Lily's First Christmas

Santa decided to give Lily the gift of crawling for Christmas and my wish for a childproofed home hasn't come true...yet. Laziness can be so powerful. Lily's 1st Christmas was as sentimental as I thought it would be. She enjoyed the tissue paper in her stocking made for her by g'ma, blocks and a book from her Daddy, and a Laugh&Learn musical table from her aunt and uncle that she really enjoys and we wish had quieter volume settings (thanks again Eric and Jill!). Eric, get ready for a voicemail (or 2) of just a few of the songs we get to hear on repeat over and over again. :)

We are still figuring out what the Nate and Nicole Christmas tradition will look like. We have the food situation all set but we're working on what else we'd like to include...Christmas concert, readings maybe, a particular movie...not sure yet, fun to think about. We spent much of the evening watching the 1st season of Friday Night Lights....good show but not Christmas tradition good. The plan is to incorporate traditions from each of our families and then add something Nate and Nicole-ish to the mix.

I wouldn't be surprised if one of Lily's first words will be "skype." Video-chatting with family is a highlight. Here are a few random snapshots from a Christmas skype session with my family, makes me smile seeing how happy they look.

Here's our first family Christmas photo. It was a simple Christmas with lots of time to just be with those you love and be grateful...happiness can really be that easy.

Christmas is a-Comin'

We haven't had a lot to write about lately, thus the two weeks between entries. We've been going along with the routine and all is good. We've been getting ready for the holidays, sending and receiving lots of cards and trying to get our act together for gifts.

We did cut a real Christmas tree this year for the first time ever. It's a great tree, measuring in at about three and a half feet tall. It took about 10 seconds to cut down, but about 10 minutes to select. Here we are with it (thanks Jeanne & Jeff!).

Probably the biggest change with Lily is that she's starting to crawl just a bit. Here's one of her first attempts, managing about a foot of progress. She gets distracted pretty easily, so she hasn't yet gone very far. We're still waiting for that day everyone warns about where she suddenly takes off and never stops.


One of her favorite things to do these days is to bounce around in her doorway jumper thing. She figured out that the rocking motion she does all the time (while being held, sitting, hands and knees, really all the time) makes her bounce really high. Our favorite part is the way her feet come together on the ground and then fly apart when she jumps. Looks like she's clicking her heels or something. She also likes to babble/yell while she's in there, "ba ba ba ba" or "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH". She doesn't do it in this video, but it's pretty entertaining when she does.

It will be a pretty laid back Christmas for us, since we finished our big trip for Thanksgiving. We'll just relax at home and visit friends around town. No midnight mass for us this year either, we'll hit an earlier service instead. But we'll definitely miss the candlelight rendition of Silent Night. I guess we'll just have to start our own tradition of singing it at home with a candle before Lily goes to bed Christmas Eve.

Once Upon A Time

Once upon a time, taking a week long trip with carry-on luggage actually happened. Once upon a time, driving 3 hours without stopping was considered normal. Once upon a time, I thought about all the books, magazines, music and movies I'd bring to keep myself occupied for the long flight...that makes me chuckle now. There are times when I miss being the quick and savvy traveler, not missing a beat as I made my way easily and swiftly through the airport, keeping an eye out for time savers like it was a game. Now, all I keep my eye on is Lily, my boobs so they aren't accidentally saying hi to everyone, and all of Lily's stuff we now travel with.
Smooth travel now no longer means just arriving safely and on time, it also means not having to change a poopy blow-out diaper or an outfit in flight, not losing anything like a shoe or that one toy she'll stop crying for in a second, and getting blessed with a quiet baby on the plane. I am grateful that I can say that we did have smooth travels to Chicago and Michigan over Thanksgiving (our neighbors on the flight might disagree but crying for 15 minutes or so on a 4 hour flight is being an angel).

Our trip was full of visits. Family was the priority and we were able to see everyone from cousins to siblings to great grandparents. We hoped to see more friends but it gets so tough when it's a holiday trip...next time. Here is a list of 10 great memories from the trip in no particular order

1) Watching Lily and her cousins play together...maybe it's not playing as much as just curiously looking but it sure is cute.
2) Introducing Lily to her great-grandparents...such a rare and special treat.
3) Keeping Lily on west coast time actually worked..as long as she slept in a room with no windows.
4) Date night with Nate, eating dinner at a restaurant bar....something about sitting at the bar helped shed the mom role for a little while
5) Seeing my dearest friend Manju and meeting her gorgeous daughter Shivan for the first time...Manju, I didn't want our visit to end. Eating Sri Lankan food was awesome too. :)
6) Playing with my nieces and nephews. They are all older now and so much fun to talk to. I had a long conversation about candy with my 6 year old niece.
7) Having people around who wanted to play with Lily non-stop.
8) Lily hanging out with her Godfather and watching the Hinsdale crew decorate their Christmas tree
9) Watching Nate teach our niece how to run like an airplane in a field and watching a huge flock of birds fly away from a nearby tree.
10) Having Nate around for a full week without that pesky job getting in the way.

Lily is 6 1/2 months now. She eats fruits or vegetables once a day in the early evening and I still breastfeed her 5x a day. She takes 2 naps and goes to bed around 7. It is nice to have a bit more of a routine that I can rely on, helps in making plans. She's been rocking in the sitting position and on all 4's for a few weeks now but hasn't officially crawled yet. She discovered her wrists (something only parents would notice probably) and moves toys from one hand to the other now. She likes to bang any toy that makes noise and crinkle paper. Separation anxiety has also shown itself a little bit within the last few weeks.

Life is darn good right now because it's all around easier. Life is simple, slower paced, and chill and I'm very content with that. I take a lot of walks and talk to my family more, which probably has a lot to do with why life feels good. I don't have to worry about time zone differences and my work schedule which is nice. I wish it was easier to see friends in the evening hours but brunch is replacing dinner these days for catching up with friends. I also haven't been bored, which I thought might happen. My list of projects only continues to grow as well as the list of books I want to read. I know it's a phase and the next one is right around the corner but I'm living in the moment and it's easy to...and that's a sure sign that life is good.





Check out our November pics here: http://picasaweb.google.com/nicoleandnate/2009NovemberLily6Mths?feat=directlink

Six Months

Today was Lily's six month birthday. It's really hard to believe that a half a year has gone by, but I'm not sure why it seems that way. When I think about it, new things have happened almost every day, much faster paced than life before Lily.

Lily's big recent achievement is eating solid food. She's been doing it for about a week now and in general it's been going pretty well. So far she's eaten avocado and pears. She definitely prefers pears, but she didn't know that until she ate avocado, then pears, then back to avocado. The second time with avocado she wasn't much of a fan. So we mixed it with pears and everyone was happy again.

So far, Lily's shown a few talents and a few areas to work on. Above all, she's a great sleeper at night. We always knock on wood when we mention it because we really hope she keeps it up. Us getting as much sleep as we need definitely helps keep all of us happy. She's a great sitter, able to sit for as long as she wants to as long as she doesn't decide to reach for something a little too far away and tip over. I guess the big head makes balance a little difficult. Her latest addition to the sitting repertoire is rocking back and forth like she's doing toe touches. Once in a while she'll even lean all the way over and try to eat the blanket she's sitting on. Her greatest talent is probably hair-growing. She got a head start by growing a solid base while waiting to be born, and she never looked back. She's already able to sport a sumo-style pony tail, and she's proud of her trick of growing a different color hair than she entered the world with.

On the down side, she's not much of a conversationalist, and she's still working on her sense of humor since she only laughs every couple of days. Over the past week she has also been a bad diaper changee, preferring to roll around and either smack the wall or grab the side of the changing pad. In the interim I've learned to change her diaper while she's on her tummy.

A Good Day

It was my Birthday yesterday. I am now 31 years old. What does it feel like? I definitely don't feel old but it does feel like I am far away from my 20's. Why is that? Not being able to go to a bar after our birthday dinner out because I already felt a bit too tipsy (and embarrassingly tired) is one reason....sleeping in till 7:20am on my birthday is another reason....walking casually around the city at night while it's dark out giddy that I'm surrounded by people in public after 7pm is yet another reason. Those reasons aren't really related to being 31 as much as it does to being a mom but wow, so different from my 20's.

The Birthday ended up being a darn good day. I enjoyed breakfast out with most of the Girls Night crew. We can go from talking about tax consultants to romance just like that. We are not a quiet table, love that.

We spent the afternoon with friends and at the pool. Taking Lily to the pool for the first time was the one thing I really wanted to make sure happened and it did. More on the pool in a minute. I do have a quick funny story. While hanging out at our friend's party, there were about a dozen of us in one big room. Nate stayed near Lily while she did her yoga poses on her blanket while I was at the other end of the room catching up with others. I could see Nate's eye suddenly widen and Lily looking a little taller than usual. Lily was having "a first", and like typical first time parents, it was like we just won the lottery. I screamed "It's a first!" and leapt for the camera. After taking way too many pics, Nate and I chest bumped each other in excitement. OK, the last part was made up but it makes me giggle. You'd think Lily's first was doing a cartwheel but all she did was get up on all fours, putting her knees under her butt for a prolonged period of time, that's it and it was awesome!

The pool was a blast. At first, Lily was chill and indifferent to the water and much more interested in the ceiling lights. Thanks to Dad making her giggle the most yet from simply going underwater and popping up to say peekaboo, she quickly fell in love with splashing and kicking her legs. If there was music like Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros playing while Lily was giggling at Daddy, I would have bawling tears of bliss. Surprisingly, I kept my composure. My love for swimming doesn't even compare to my first love of tennis. I will probably drop to my knees and bawl when Lily hits her first tennis ball over the net.


I'm going to end this post with an adorable Birthday wish from my friend Austin. Birthdays bring out a healthy competition of who gives the best birthday song rendition within my family. This year, the champion is adorable Austin Grossnickle, blowing the competition away. Special thanks to Vaughn and Barb for helping make my day.

It was a good day.

Boo

Happy Halloween! We're not very big Halloween people, but managed to get in the spirit long enough to get Lily into a costume and show her off a little. If it weren't for Mark & Katie offering to let us borrow a costume, Lily probably would have missed out on her first Halloween altogether. In any case, she did get to dress up as a cute little bear cub. And in my humble opinion, the operative word there was cute. She was more interested in sucking on her newly furry hands than in grrrrr-ing at people, but all in all it was very fun.

Other than that, not a whole lot to report. Lily's coming up on the six month mark in a couple of weeks here, and it seems like she's pretty much where she's supposed to be developmentally. She's picking up new things, most notably scooting a little bit by sitting up and rocking. As she rocks forward her butt scoots forward a little and she can very slowly make her way forward. We'll have to get this on video soon. She also likes to get up almost onto hands and knees and then rock from side to side. Still seems like a long way to crawling, but she's definitely improving her balance. Here's a video of her rocking on her tummy.

I do have one funny story. We were at mass today and the archbishop was thanking all of the people who serve as readers and altar assistants, etc. When he was done, he asked the congregation to give them all a round of applause. Lily had never heard this much clapping before and gave her "what the heck is going on?" look, waited until the clapping was done, then started wailing. Luckily she calmed down quickly when she realized that the clapping would not hurt her.

We're putting together October pictures, they'll probably be posted later in the week, linked again from the upper right of our blog page.

Breakup and Dating Scene

It's already been a week since I broke up with Intel for someone else and unlike all the other breakups in my past, there are no tears to speak of, no long talks with my sister to remind me that I am worthy and I will find happiness again, and no middle of the night urges to contact Intel and ask to be taken back. Nope, none of that. It's too soon to say what it's really like day to day as a stay-at-home mom but I can say that I am happy and this past week included a lot of firsts not only for Lily but for me as well.

One of my firsts is that I cooked dinner every single night this past week and I didn't mind. I cooked rice for the first time (how embarrassing is that?) and learned that squash takes forever to bake to the point that watching Nate eat it reminded me of a dog gnawing on a bone. I tried out new recipes and I consider it successful because Nate ate it and is still alive. My mom always told me growing up that a way to a man's heart is with food. I don't agree, but I do feel a sense of pride knowing I could cook a healthy and tasty meal for my family and I know my mom and I agree on that.

The other first is an embarrasing realization that my quest to meet more people in my neighborhood is starting out differently than I hoped. I am meeting new people that are very friendly, especially to Lily. Lily has gotten "there goes the future" and "she has the face of the future President of America" and the usual "all that hair is awesome" (which by the way never gets old). Unfortunately, all these comments come from what Nate calls "street persons." They aren't transients because they aren't going anywhere and they don't seem to be homeless. I take a lot of walks with Lily and when you take walks around the city, especially downtown, in the middle of the day during the work week, you pass a lot of street persons. I have also handed out leftover baked goods out to them so maybe word is getting out about crazy tall lady and her baby walking around the city looking for people to give treats to. It did seem like I got approached quite a bit last week.

I'm slowly putting myself out on the "mom-friend" dating scene. Thankfully Nate paved the way at the library's book babies class and I was approached by a couple of women last week who remembered Lily. I haven't gotten any phone numbers yet and yeah, I have had a couple anxous moments where I wish I had a fun group of active mom friends in the neighborhood. If I've learned anything about the dating scene though, it's that it all seems to happen when you aren't working so hard at looking for it.

Even though Lily still cries quite a bit when she goes down for her "will it be 30 minutes or 1.5 hour" naps, we had a lot of fun this week. I know she like Guns-N-Roses "Sweet Child O' Mine", she'll giggle if I jump up and down and say boo, she enjoys dancing with me to the Beatles "Yellow Submarine," and likes watching me dance while cooking in the kitchen. Lily likes to hold leaves and will follow the falling leaves from the trees with her eyes. She'll kick her legs in excitement whenever a dog or a cat comes close. She likes playing with the nalgene bottle cap and enjoys the crinkling sound of a granola bar wrapper. It probably seems pretty mundane and boring reading this but I honestly find it really exciting to be a part of Lily's world. I wonder what I'll learn this week.