Month 13

Oh man, Lily is older than 1 year. I guess we still have to do the she's "x month old" thing. So Lily is 13 months old. Well as I put this post together she's already14 months old, but this will be about month 13. 

We know that she's growing fast, but when you see someone everyday you don't notice. But every once in a while, you go in to her room to get her in the morning and you just think "she just looks bigger somehow". It's so weird when that happens. I can't imagine not seeing her for more than just a day or two in a row and feeling like she's a completely different baby. The most major change in her appearance recently is that  she's a curly girly. For a while, we would just put her hair up in a pony tail and then we noticed that as her hair grew there were more and more curlies. It was like the old straight hair was weighing down the new curly  awesome hair, so that meant that it was time for a haircut. So Danielle took out the scissors and gave her her first haircut. After that, it was like we had a different baby. She looked so different to us. There was something sad about just throwing all of that baby hair in the garbage, but we saved some of it.

Now that she's put walking and moving around a bit more, she's figuring how to get around things and really go where she wants. She also responds to things with her own movements. After months of asking "how big is Lily?", she now responds with throwing her arms in the air when we answer "soooo big." We've been afraid of her near steps for a bit because she hasn't figured out how to go down in a way that doesn't result in tumbling and landing on her face. But I think she now has the idea. For the first time, she realized that you can turn around or sit on the edge of a step to get down a level. And like everything else she's learned by herself, we were super proud of that achievement. Though, she's not consistent with that and still tries to go down face first most of the time.

I really think she likes this walking thing a lot now too. Sometimes when the TV is on and it's something that has  music, she spins around. A lot. She doesn't quite understand that spinning leads to dizziness, so she just does it till she can't stand. There's a video of it on Danielle's facebook page. I thing her next move might me the moonwalk as she figured out how to walk backwards now too.

We're still waiting for some words to come out. That's seems like the last thing before she really becomes a toddler in my mind. She makes lots of sounds, but no real words yet. Maybe next month. Well actually I know that it's not happening in the next month since I've already lived it. So in month 14, we have a bunch of other cute things to talk about I'm sure.

Lily and the Dragonfly

Guess what? Babies are disgusting. To illustrate this point, I'll tell you the story of Lily and the dragonfly.

One beautiful day in mid October, Nanny Carol decided to take Lily to Brookdale Park like she often does. They did the usual things. Lily ran around and screamed, followed some random little girls that were playing on the playground, walked up to strange dogs I'm sure. But this park visit included an extra little activity.

While Carol and Lily were taking a break and just observing the playground, Carol noticed Lily playing with something. She didn't give her any toys to plays with, so she thought that maybe it was paper or some leaves that she picked up. Lily likes to take any kind of papery, leafy object and rip them to shreds. Well this time, it wasn't paper or leaves. Instead, a dragonfly must have landed on little Lily's lap or close enough by for her to grab it. So she did. Carol must have seen the hand movements of something being torn apart and went to see what it was and what she saw was Lily tearing the dragonfly apart. She had pretty much ripped the wings off by that point and Carol got to her just before it ended up in her mouth. By this point, there was no saving this little creature as it was already squished in Lily's surprisingly strong hands. Carol was completely freaked out by this. I don't think she was expecting to come to work today to stop Lily from eating a wingless, squished dragonfly.

Month 12

I can't believe it. It's ridiculous how quickly one year can go and how much a baby learns. Even though everyone tells you this, it's still hard to believe. So now Lily's one year old. I'm not sure what she is officially. Too old to be a baby, but still too little to be a Toddler. I think. Maybe that's why our parents always call us their babies still. They deny that we're as old as we are just like I'm doing. Actually, as much as I miss Lily being a baby and feeling like it went too quickly, I really love where she's at now. She's just gotten to be so much fun and she's still as cute as she was if not cuter than the baby version of herself.

The most important development is that she can now walk. She's been practicing for a while as she'd crawl over to the couch and pull herself up and then walk alongside it. She would take a few steps sometimes and just stop. Then fall. But one day (Oct 5th), it finally clicked and she was running. We had put up a corral in the living room a month or two ago, so now she just runs from one side to the other. She's so proud of herself. Sometimes she's so happy, that she screams while she runs, like a damn lunatic. This whole walking thing convinced us to finally buy some other gates for elsewhere around the house too.

As far as looks go, it seems like her new hair might actually be curly. It's completely wild and all over the place, but we think that it's because the old hair is straight and weighing the new curly hair down. Her arms are now long enough that she can actually play with it. She also got some new teeth in, the ones next to the front ones. She hasn't started talking besides Mama, Dada, Baba and other miscellaneous "words", but she's starting to put things into context. When she drops things or falls, she goes "ooooohhhh". Probably doesn't sound as cute in writing, but it is.

This month, we had a few Daddy/daughter days. It was the first few times that I actually took her out on my own. We've been home together lots of times, but this was new. One Saturday, Danielle went out for brunch with her friends, which turned into dinner and drinks, so we went shopping and ran some errands. We went to the mall and stuff and the idea was that we'd end up at the park or something. Instead we ended up at Dunkin Donuts and shared a doughnut. People apparently thing that seeing a daddy with his little girl is the most adorable thing. Lots of people smiled at us, flirted with Lily, and struck up conversations. Lily is pretty irresistible.

When we got home, I had a little daddy/daughter diaper adventure. I went to change her poopie diaper (3rd one that day) on the floor as she's too big for the changing table and it was going fine until I turned to take the old diaper away and grab a new one. She flipped herself over, crawled to the edge of the couch and climbed to a standing position bottomless. She then just stood there and looked down and watch herself pee all over the floor in amazement, like she didn't even know that it was gonna happen. I didn't know what to do. I had to clean her up and also clean up the piss puddle. So I took her out of the corral, laid her down to clean her up. Then I put her in her pack n play, which she hates when she's not sleeping. She hated me and screamed for a good 10 minutes, while I cleaned and mopped the floor. I decided to mop the entire area while I was at it. After that, we had some dinner and she decided to mash her food into her hair, making it impossible to comb out. Babies are the ultimate pranksters.

Month 11

First off, I know that the dates on these posts can be confusing as I'm usually about a month off from when a post goes up. I keep notes during the month and then go back to write the full post later. So to be clear, this is from August 24 - September 25. I have notes for month 12 and I hope to write so that these aren't so late. Anyway, the past few months with her have been a lot of fun, so I guess playing with her instead of writing about it is a good excuse. Enjoy.

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Lily is at such  a good age now. She's lots of fun. She likes to laugh and seems to have some sort of sense of humor. She's mobile, but can't walk yet. I would venture to say that it's kind of easy right now. At least easier than it was and easier that it'll be when she can walk and climb things. I think it seems easier now too because Danielle and I are actually now fully used to being parents. It's getting to the point where the idea of Lily is being injected into our memories of the past. Subconsciously, Danielle was trying to figure out what we did with Lily when we went on vacation to Vegas a few years ago. 

Lily's been doing a lot of learnin' around here. We've been trying to teach her some of the basic sign language things that you teach babies, like "more", "milk", and "poopie". We've only gotten to the first one, but I think she's getting it. When we are feeding her, we ask if she wants more in between spoonfuls and point with one finger to the other hand. We've been doing it for weeks if not months and one day she finally did it. I was actually very proud of her. I know I've said this before, but I'm really starting to understand the parental pride when your kid does something awesome or even just learns something new. Achieves something. Even if it is something like touching her palm with her pointer finger. Seems silly, but we know that she's learning. She doesn't do it all the time and I think she forgets about it, but I'm certian that she knows what it means. And when we're done with whatever we're feeding her, we do the sign for "all done", which is to rotate both hands back and forth as if you're saying something was "so-so". I also like to throw in "no mas". Maybe she'll pick up some Spanish too. Though not much more from me.

I think she's also learning a lot verbally too. When she's doing something she shouldn't do, we started telling her no. The cool thing is that she stops what she's doing and puts out her bottom lip and pouts and whines at you. Like she knows that she's in trouble. Sometimes she goes right back to what she was doing, but the concept of "no" along with some sternness when saying it is getting the point across. She also understands "I'm gonna get you" because that's all you have to say and she starts crawling the other way. We haven't figure out how to actually make her come to us yet though. As far as her verbal skills, it's still at "dada", "mama", and "baba", but just randomly, not in the context of "dad", "mom", and "bottle". I still love hearing "dadadadada" though. She's also developed this little monster voice when she babbles sometimes. She thinks it's funny.

It addition to all the other things, she's getting close to walking. She figured out how to stand herself up along the side of the couch and just loves to walk along the perimeter. It's just a matter of time until she figures out how to walk without it. And now she can go fully up the stairs and does so every chance she gets. We have to be careful about that. Every once in a while. she'll escape the corral and just book it, knowing that it won't be long before we catch her. And the first place she heads is the stairs. She can get up them, but hasn't figured out "down" yet. At least not the head first way. Now that she can stand, when she's in her crib in the morning and hears you coming, she gets so excited and it standing for you when you open the door to see her. I love that. I hope she gets excited to see us for a long time.

Overall, Lily is just a happy, energetic baby. Just always moving. It's ridiculous. Now that she has the clapping thing down real good, she claps whenever something exciting is happening or when there's clapping on TV. She'll stop what she's doing and just clap for a minute and then go on back to her business. The only time she's not moving is when we're feeding her. Everyone once in a while, she'll be looking out the window and just get stuck. Like she finds something so interesting that she can't look away. Like she's daydreaming. I hope she doesn't grow out of that.

Month 10

The summer continued with a bunch of visits to the Martin Family pool and a seemingly endless list of errands that you have when there's a baby in the house. We've started to give her some of our food at dinner and stuff, but the little thing still has her special food that we always need more of. At least every other weekend, we end up at Costco for formula (and free samples of course) or Baby's R Us for diapers, wipes, baby food, clothes, or any other random crap that Lily ends up needing. I'm getting to know that place pretty well. I should be foursquare mayor soon.

One of the best purchases we've made recently was a set of these standalone gates. It comes as a set on 6 so that you can make a hexagon and then just put the kid in there with their toys. When we first put them together, we did just that. Lily wasn't having it. I guess she felt like a caged animal, which is exactly what she was with that configuration. So then instead we set it up so that the gates went up around the entire living room, encompassing the edges of the couches as the other walls. So now it's like we're all in a cage together. We like to call it "the corral". I like to think that we're raising Lily free-range. Since she started crawling, it's been really good to be able to keep her in an area that we consider safe, while not keeping her in that little hexagon. Having the couches as part of this was also a good move since she started figuring out how to pull herself up to stand.

We have to be careful with the corral though, because if there're any holes, she'll find it. And when she finds one, she books it. It's liks she knows the concept of "freedom!" or "give us us free". And when she's free, she goes right to the stairs. At first, we were like, "oh it's fine, she can't go up stairs". But she figured that one out right away. I was pretty shocked the first time I saw her climb up the first step to the landing. The only problem is that she has no idea how to go down a stair. Well she tries, but it's always head first. Also she doesn't have the strength to go up an entire flight of stairs, so halfway she gets tired and without us there, she'd just tumble back down.

So in one month Lily went from army crawl to crawling to pseudo standing to climbing up stairs. Another thing she started figuring out is clapping. I think it started with taking two objects and banging them together to make sure that they're things. I thinking she likes the sound. So then we tried to get her to put her hands together WITHOUT the toys, hence clapping. It took her awhile, but she got it.

Overall, she's very aware of her surroundings. So aware that she's starting to get into the phase where she doesn't want you to leave the room. Sometimes. Like most girls, she either doesn't want you to leave or doesn't care if you even exist. One extreme or another. Or maybe that's just a baby thing.

She also had some teething days that were not fun for her, but at least it's starting to pay off. She looks very cute with those bottom teeth. And the top fronts are starting to show too. I'm just grateful that Danielle stopped breast feeding. I don't know how people have the courage to stick and body part into a hungry toothy mammal voluntarily.

PS. Oh and I finally mounted the mirror over our fireplace after 8 months or so. A few days before the earthquake. It didn't fall of course, but that was all I could think of while it was happening. Great timing.

Month 9

Month Nine began with a 10 hour car ride. For our first full week family vacation, we decided to split our time between some college friends in Myrtle Beach and family in Carolina Beach. But before that, our first stop was Raleigh. We wanted to split up our ride because we weren't sure if Lily would be able to handle a 12 hours in the car. Turns out she did just fine. She slept for most of it and when she wasn't happy, she would let us know. We stopped every 2 or 3 hours to play with her and do whatever changing and feeding that needed to happen.

That night, we hung out with Nathan, Jen, and Leo in their newish house. It was new to us, so we got the grand tour. During the tour, Jen showed us what will be the new baby's room. Yup, that's how she told us that she's pregnant. SHE'S HAVING ANOTHER BABY! She then showed us the rest of their house, which just seemed to keep on going. It was like there were rooms within rooms. Plenty of room in case they decided to birth another dozen or so babies. Mom and Ed then came by and we all went out to this BBQ place, since we said we weren't coming down to Raleigh without getting some Southern cookin. At the restaurant, we learned a valuable lesson. You can't turn your head away from an 8 month old when there's a two year old with food in the vicinity. Nathan must've seen us giving Lily some of our food, so he figured that it would be fine to shove a whole hush puppy in her mouth. When we turned back to her, she was making a disgusted face and had half the thing hanging out of her mouth. Lesson learned.We went back to the Trendowicz household and laid low for the rest of the night before heading to bed.

In the morning, we left the house and started making our way to Myrtle Beach. You know how when your going down 95 and you see tons of billboards for that little town where you can buy fireworks and play mini-golf? Well since Danielle's dad always denied her when they past it when she was little, it was my turn as a dad to say yes to going to this ridiculous little town. But now that we've been to South of the Border, I know why she was denied. The place is full of stores that are full of kitschy crap, though, I did buy myself some fireworks. But that's not even that special. They sell fireworks in the supermarkets down there.

After our little detour, we made our way to the beach house in North Myrtle Beach. The house had 6 bedrooms and we took one on the first floor that had room to fold out the pack n' play for Lily to sleep in. Unfortunately, "having room" meant that we had still to put her half in the closet. There was a second bed in our room, but we were afraid that she would roll off it, which she totally would have, so instead, it was baby central. It was just completely filled with every single item that we brought with us.

In addition to the house being full of new people for Lily to meet, there was also a dog. It made us a little nervous at first, but it ended up being a really good dog. We just wanted to make sure Lily was always being held, but I don't think she minded. Since the dog's tail was at eye level for her, every time it walked by, she laughed and thought it was funny that there was this wagging furry thing attached to this furry animal thing that walked around the house. It could have just been a floating tail for all she cared.

Overall, Lily did really good around our friends. She wasn't shy and didn't cry too much. Except for one day. On our first day hanging out on the beach, her little hidden away teeth decided to give her a hard time. The poor thing cried aaaaaaaalllll day. There was no stopping her. She pretty much cried herself to sleep. Since she's never like that, we knew something was wrong, but gladly there was only one day of that. All the other times we hung out on the beach, she seemed to actually love it. We figured that she would like the water, since she likes bath time and Grandma and Grandpa's pool and we were right. When it was low tide, it left some little ponds of piss-warm water that we were able to play with her in that she loved. Then I think she enjoyed the waves, but didn't quite know what to do with them since it never stayed still. You ever try to stand in one place and splash water whose level was constantly changing? Impossible. The cutest thing about the whole experience was the constant licking of her lips afterwards.

Since we didn't want us or Lily to burn, we didn't do the beach thing too much and had other activities to do. We went out for dinner one night (and got meats), went to Wonderworks one evening, and did a lot of hanging around the house. It was much tamer than a vacation with college friends would have been a few years ago, but we didn't mind. I'm sure that the next time we do this we won't be the only ones with a kid. I don't have any news to share, but that definitely seemed to be a frequent conversation topic with our friends while we were there.

The second half of our trip started with an hour long drive to Carolina Beach and a stop at Hardees, where the server kept calling Lily's pony tail a poof-poof. This house was a few blocks from the beach and was being shared with Mom and Ed and Jen, Leo and Nathan. This condo was definitely a bit more modern and had no dogs, so we felt better about having Lily play around on the floor. It was here on the floor that she developed a new way to get around by just skooching on her butt. At this point, she was starting to figure out her army crawl too.

We got to spend more time with her at the beach here and got more time with her cousin Nathan too. She's really too little to enjoy the beach to its fullest, so it'll be fun when she's older and she can play with Nathan in the sand and can walk on her own. At one point, during our trip, we had to spend half a day at the Nissan dealer since there were some issues with our car. The jerks who change my oil, didn't put stuff back together correctly, which cause oil to leak, which could have cause our engine to explode. No big deal. So while we were there, all pissed because this is how we were spending our vacation, Lily was as cute and happy as ever. We found this bouncy horsey thing that we put her on and she had as much fun as if we were at an amusement park. That made us feel a bit better since these vacations are just as much about her having fun, even though she won't remember it. We will though.

By the end of our week, we were ready to go home and kind of anxious to take the even longer ride back. It took about 12 hours to get back to Jersey, but again, Lilly was wonderful. We stopped at some diners and other road side eateries and Lily got to be touched and tickled by random strangers that are unaware of boundaries, but think babies are cute. I guess we'll have to teach Lily those lessons about touchy strangers later. Lily did fine on the ride home, but I think we were all happy to sleep in our own bed.

The rest of the month, Lily seemed to grow and evolve a lot. She nailed the army crawl that she had started in North Carolina. She even developed this kick-ass move in order to sit up that Uncle Chris seemed to love, which involved using her head as a pivot point and the weight of her butt to go from laying to sitting. Hard to explain, but funny to watch. She just seemed to have much more energy. It's like she absorbed some of Nathan's runoff from vacation, which there was a lot of. Since she was crawling and sitting on her own, we figured it was time to lower the crib. Stuff like this so far has been some of the most heartbreaking things we've had to do since it's proof that your baby is growing up. It feels like we just kicked her out of her bassinet. After we lowered it one notch, we learned that we better move it down all the way since it seemed like she was going to start standing soon. She also started figuring out the hand clapping thing that we've been trying to teach her a few times, but just kind of stopped once she figure that one out. She also had a few days of the funny little lip-smacking thing she would do with her tongue when we would feed her. It was a throw-back to her beach bumming days of yester-week. I would say that she's just getting more fun overall.

Well I know that this post is long overdue, but my mornings and evenings have definitely been busier spending as much time as I can with Lily. Her mobility has us jumping up to make sure she doesn't find some stairs to tumble down or dust bunnies to eat.

Month 8

I've been procrastinating. Lily's growing fast and I don't want to miss anything, so I'll do a quick once-over for month 8 and get to the month 9 post soon. A lot has happened in month 9.

In month 8 (May 24th - June 24th 2011), we celebrated our first Father's Day. As per usual, it was spent with family. We started out at Pop's house and hung out with Pop and Jojo, and (Lily's) uncle's Tim and Matt. We played some croquet (poorly) and played with some helicopters that we bought at Brookstone that unfortunately ended up not working. But we still spent lots of time bonding over why they don't work and trying to fix them. We then hopped down to Grandma and Grandpa's house, to spend some time with Danielle's side of the Father's Day equation, including her 93 year old grandfather. Played in the pool a bit. It was just lovely.

The funniest thing that Lily started doing this month is this fake coughing thing. Over the past few months everyone's had a cold at some point and I think Lily somehow figured out that she gets attention when she coughs. So for a few weeks, that was her trick. All you would have to do was cough in her presence and she would look at you and do her fake cough, knowing that everyone around her would laugh. At that point we started also clapping when she would do it, hoping that she would also then clap. At this point, that hasn't happened yet.

We brought Lily to Brooklyn for the first time. Danielle had to go and look at dresses in Brooklyn with Tim's Jen for their wedding in November, so we decided to make a day of it. We took a stroll in our old hood of Park Slope first. Now we could finally fit in with all of the parents with strollers. Three years too late. We met Tim for lunch before heading back to the car to park over near the zoo, where Jen was working. We got to the Prospect Park Zoo and were able to just walk in. Oh the perks of being the future brother-in-law to a zookeeper. She even gave us our own little walk through of the zoo. As soon as I saw the prairie dog exhibit, I knew that I had to get a picture of Lily in the little bubble window. The part I don't remember from doing that as a kid is that you really have to get on your hands and knees to get up in those. It's hard enough as you get older, let alone holding a squirmy 7 month old as you do it, but we got our shot. At the end of the tour, Jen was able to finagle her way into feeding the Sea Lions. So we actually got to watch her do her thing and do the cool tricks with them for fish. We were so happy we were able to see her do that. I don't know if we'll get the chance to again. After the zoo, we met up with some Brooklyn friends, Lori and Paul, to introduce them to the Lily girl. We forget how many friends and family we have that haven't met her yet. She's always there for us that it seems weird that not everyone we know knows her yet. The rest of the day was spent at Time and Jen's apartment hanging out with them and Jen's friend, sisters and mom.

Unfortunately I don't remember anything else from June except that that was when we really started to notice how heavy Lily was getting. In the next post, we'll tell you all about our first vacation and really long car ride with Lily.

Month 7

Another month and we haven't screwed up our baby. At least not that we know of, though she did jump off the couch when this picture was taken. Luckily Danielle was quick enough to help her fall 'gently'. She only cried for a few minutes. Lily for 30 seconds or so. She's actually a really good baby and only really cries when she needs to. From what I've heard, she's more like Danielle when she was a baby. Smiling and talking and just all-around happy. There's not much more you could hope for.

One thing that she wasn't a big fan of for a few weeks was when you put her on her stomach. She really hated it. As soon as we would lay her down her little feet go up in the air and she toppled over on her side and worked her way to her stomach. Then she would start whining that she's on her stomach and just wouldn't flip over. We even tried to just lay her on her mat and let her get pissed off enough that she figured it out, but no. I think she knew what we were trying to do and wanted to scream and torture us as revenge until we gave her what she wanted. By the end of the month, she got to a point where she didn't despise it. We've also stopped having a heart attack about her sleeping on her stomach. Though, it's tough to sleep sometimes when you go to check in on her and see that she has her face mushed in-between her hands like she's counting for hide and seek. She moves all over her crib, so we know logically that she'll be fine.

Lily has also graduated to eating some baby food. We started her on sweet potatoes first. Then moved on to carrots, peas and then green beans. She really didn't like the peas, which I don't blame her. Peas kind of suck on their own. If only she could have tried them first in a chicken pot pie. I don't believe that they make a baby food version of CPP (that's what I call it). I think it's funny that she likes and dislikes things like a real person.

This month we all celebrated Danielle's first Mother's Day. All week, I was on a quest for a ring for Danielle. I was looking for a white gold or silver  ring that has a nice big Opal in it, which is Lily's birthstone, along with some other fancy decorative stuff. This is apparently something that doesn't exist or if it does, I don't know how to find it (which is most most likely the case). by the end of the week when I was still empty handed, I had to come up with another idea for a gift from Lily. I wanted it to mean something and to be personalized from her. Something a little more meaningful than a gift certificate for the Cheesecake Factory, though that would be a win for me. What I decided was to get was one of the molding kits with a frame to capture Lily's little hand along side a photo of Danielle with Lily. And this kind of thing DOES exist. So I hopped over to Buy Buy Baby and figured that the hard part was over.

Once we got up to Grandma's house in Valley Cottage for the weekend, I took Lily into another room along with Grandma as the baby-tamer to get Lily's hand print. The mold is this white foam clay-like substance, making it easy to make an imprint, but also to restart if you screw up. To once I got everything ready,  I mush Lily's hand into the mold and of course she immediately closes her hand to feel this new substance. FAIL. so I pull out her sticky, clay covered hand and give it another go.

Danielle's Mother's Day Gift from Lily

The next week, Gigi came up to stay with us for 5 days. The last few times she saw Lily, she didn't get to much quality time with her since it was for weddings and funerals. So this visit was all about Lily. She did the whole mother/grandma/housekeeper thing while we worked and got to have a date night. She was happy to get to just hang out with her and with us without letting too much get in the way. On her last day, we went to brunch and then showed her around Bloomfield and Montclair so that she could see the nicer parts of Jersey. They do exist, you know. We had a great week with her and I'm sure she would have stayed longer if she could.

These are some random cute things that Lily does in Month 7:

• Grabs my beard in the morning when I stick my head in her crib. I think that's how she knows me. It seems like she's also gotten used to it and it's not as scratchy to her anymore.
• When she grabs for things, she puts both arms out. It looks like she's going to just hug everything. That is, until she grabs whatever she's reaching for and puts it in her mouth.
• She likes paper. I think she likes that it flaps around and that it makes sound with you touch it. She wants to eat that too, but I don't want her to end up on My Strange Addictions like this lady.
• When she's happy, she makes a really high pitched squeal
• She loves Violet, her talking dog. It sings and knows her name and favorite food (Chicken pot pie)

Month 6

In early April, we took a chance and had our first long trip with Lily. We drove down to Annapolis, Maryland for my cousin Jill's wedding and brought Lily so that we could introduce her to family that she hasn't met and to give Gigi a bit more time to bond.

Even though it was just a weekend, we had a good time hanging out at the hotel. Since it was close to Easter, Gigi bought Lily a little bunny, to which on receiving, screamed like my mom just presented her with the head of a dead pony. I don't think she liked it. I do think she liked when my brother Tim and my Sister-In-Law to be, Jen (who we also call TJ as in Tim's Jen) made her blanket a cape and made her Super Lily and flew her around the room. One night, we also got to hand out with everyone in Jen, Leo, and Nathan's room. There, we played a good old game of King's while Lily and Nathan slept, or at least tried to. Poor Nathan was sick again with a col, which we all tried to keep away from Lily.

The night of the wedding my Pop and Jojo watched the kids. Actually, they got to watch them all day since we decided that it would be a good idea to pregame at a brewery near Baltimore earlier in the day. They were nice enough to stop in Annapolis on their way down to their real vacation in Florida. I guessed they just walked around a lot. I don't know what else there is to do in Annapolis since all we did was walk or find an occasion to drink. Either way, they were able to assume responsibility for the kids for a day while we drank and danced (and one of us wrestled) like the childless normies.

After the weekend of hanging out with both the immediate and a good amount of extended family, we took the trip back home. Both ways, Lily was great. Until she wasn't. With about an hour left each way, she decided that she had enough. So did Danielle and I, but you didn't see us whining. Oh, well maybe you could, but we were at least quiet about it. Our 10 hour trip to Raleigh in June is going to be awesome, I'm sure.

Besides the frighteningest little bunny, Lily also got these little plastic keys for Easter from Grandma. Right away, she effing loved them. She can put them in her mouth, they make noise, and they're brightly colored, so for a 6 month old, what's not to love? You know what she also loves? Her feet. She now is touching her feet as much as she can. Socks are now becoming more pacifier like, always ending up in her mouth when she can get them there. Lil's also really into her jumparoo still. She's now big enough that she can reach some of the little things that hang around it.

At this point, she's 15lbs13oz (63%) and 26" in length (51st %). She still looks like a little lump, but she's definitely getting bigger. In fact she's big enough to start on cereal and to sit in her high chair. I'm suspecting, that she's now big enough to have more solid, ridiculous poops.

Hopefully, I'll be a bit more timely with next month's post. Look forward to reading about our first mother's day and our adventures in baby food.

Month 5 - Rollin with Lily Love

This month, we started getting help with Lily during the day. From Mon-Wed, we've hired the new nanny, Carol, to watch Lily, and we couldn't be happier with her. She's a very loving, grandmotherly figure. She has a ton of experience with kids, professionally as well as with her her own children and grandchildren. She's very family oriented and immediately felt comfortable leaving Lily with her. She also doesn't like to just sit around, so a lot of walks and trips to the park will be had. She also likes to bake and brought us some of the most ridonkulous brownies one day. Besides the fact that we actually have to pay her, there have been no downsides to having Carol around at all. She's amazed by how good Lily has been so far that she feels like she needs to do more for us, so she made us chicken quesadillas one night, went through our fridge and spice cabinet and threw out all of the old expired stuff, organized all of Lily's bottles and stuff, and dusted everything in the living room. Hopefully we'll be able to afford to have Carol around for a long time.

As for Lily, she seems to be a bit more alert. She's always looking around and scoping out new things that she could put in her mouth. She also is a bit more grabby. She tries to grab everything. When she wakes up in the morning and I put my face in the crib, she likes to grab my beard and play with that. I love those tiny little fingers. They're just exploring all new textures and things around her. This actually led to the discovery of her own feet. One day when grandma was watching her, she walked in to find Lily's socks pulled off. She put them back on and Lily just pulled them off again. Now that's just one of the things she does now, just sits around and pulls on her feet or whatever bugs or ballet slippers that seem to be covering them.

In the most exciting Lily news of the month, she rolled over. SHE ROLLED OVER! It's crazy to say out loud, but I was actually very proud. This was the first time that I felt like a proud parent because of a goal that that my daughter worked so hard to accomplish. I only hope that her goals keep getting bigger. I won't be too proud of her if she's 30 years old and her biggest goal in life is figuring out how a doorknob works. Carol told us that she was really close to rolling over that day, so when we got home, we put her down and tried to lure her into rolling over with her toys and Singamajig (check this out if you don't know that those are). Sure enough, she lifter her big ol' head and flipped over with the rest of her body to follow. So we tried it 2 more times and got the same result. You can check out the 3rd time below. The next day, we laid her on her mat, not expecting anything and 10 minutes after Danielle left for work, I went upstairs to brush my teeth and started hearing a Lily whimper coming from downstairs. When I came downstairs, I found her rolled over on to her arms. The silly goose apparently didn't know what to do once on her stomach again without the support of her arms, so whimpering was the best option. So now that she's been rolling, she hasn't been talking as much. It's as if she's like "I already know how to do that, I'm on to new things, boo".



For the next month, we have our first family trip ahead of us. We'll be going down to Annapolis for a good ol' Garrison wedding. My cousin Jill is getting married and it should be a fun one. We'll be staying at a hotel with My parents and siblings and nephew Nathan. We don't know how to pack for something like this, but Danielle doesn't seem too worried. I'm pretty sure that we'll forget something, but I think they have babies in Maryland, so I'm sure we'll be OK.

Month 4

This month was about real life. Or at least trying to prepare for it, as if that's something that you can really do. Since it was the last month that Danielle was off from work, we needed to figure out what we wanted to do with Lily during the day. Luckily, Danielle was able to figure out a schedule with her job where she works 4 days a week. 1 day would also go to Grandma. So that leaves 3 days of child care. We started by looking at daycares in the area.

First place, Danielle cried. The next was a bit better, but we found out later was not really that great either. By the time we found a place that we really liked, it was full and there was a long waiting list. Of course. It turns out that you have to get added to the list the moment the sperm fertilizes the egg to get in when you want. So knowing that the one place that we felt really comfortable sending Lily to was not gonna happen just yet, we decided to start interviewing for Nannies. This is kind of a daunting task as it's really hard to find someone that is trustworthy and will be able to raise your kid the way that you want them to. Luckily, there are sites that help with that, such as care.com. We put up a posting with what we were looking for and got 30 replies back. We interviewed 5 maybe and in the end went with one of the most loving people that you could imagine, Carol. She's a mother and grandmother herself and just loves babies. We we're really looking forward to welcoming her to our family.

This month we put Lily in her crib for the first time. Well she's been in it before, but this was the first time actually sleeping in it. Like not in our room. like in the OTHER room. It's sad to think about her being in another room. It means that she's already growing up.  What's it gonna be like the first time she sleeps over at a friends house or goes away to college or moves in with a boy? Holy shit. I can't think about this right now. At least we have a video monitor so that we can check in to make sure sh's still alive every 15 mintues or so from our bed. Though, you do start to worry when your looking and she's perfectly still. Well hopefully all those other firsts will go as well as this did. Everyone slept really well. No problems. Our baby is awesome.

For her check-up, we learned that Lily's weight gain is slowing down a bit, which is good. Lily is now 13 Lbs or so and apparently has a small head. I dunno. It's hard enough to get onesies over that silly head when I change her, so I can't imagine it being much bigger.

Lily is also starting to giggle more now, which is fantastic. We can't quite nail down what she'll giggle at, but this is progress. More on this later, I'm sure.

To add to the craziness, there was the added emotional stress of the death of my grandma, Lily's namesake, Lillian Garrison. I guess that's part of real life too. The fortunate part of these kinds of events is that it brings the family together. Jen, Leo, and Nathan came up as did family from Maryland, Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas. We even got to meet my cousin Chris and Clayton's baby girl, Garrison, who is 3 weeks younger and seems so much more baby-like. It must be Lily's crazy head of hair that makes her look much older. And in the middle of all this, I got some ridiculous stomach bug that kept me out of commission for 3 days. I gave it to me mom and Danielle, but luckily that was all.

Next month, Carol will start and we'll be on a new schedule. Wish us luck.

Month 3

It's so weird how things change so quickly before your eyes without you even noticing it. At month 3, Lily is double her birth weight at 13-ish lbs. We thought she looked perfect when she was born (which she did). But looking back now at those pictures, you can see she looked more cave-man/new-born-ish than we realized. She had that big brow, was skinny and bony, and was so red. Now, she's filled out quite nicely with the chubbiest cheeks and legs. And her hair... it's just ridiculous, which is how we liked it. It's not as crazy just on its own as the length weighs it down more, but when we put a bow in it when its wet, it'll stay that way forever until the next bathing. Gigi calls it "Hair by Cuisinart".

This month also marked the manifestation of Lily's first cold. I think she got it from one of those pesky kids at the doctors office.  Poor thing was coughing and couldn't breathe out of her nose. We ended up using those turkey baster suction dealys to suck the snot out of her, which she wasn't a fan of, but I thought was kind of cool. Sluuuuurp!

Lily's also getting to be more interactive. We can now play the hold-your-tiny-little-hands-and-stand-up "game". She's getting good at that. It usually starts with her laying down while she grabs your hands and as you lift, she pulls herself into sitting position. From there, she locks her legs to get herself into standing position. When I play this with her, I like to end it with a "Yay!" with her hands up followed by 2 bows and "Uh-thankyou. Uh-thankyou".

But I think our favorite thing she does now is "talks". She's at a point where she's figuring out how to "goo" and "uh-gah". If you goo and gaa back, she tends to be a bit more conversational. Along with the gooing is actual gooing of drool. She's freakin wet all the time. I guess that means she's hydrated. She also can hold things, likes her mat, and has found her thumbs. She now just has to figure out how to suck on it without have the rest of her fingers in her eyes. She has to be careful with those crazy wolverine finger nails. They seriously regenerate to their potential length everyday. I think they might be made of steel.

The one bad habit that Lily has now she's getting from us. She really like the TV. She can spin her neck from anywhere in the living to check out the light and sound box. She can also get a glimpse from our laptops and cellphones. Once this ridiculously long winter ends, we should be able to remedy this before she understands the concept of TV.

Aside from being home and playing with Lily, we've been back home in Valley Cottage every weekend since Christmas to hang out with the grandparents. One advantage of this is that we actually went out to the movies. I definitely miss being able to do that. Luckily there are enough people around that want a piece of Lily which should allow us to do that some more in the future. At least we've figured out that we can go out to dinner with her. Every time, she slept through the entire meal. Doesn't matter the environment. It's good to know that she can even sleep in a crowded irish pub.

LILY'S FIRST CHRISTMAS!

A year ago at this time, we had no idea that we would have a baby around for Christmas. Having a baby around makes Christmas seem more special somehow. Everyone seems especially excited to see you and hang out with this new family member. We find it hard to think of something when someone asks what you want for Christmas and now I get it when your parents say "you don't have to buy me anything" when you ask. I'd be happy if all those gifts just went to Lily now. Though I don't know what she would do with an Xbox Kinect. I don't know what she's gonna do with most of the gifts that she got since she's only 2 months old, but I'm sure she'll use them soon enough. People were so crazy generous with gifts for Lily that we needed make a second trip to get the rest the following weekend. If all the gifts that she received, one of our favorites was a winter hat that Grandma and Grandpa gave her. It's ridiculously cute and looks ridiculously warm.

After Christmas, we were one of many that got snowed in. This wasn't a bad thing though. Since Jen, Leo and Nathan were up, we got an extra day to play with them and an extra day to just do nothing. Luckily I had the week off, so I could afford a week's worth of snow days anyway. When we finally did get home, we had a good 2 ft of snow on our property. We literally had to dig our way into the house.

Since Lily's birth,  we received at least 6 different outfits for Lily to wear during the holidays. Here are the ones that she actually fit into..

Month 2

Month 2 has been a little easier than month 1. We started getting on some sort of schedule and Lily now sleeps for up to many as 7 hours at night. Her poop is also changing. Instead of that crazy mustard-style poop, it's now a bit more play-dough like. She now poops about once every 3 days, which scared us at first, but were told that it's a pretty normal thing. Each poops comes with a lot of effort on Lily's part. She grunts and pushes and tries so hard. It's adorable and heart-breaking. The good thing now though is that she has a kick-ass six pack.

It's amazing to see how much babies change in such a short period of time. Lily already looks older. She's about 12 lbs. now and has been out of newborn diapers for weeks. She's definitely out of that weird alien looking newborn phase and into the adorable chubby wubby phase. I can't believe that this is how I talk now.

My favorite new thing that she does now is the crazy big smile she gives you first thing in the morning. We've caught it on camera, but it's impossible to capture it exactly. It's like she's emitting pure joy which can't be captured on camera. It's also possible that she's just passing gas. She tends to be her cutest in the morning. 6am to be exact.

Along with the changes in her sleeping and shitting schedule, Lily has has added some other little things to her repertoire such as hand licking and cooing. She makes the cute little "Ah-guhh" noises in addition to constant grunting noises at night. Next month we're hoping to get some laughs out of Lily. She's getting close.