunglasses before she went to Kristi's.  She kept them on long enough to snap a few pictures, but she was more interested in tasting them than wearing them.  She likes sunglasses, just not on her face.  

Lilly loves the windows.  She could probably spend all of her time looking at the birds and squirrels and banging on the window.  I love how excited she gets when she is playing.  Here is a video.  It's not the greatest, but you can see some of her excitement :-)

Saturday, May 18

We still have Lilly in feetie pajamas for now because I worry that her feet will get cold at night.  I learned that this is not practical for a crawling baby because she ends up crawling on the pajamas and pulling her legs out of the leg parts and then almost tripping herself by crawling on top of the pajamas (hard to explain!).  So I started unbottoning the feet and rolling them up so she could crawl and stand ;o)  I just need to give up on the feetie pajamas, I know, but they are so cute!  I am not ready to have a baby who doesn't wear feetie pajamas!

The weekends are such a gift.  Getting to spend two full days with Lilly and watching her grow, learn and explore is amazing.  I sometimes think back and wonder, what did we do with our free time before Lilly?  I don't really remember, and frankly, I don't miss it.  The best year of my life began on June 10, 2012 and it just keeps getting better :-)

Lilly Rae - Week 47

Sunday, May 5

Lilly was running a low fever today, but she didn't let that stop her from playing and having a great Sunday with Mommy and Daddy.

We can hardly keep up with Lilly anymore!  She is always on the go and has a lot of energy.  I love that the simplest things are incredibly amusing and fun for her.  She has a lot of toys now, but she is still completely entranced by books and she loves to play ball.

I know I say this every week, but it's hard to believe that Lilly is 47 weeks old.  We are starting to plan her first birthday party.  Where did this year go?

Monday, May 6

Kristi wasn't feeling well so I took the day off to be with Lilly.  I was glad to be home with her because she still had a little fever.  Plus it was production week at the theater for Wizard of Oz, so I had rehearsal almost every night this week and was really going to miss my Lilly.  

Lilly was completely entranced by the window.  She loved peering outside and watching the squirrels and the birds jump around in the grass.  She would pull up on the window sill and just stand there staring and babbling to herself.  I was nervous at first, worried that she would fall and bang her chin on the window or let go and fall back, but she did great.  I still have first-time-mom syndrome and I can't help being worried.  I am getting better though!

This is a great shot of Lilly yelling at the birds outside and then pointing to them so I could see.

I am not really sure what she was doing here, but it was funny!

Lilly can finally pull up on the table!  She used to be a little too short to reach it.  She is growing so fast!

Tuesday, May 7

Lilly is clearly my daughter because when we brought her home after work and set her down to play, she bypassed all of the toys and went straight for her bookshelf.  I am so glad that she already loves books!

We went to Chick-fil-A tonight for teacher appreciate night (yay for free chicken sandwiches!).  Lilly was a champ while we had dinner and then on our way out, she met the Chick-fil-A cow.  I have to admit, that cow is HUGE!  She was perfectly fine waving to him but when he reached to get a hug, she was a little nervous.  She didn't cry but she actually shuddered while we were walking out the door!  I didn't even know what happened at first, but I definitely felt her shudder in my arms!  

When we got home we went for a walk around the neighborhood.  Darren carried Lilly since we weren't going to walk for long.  I grabbed a few pictures of the two of them.  Darren's face lights up when Lilly smiles at him and laughs with him.  It makes me so happy!

Wednesday, May 8

Kristi sent me a few pictures of Lilly today and told me that she was completely fascinated by the air coming out of the air vent today.  She would look down at it, poke it with her finger and then gasp and look up at Kristi.  I wish I had been able to see it, but I think the pictures tell a pretty good story.

I was at the theater with rehearsals tonight, so Darren sent me a few pictures of Lilly's night so I wouldn't miss out.  She is doing better eating, especially for Darren.  She looks like a little girl not a baby now!

I think bath time might be Lilly's favorite time of night.  She loves playing in the water and has no qualms about getting water in her face or in her eyes.  Darren has started using the shower curtain as a splash guard because Lilly has started splashing so much.  I guess it's kind of our fault because we used to splash lightly with her when she was a baby and now she is a lot bigger and stronger and she is showing us how to really splash!

Check out these action shots!

Thursday, May 9

It won't be long before Lilly doesn't fit in her infant seat anymore.  Look at the difference from when she was two weeks old.  Unbelievable!  

Lilly had a great night playing with Daddy while I was at rehearsal.  It was hard to be away from Lilly for so many nights this week.  I would get teary eyed when I would get Darren's texts with pictures of Lilly.  It was good for me to get out and do something fun for myself (plus make some money) but the truth is, being with Lilly is something fun that I do for myself.  Do I need a break sometimes? Of course!  But there is nothing in the world I would rather do than be with my baby girl!

I mean, come on!  Look at that face!  :o)

Friday, May 10

Lilly tried Pizelles at Kristi's today.  Pizelles are an italian waffer cookie that I know well.  I thought it was awesome that Lilly was trying something that reminded me of my Nanny who, unfortunately, Lilly was never able to meet.  Also, look at those curls!  Lilly's hair is starting to curl at the ends.  It looks so cute!

Lilly has really become more confident with standing.  She pulls herself up on anything and everything (including me!) and has no fear about standing by herself and playing.  She has fallen over a few times, but has learned that it's a pretty cushy landing on her fanny.  ;o)

Lilly has had a runny nose all week so we have gone through a lot of tissues.  Lilly was not very happy about us wiping her nose over and over, so I tried to make it more entertaining by making the tissue into a little puppet.  This was great to get her to let me wipe her nose, except then she wanted to play with the tissue.  Oh well!  There are far worse things, right?

Here are a couple of videos of Lilly playing.  She likes to climb me like a jungle gym.  It's very cute.

Saturday, May 11

We went to Anna's Pizzeria in Apex because we were picking up something in Apex already and had a couple (of course!).  Lilly wasn't interested in her Cheerios, so I figured I would let her try some lemon, thinking she wouldn't like it and would make a funny face (I know, mom of the year right here).  She actually liked it!  She never pulled away and made a sour face; she actually kept coming back for more.  It was really cute. The waitress brought us some orange slices and gave Lilly a few pieces of that too.  I'm glad she is eating a few more solid foods.  I want her to get exposed to a lot of different foods while she is young.

Lilly now "cruises" from the windowsill to her other toys like her table and her stage.  It is incredible how much her balance has developed over the past week or so.  I am not rushing anything, but I am betting she will be walking within the next month.  She really enjoys standing and moving around, so I think she wants to walk and will soon figure out how.

I think I was disturbing her.  Oops!

I was taking this picture while Lilly was reaching for my camera, so unfortunately I cut off the top of her head, but it's still a cute picture.

Here is video of Lilly cruising from the window to her table.  I can only upload 30 seconds, but she did this back and forth and on to her other toys for probably 10 minutes.