We are in the game

We have just submitted our first offer on a house. It's a spunky old (1890 old!) Victorian just 4 blocks away from where we live now. Our dream has been to live in a house with a yard, one more room, off street parking, in Nob Hill near Wallace Park. We definitely have many more house desire details in our dream (because we sure have had the time to think about it) but we are willing to compromise on quite a bit if we get the house in the ideal location.

Lily is 14 months now and is all about walking(Frankenstein style), climbing, and trying to jump. We're much more about playing in parks than taking long walks these days. If she's not in her high chair, car seat, or reading a story on one of our laps, she is moving...ALWAYS MOVING. The imitation game is also much more front and center these days so we are more aware of what we're saying and doing, more doing at this point. Her talking is still babble and I would guess only has a vocabulary of around 10 words (but doesn't say them consistently) but wow, the amount she understands amazes me every day. I can say "what would you like to wear today?" and she'll go to her drawer and pull out an outfit and is already showing picky signs about what she wants to wear (I had to dress her in a heavy sweatshirt on a 90 degree day). I used to use the ergo carrier 99% of the time and now it's only about 50% because of her weight and her desire to be more mobile. I thought I'd have her weaned by now but I still breastfeed right after she wakes up in the morning and before her bedtime story. I enjoy it, I'm lazy about switching up what works, and I'm letting her give me a sign which she kinda is with nursing for shorter amounts of time. Sometimes I'm embarrassed by the fact that I'm still breastfeeding but at the same time I'm really proud of myself for making it this long after the nightmare start I had.

It's a busy week ahead with house stuff (our place could be on the market by the end of the week), a tennis tournament, and the Blue Lake Sprint Triathlon...lots of stuff that we hope goes really well and smoothly this week.

Here are a few recent pics of Lil', enjoying her corn on the cob and playing in the park.

Hot and Cold

As we sat and ate dinner tonight, feeding Lily some of our Thai food, I thought about how glad I am that she is a good eater most of the time. She still has her moments of refusing to eat something she loved the day before or dropping her food on the floor piece by piece, but for the most part she eats very well. Right after that good thought I remembered that she had cried all the way home for half an hour in the car yesterday, so the good moments are tempered by the very difficult moments. Then there are the moments of sheer delight, like when I peeked in on her as she was waking up from her afternoon nap today and there she was laying on her stomach with her head propped up on her hand like she was laying on a beach enjoying the view. I'm thinking of these ups and downs as they hit on a point that I read about in this article and the article that it's responding to: http://www.babble.com/mom/health-and-relationships/parents-are-happy/. Namely, the point that parents have higher highs and lower lows than non parents. I find it to be definitely true. Do I find, as the graph shows, that my average happiness is lower now versus a couple of years ago? I don't think so, but it doesn't sound that crazy either.

Anyway, it's been a while since we blogged. In the meantime we took a nice vacation back to Chicago and Michigan and hung out with our families. It was great to see everyone and introduce Lily to Klinger Lake and Thunder Road, hopefully she gets to keep adding great memories at these places as the years roll along. Here are a couple of cute pictures from the trip, there's also a full album posted on Picassa, linked from the upper left of the main page of our blog. The first pic is with Lily's Aunt Emily, cousin Sophia, and Great Grandparents Mitchell. The second is with her Aunt Sonya, Uncle Eric, and cousins Ryan and Emma.

Smily Girl

Lily is now our 13 month old walker and she's understanding more and more. The other day we asked her to smile and were surprised when she responded. So here's Lily's version of a smile:

Corny

One of my goals after Lily turns one was to sign up for Lily's first official class, so actually pay money for one. I have really benefited socially from the Mommy & Me group at the hospital and Book Babies at the library but it's time to get Lily trying something new. I signed us up for a movement class at the Children's Museum, thankfully with a friend of mine. It is the corniest class I've ever taken and Lily is a bit too young to follow along so I can't throw in the "I like it because I know she likes it" card. She seems to prefer to hang out at the door looking out the window, probably thinking "let me out." We do have our moments of fun in the class, but man, a bit too few and far between.

My tennis leagues are over for the summer and I'm happy with my game and even happier with some of the contacts I've made. I can definitely tell that I'm mentally stronger on the court which I know has to do with having a kid and being older; it's not about the focus as much as thinking clearly on the court. What I would give to have this mental strength back in my hay day. I'm looking into playing an individual tournament this summer so we'll see.

Lily has definitely picked up on the walking, figured out how to knee walk, and has picked up a little personal hygiene too. Here are a few videos of her doing her thing.

Vampire On the Loose

Now that the Birthday fun is over and Grandma & Grandpa Mather have gone home, it's been back to the usual for the three of us this week. Of course as soon as I write that I think of a number of ways it hasn't been usual. "Usual" seems to change from week to week.

So do you want the good news or the bad news first?

We'll start with the good. Lily had her one year appointment and everything is a-ok. She's over the 90th percentile for height and around 40th for height. So she's tall and skinny so far... what a surprise. On Tuesday night as we were getting ready for bed, Lily showed me something I hadn't seen yet. While she had taken steps before, usually to reach for something we were holding and pulling slowly away, this time she really walked. She just stood up and took a few steps over toward a particular toy. She didn't make it the whole way, but it stood out to me as a big step, literally and figuratively. It's been happening more and more over the past few days, and I still stop and watch every time she does it. Clearly it's going to be a long transition from crawler to walker, but it's pretty cool that it's begun in earnest.

On the bad side, we have a vampire on our hands. Lily bites. When she's frustrated it's her go-to move. If she's being picked up when she doesn't want to be up, if she doesn't want to let go of something, or if she's just plain mad, the mouth opens up and then the trap is sprung. This girl has a lot of teeth and a strong jaw, and she knows how to use them. We asked the doctor what to do about this and the answer was to stop, put her down, and walk away. In theory, she wants us and our approval, so she would figure out that when she bites, she gets neither. In practice so far, she seems perfectly happy to have us leave the room so she can do what she wants to do. And what does she want to do? If she's in her room, she wants to pull the outlet covers out of the outlets. This girl must be a plug-in hybrid or something, she is addicted to outlets. We asked the doctor for advice on this one too and she recommended saying no and redirecting her to something else, saying "she should get it after a few times". Unless a few is fifty, it's not working yet. Whatever we redirect her to distracts her for a bit, but then she remembers the fun she was having at the outlet and makes a run for it again. Oh well, it may be time to replace the outlets with the self-covering type.

That's about all the news from Lily. But I'll take a moment to toot Nicole's horn before I sign off. Over the past few months, Nicole's been playing more tennis. More than she's played since college. She's been playing in two leagues and has found a few good hitting partners. And in these leagues she's been kicking some butt. She's beating some quality players here, like club pros, and winning in ways she didn't in the past like coming back from 5-2 in the first set today to take it in a tie breaker. And a couple of weeks ago she beat a woman who was ranked #85 in Division I NCAA singles a few years ago. I think it's pretty cool and if she won't brag about it then I'm happy to oblige.

Lily is 1!

We are in awe of today, Lily's very first birthday. We are both emotional thinking about how far we've come, how much you've grown, and how quickly today arrived.

Today was one of those days we'll reminisce about when we're silver haired and rocking on our porch swing in the mood to smile.

Here's a video of a few highlights from Lily's 1st year.

Catching Up

It's been a while since we've blogged, sorry about that. It's not like we've been busier than usual or anything, I guess we just haven't felt the inspiration.

A few goings on here, most interestingly Lily is taking a few steps here and there. It's been going on for almost two weeks, but it's hard to really call it walking yet. More often it's us tricking her into taking a step or two by holding a toy or book or food just out of reach. But today she did take three steps from the couch to her walker, so maybe the progress will start to pick up and she'll be toddling before her birthday. Speaking of which...

The big day is next Saturday. It really is hard to believe that it's been a year, it has completely flown by. I definitely remember her "birth day" as if it were yesterday, and it seems like all her "firsts" just happened. I do suppose that there has been a lot packed into that year, with her beginning as an eating, pooping, sleeping (but cute) blob, kicking in her rocker, rolling over, rocking on hands and knees for what seemed like an eternity, then crawling, then turbo crawling, and now on the edge of going for a walk.

One other subject before I give you the Lily media update. I went on my first multi-night business trip this past week, down to Austin. It was definitely strange to be away for two and a half days, away from both Lily and Nicole. We did Skype a few times, but the real thing is definitely superior. Seeing Lily take a few steps made me want to reach through the computer and hug her. And I know it wasn't easy for Nicole to be solo for those days, with diaper changes being action packed and not having the few minutes break that can be such a help by the end of a long day. I'm sure I'll be traveling more in the near future, but it makes me glad that my job doesn't require me to be a road warrior.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the latest from Lily: