Sunday, March 28, 2010

Hip Hop Hooray!

On Saturday, Michael and I took Lily to our neighborhood clubhouse for our neighborhood’s annual Easter egg hunt.

Well, I assume it’s annual, but we’ve never been before due to the fact that that would have been inordinately creepy to go without a child.

So, really, what do I know?  Let’s say it was “Gilder Creek Farm’s Inaugural Easter Egg Hung in honor of Lily Bogle officially being old enough to hunt for oddly-shaped “ba” [translation: balls] that contain delicious and deadly choking hazards.”

Now you know, dear readers, that I cannot just give you the pictures and be done with it.  Let’s begin at the Bogle house, 2 days before “the hunt.”  Lily and I are running drills*.

I hide the eggs.  Lily finds them. 

I hide the eggs.  Lily finds them.

Like a pint-sized Inspector Gadget, she quickly finds all eggs that are hidden by air, and after several verbal and visual reminders is often able to find eggs that are hidden by air and perhaps the edge of blanket or toy mailbox door.

I think we’re ready, but we run drills with Michael on Friday night just in case.

Now let’s fast forward to Saturday morning, shortly before 10.  WAY too shortly before 10.  Because the Easter Egg Hunt starts at 10, and for some reason unknown to me I absolutely CANNOT seem to get anywhere with both Lily AND Michael at a particular time without the entire process of getting everyone ready and getting out of the house turning me into an absolute raving lunatic WHO CANNOT BELIEVE THAT I HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING MYSELF AND DEAR LORD WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ITEMS OF ESSENTIAL EQUIPMENT/LIFE-SAVING SUNHATS/PIECES OF JUNK/DRINKS, SNACKS, TOYS, DIAPERS, WIPES, CAMERA, CELL PHONE, AND KEYS THAT YOU HAVE TO BRING WITH YOU WHEN LEAVING THE HOUSE FOR MORE THAN 30 SECONDS AND WHY CAN I NOT FIND ALL OF THOSE THINGS AND HOW AM I GOING TO CARRY ALL THIS STUFF WHEN I AM REFUSING TO TAKE A PURSE OR DIAPER BAG FOR SOME REASON AND OH MY GOODNESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHERE IS LILY’S EASTER BASKET TO CARRY THE EGGS SHE WILL FIND AT THIS VERY FUN AND RELAXING FAMILY ACTIVITY AHHHHHHHHH?!?!?!

Ahem.

Right, so after a typical morning of trying to get all of us out the door, we put Lily in her new wagon she got for her birthday and hauled tail down to the clubhouse.  Fortunately, we only arrived a minute or two late.  For reasons I will explain in a moment, it was therefore incredibly fortunate that the hunt itself did not start promptly at 10.

While waiting for “the hunt” to begin, the children could decorate paper bags to gather their eggs in [BREAKING NERD NEWS: I read in an article the other day that it IS okay to end a sentence with a preposition…are we okay with that now, fellow nerds?  I’m cool with it if you are.].  Apparently our neighborhood association is run by people of extremely questionable intelligence, as the marker supply included a few washable markers, many more dried out markers, and some PERMANENT markers.  WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?!?!  Suffice it to say that Michael and I encouraged Lily to express herself through the delightful medium of sticker art.  She sat on Michael’s lap, and industriously applied stickers to her bag (and hands) for a good 5 minutes. 

Here, she appears to be applying a sticker to Michael’s finger.

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Don’t question the process, people.  Few can understand true genius.

I particularly liked the double and even triple-layered sticker look she went for in one place.  A masterpiece.

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Ooh…I forgot to show you the whole outfit.  It was a little chilly, so we just made sure the outfit was festive.  Here she is later that day.

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But back to the morning.  After decorating her bag, Lily lined up with the “1-4 year old” group of Easter Egg Hunters and Huntresses.  We paraded across the community center parking to go to the playground where the little tikes were supposed to get their eggs.  During our march, confusion broke out when some of the older children broke ranks, darting up mulch-covered slopes by the pool to snag the easily-found eggs intended for the “5 and up” group.  The cunning pre-K set then swooped back to our crowd, and then darted out ahead to the playground as we approached. 

Folks, I have seen mongooses do less damage in less time.

[That is so not true.

But they were the only egg-eating animals I could think of.

And don’t you know it, but yet another blog post has been derailed by my being a complete and utter nerd.

I had to look it up.  Yes, it is “mongooses” and not “mongeese.”]

Anyway, my point is that this much-built-up and highly-anticipated Easter egg hunt was over in approximately 30 seconds. 

I kid you not.

30 seconds after we began, there was not an egg in sight.

Or was there?

Upon seeing the heathens descend on the playground, Michael and I had quickly staked out two eggs under a bench, and guarded them until Lily decided she was ready to pick them up.  The rest of the playground was stripped bare around us and the locust-like horde headed back to the clubhouse, but we stayed and let Lily take her sweet time in collecting her two prizes – the only evidence left in the playground that there had even been an Easter egg hunt earlier that day…er…minute.

She looked at the eggs.  She looked at us.  She looked at the eggs. 

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She patted her chest and asked for help because she didn’t feel like bending over.

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(This little lady is really getting lazy with the whole “help” sign at her disposal!)

We encouraged her to try it herself, and she claimed her rightful (this, of course, is debatable) treasures.

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After this OH-SO-EGGCITING 30-second “hunt,” we stuck around to swing for a while and observed members of the “5 years and up” team literally BURST INTO TEARS because they didn’t get any eggs.  What a mess. 

The organizers really had egg on their faces.

Zing!

So here are some shots from our swinging.  They are a little soft (and sometimes downright blurry) due to a too-slow shutter.  Sorry, folks.

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Finally, below is a random photoshop edit of one of the pictures.

Why?

Because I can.

Also because the color was a little weird in the original and I was messing around.

The edited picture has an odd 70’s feel to it that I kind of think is nifty.

Which we will NOT refer to as a “vintage feel.”

Because I don’t like feeling vintage.

My blog.  My rules.

So there.

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*Okay, you do get that this is a joke, and we’re just playing a game with the Easter eggs I bought for her Easter basket, right?  :-)  Just checking. 

Friday, March 26, 2010

And there was much rejoicing

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No stories here.  Just wanted to give you some recent photos to apologize for posting such text-heavy posts lately.

I owe you a birthday party post and will try to get it done soon.  Just want to make sure I do it justice and I have been a bit under the weather.  Over and out!

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Doctor, doctor…give me the news!

Lily went to the doctor for her 12 month well child check, and it went just fine.  Not much to report.  Lily weighs 20.5 pounds (40th percentile) and is 30.75 inches (80th percentile).  This was a relief because we had been a little concerned that she was eating too little since her appetite has really dropped off lately (around the time we switched to all finger foods), but it seems she is right on track. 

Developmentally, she is of course doing beautifully.  She’s pretty much a full time walker now, and will choose to stand and walk even if she is already on the floor.  She tumbles many times a day, but gets steadier every day.  We’ve already covered how much she’s doing on the language front.  Socially, she has come so far from her earlier stranger anxiety, and is SO friendly when we’re out in public.  She tries to convince anyone and everyone to flirt with her, and usually succeeds.  She’ll make noises, cough, talk, point, smile, laugh, and try anything to get a stranger’s attention, and then will give them a HUGE grin.  She just loves an audience!  She wasn’t too keen on laying down on the table to be measured, but after she got over it, she started trying to get the doctor to smile at her, too.  A couple of shots, a finger prick, a lollipop, and then we were out the door!  We’ll see you again in 3 months, doc, but hopefully not before!

Now with even more real baby flavor!

At dinner last night, Lily decided she wanted more to eat, and pointed at some of the food on the table while saying, “baba,” which is “baby” for those of you who do not speak 12-month-old.  Michael and I looked at each other in confusion, as her choices sitting on the table were peas, cottage cheese, and yogurt.  We offered her the different foods until we figured out that yogurt was what she wanted.  She happily ate some, and continued to call it “baby.”  (haha…not in a smooth talking, “come here, baby, and get in my belly you sweet dairy confection” sort of way, but she was labeling the yogurt “baby”)

What in the world?*

We we missing something?

Was she trying to say some other B word that we couldn’t understand?

Had she suddenly learned how to read?

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Was she just spouting gibberish? She seemed so sure of herself.

And then we realized.

Often, yogurt just has pictures of the fruit on the label, like the kind she was eating (pictured above).  Peach yogurt has a picture of a peach because that’s what the yogurt contains.  Apple yogurt has pictures of apples, because – you guessed it – the yogurt contains apples.

But some of the yogurt...

Some of the yogurt is a little different.

A little misleading.

Some of the yogurt has pictures of the fruit contained in the yogurt, as well as a picture of a cherubic little baby who is, presumably, NOT contained in the yogurt.**

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Now considering that the yogurt container she was eating from did not have a baby on it, I’d say she has picked up on the fact that they usually do and was probably either looking for the baby on the package, or just picking the most relevant word from her limited vocabulary to tell us what she wants.

Either way, Michael and I aren’t too sure about letting her continue to refer to eating yogurt as eating babies.  Saying, “more baby?” while holding the spoon out to her once was enough to get us chuckling for the rest of the night.

SO inappropriate.

My apologies, but I just had to share.

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*As my friend Jessica would say.  :-)

**But let’s just say if the Soylent Coorporation buys out YoBaby, then I think we’ll take a closer look.

“With a rebel yell…*

…she cried, ‘mo mo mo!’”

And thus ended our foray into baby sign language. 

Sort of.

Although this is overdue (SHOCKER), I’m writing this now** because Lily’s sign language usage amused me tonight.  Unintentional comedy, to be sure, but tickled my funny bone just the same and reminded me that I hadn’t recorded our sign language experiences thus far.

[Please note that this is a story that I want to record here as part of Lily’s electronic baby book, but not really a story that you readers (who are not first degree relatives) would want to read…it’s just too long!  I’m keeping it picture-free so you’re not missing anything.  Apologies!  Move along folks…nothing to see here.]

To give you some background, I was all excited to teach Lily baby sign language.  It’s obviously not meant to replace teaching babies how to talk, but it’s a great complement to give them a way to communicate until their mouths catch up with their brains. 

So, I was all gung ho.

[Wow – never actually typed that out, so just did a search to verify spelling and learned the origins of the phrase…what…a…dork…I…am. Sheesh.]

Anyway, I was rarin’ to go. 

[I refuse to look that up.]

Ready to start teaching Lily sign language at the ripe old age of 6 months.

Well, you parents have probably guessed how this story ends.  She stared at me and drooled, and I soon abandoned my efforts when they were pretty much ignored.  I had known she really wouldn’t respond at that age, but I had figured that if I started earlier, she would pick them up more easily.  Well, what I didn’t count on was my poor attention span, which was ultimately the downfall of my plan. 

The one sign we did keep up with showing her was a sign for “all done” or “finished” that she could use at mealtimes to let us know when she was all done.  Our baby genius had, all by herself mind you, already devised several very effective communication strategies such as throwing her food on the floor or clamping her lips shut and batting away the spoon while whining.  We were just going for something more subtle.  She started using the “all done” sign…um…looking through her baby calendar where I keep her milestone notes…um…seriously, why did I not research this beforehand…well, it looks like I wrote down on January 26th that “By now, signs ‘all done.’”  What kind of note is that in a baby book?  “By now?”  Seriously?  That was some shoddy record-keeping, but she used her first sign consistently in January (10 months). 

She actually has a cute little system.  Lazily flipping one hand back and forth usually means, “I am done with this particular food item and would prefer something tastier; I would suggest cheese or perhaps yogurt.”  The frantic two-handed flipping back and forth is used to communicate, “I am done with all of this food, and you are well advised to promptly remove it from my presence or I will begin throwing it on the floor and laughing at you if you attempt to scold me!” 

Nevertheless, I was encouraged and returned my efforts to getting her to sign “more.”  She did this a couple of times, but I again admit to flagging enthusiasm as she just didn’t do it often and I have a terrible attention span.

On February 27th (See?  I can be precise here because I took better notes!), I started working on the sign for “more” again at mealtime, saying, “more?  more?  do you want more?” and signing “more” for her.

And you know what happened?  The little rascal just looked at me, then looked at the food, pointed at it, and said, “mo mo mo!”

Well then.

To make a short story long (my specialty!), she just SAID “mo” for more from there on out, and that pretty much killed my interest in seriously teaching her sign language.  She’s just a verbal kid, and tries to say so many words.  To my last list, I’d add that she now consistently says, “fff” for fruit and flower (yes, you need context to determine if she’d like to eat some fruit or is pointing to a flower in the yard or on her straw cup), “sh” for shoes, “wa wa” for water, “fuh” for phone, “ah” for up, “ch” for cheese, and “dah” for down.  So, yes…to the outside world a lot of it still sounds like gibberish, but we’re getting there!  :-)

[Hahaha…she’s now saying, “Mama” over the monitor which is pretty funny because she usually says “Dada” over the monitor.  I think “Dada” and “bye bye” are her favorite words to say.  Today in Walgreens, she said, “bye bye,” to the photo counter lady and then said it again to the checkout lady as we were leaving.  This was before any of the adults had said it, thus shaming all of us into being polite in front of a baby who had better manners!]

[Good grief.  This post has more offshoots than…than…ack…analogies are my Achilles heel.  Little help here?]

And so we reach the part where I reveal the actual point of the post.  So what happened that tickled my funny bone?  I did end up teaching Lily a modified baby sign for “help” (the real sign is just too tough, so she just has to tap her chest with both hands).  She picked it up right away, and as of last week will sign for “help” spontaneously.  So stinkin’ cute.  If her baby stroller tips over and she can’t pick it back up herself, she’ll sign “help.”  I’ll see her in the backseat drop one of her toys, and then sign “help” for me to pick it up for her.  I love it!  I really find that just that little bit of communication really does keep her from getting frustrated about needing help because she stays calm and I can usually figure out what she needs picked up/fixed/retrieved/etc.  So tonight (which is SOOOOOO not that funny after having written an essay on it), Lily proceeded to throw all of her bathtub toys out of her bathtub, and then looked at me and signed “help” to indicate that I should retrieve them for her.  Then, when I was rocking her after the lights were out (she gets a song or two and then she goes to bed while still awake), she kept throwing her lovey on the floor and signing “help” in the dark to again indicate that I should retrieve it.  Once she stopped throwing the kitty, I decided to be generous and go for three songs, and it was at that point that she looked up at me and signed “all done” right in my face.

Well then.

I guess you are, little girl.  So off to bed she went!

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*Alternative post title: “I saw the sign”  :-)  Did I make the right choice?

**I actually wrote this last night, but didn’t quite finish until tonight.  As if you really care!  :-)

Monday, March 15, 2010

Baby Mama

Lily absolutely LOVES her baby dolls.  Her hands down favorite is an American Girl Bitty Baby that my mother gave her for Christmas.  Dubbed “Gracie,” she is Lily’s constant companion and bestest buddy.  Every morning, she loads Gracie in the baby doll stroller and takes her for a stroll around the kitchen or den while I get her breakfast ready. 

Gracie often accompanies us to the grocery store and other outings, because Lily just seems happier with Gracie (or “baba” as she would say) at her side.  She loves to show her to other people in the stores.  Most often, this earns the comment of, “Wow!  Don’t you look just like your baby doll!”

Yes.

The baby doll is bald.

We get it.

Lily is bald.

Thank you.

[I have seriously thought myself that Lily might look a bit more like Gracie than either Michael or me, but that’s neither here nor there.]

The point of my story is that Lily just loves ALL of her baby dolls, and gets so excited whenever she sees one, shouting “baba!” and pointing at it.  She loves to carry her baby dolls around the house, rock them, and put them in her strollers.  Here she is piling her babies on top of a stroller. 

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That’s six dolls high!  Impressive!

Truth be told, she’s not always gentle with her babies.  She often grabs Gracie by the front of her pajamas, and repeatedly slams her into the stroller until she’s satisfied with her position.  Observe in the first few seconds of this video as she places Gracie on top of her walker (I tried to crop the video for you, but it wasn’t working, so you may want to stop after about 15 seconds) – it’s not pretty.

Okay, frankly it’s a little disturbing.

But Lily just likes Gracie to be “just so,” and it’s not her fault if Gracie isn’t cooperating.  A newer game with her babies is to feed them.  She has started pretending to feed them with a spoon and she also gives them drinks from a pretend sippy cup.  It’s just the cutest. Michael’s mom even taught her how to make a noise with her mouth to have a sound effect to go along with it.

Here’s a video of her feeding a baby and giving it a drink.  It takes a while for her to get to it, but it’s the only video I’ve taken of it for now.

[Note that partway through the video, she somehow fixes her sometimes-broken sippy cup that has sound effects (you’ll see the light flash, too) but she’s making her own sound effects for most of the video.]

Lily now has a bathtub baby that she likes to wash and give drinks (of shampoo!) to.  She even feeds and gives drinks to the animals in her books.  She’s such a sweet little mama.

I need to find you a video, but she also likes to “tickle” (oops!  that’s another word she says) everything.  Too cute!

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Watch as she conducts…her parents…

Not the Mama

As much as I LOVED the video I posted where Lily says, “Mama!” Lily really does say “Dada,” too.  Tonight, she was in her crib, taking her sweet time in falling asleep, and started just saying “Dada.”  I recorded her over the video monitor to prove it to you.  It really makes you wonder what she’s thinking and talking to herself about.  Does she just miss Dada when she goes to sleep?  Is she telling him about her day?  Is she paging him to come rescue her from the isolation of her crib?  One does wonder…

In preparation for her 1 year doctor’s appointment tomorrow, I’ve been trying to remember all of the words she says.  Admittedly, she isn’t the clearest talker in the world, but she is using the same sounds to mean the same thing, so it counts.  For example, she says “mo” or “momomo” for “more.”  But it’s a word…Megan will back me up here.  :-) 

For the record, the list includes:

Mama

Dada

More (Mo)

Puppy (pup pup)

Ball (ba)

Balloon (also ba)

Milk (meh)

Baby (baba)

Bird (buh)

Bubbles (bub bu)

Umbrella (uh ba)

No (nah)

Flag (ffff) [This sounds like a stretch, but she really knows what flags are, and says “ffff” and points when she sees them without us saying “flag” first.]

She also does some animal sounds:

monkey (ah ah ah)

dog (woof)

cow (mmmmm)

bear (she growls)

That’s all I can think of for now, but she’s definitely making progress!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Dancing Queen

As promised…

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

One is the happiest number

Today is a momentous day.

A day that people will talk about for years to come.

A day that people will recall fondly during times of blog famine, and they will reminisce about that glorious day.

That day when I actually blogged about something that happened THAT day instead of several months earlier.

Oh.

And that day when Lily turned the big “1.”

That was a pretty cool day, too.

So cool, in fact, that words fail me.

Hahaha…like I’m really going to let you off that easily.  :-) 

I think I need a blog slogan.

Something like, “The Bogle Family Blog: Freezing up internet browsers with our ridiculously long posts since 2009.”  What do you think?

Seriously, though, trying to figure out how to write this post about such an occasion as Lily’s first birthday is a little intimidating.  I honestly don’t know how to put it into words.  I am overwhelmed by my love for this little being who I met face-to-face exactly one year ago today.  This being who has grown before my very eyes from what I lovingly called, “a lump of baby” to a vivacious, hilarious, and engaging little bundle of energy.  A lump, she is no more.  Although a part of me misses that snugly little lump of baby who would nap on my chest while I delighted in her boneless wonderfulness, I do NOT miss the lack of sleep and feelings of “oh-my-goodness-why-are-you-still-crying-and-why-are-you-not-asleep-yet-at-2-in-the-morning-and-oh-my-goodness-did-you-just-spit-up-or-leak-through-your-diaper-again-and-maybe-if-I-burp-you-or-give-you-the-useless-gas-drops-one-more-time-you-may-actually-sleep!?!?”

Yeah, I don’t miss the lack of sleep.  Or walking on the treadmill with her in a Baby Bjorn in order to get her to nap.  Or bouncing her (this baby did not like to be rocked…that would be to easy and comfortable for her parents who earned incredible calf workouts from bouncing on their toes for several months) in a dark bathroom with the fan on for white noise.  Or tiptoeing around the house in abject fear that I would awake the sleeping babe and have to restart our cycle of feed, “play,” try to get her to sleep, keep trying to get her to sleep, think you have gotten her to sleep and then at the last minute she wakes back up, and then finally getting her to sleep for a brief nap.

But it was worth it. 

Every sleepless night, every stinky spit-up moment, every diaper disaster, every dollar spent, every tear cried, every grocery store “mommy, I want to gnaw my way through that cheese and I will scream if you don’t let me” tantrum, every aching calf muscle, every pain and soreness.  All worth it.  Because I love this babe beyond all belief.

Last night, I held her in my arms as it was time to put her to bed, and I will tell you that it crossed my mind that if I just didn’t put her down, then she couldn’t go to sleep and March 9th just COULDN’T slip into March 10th.  She wouldn’t grow up on me, and she could stay my baby forever. 

She is bald, so it’s not too much of a stretch.

But that’s not the way it works, is it?  She is growing up every day, the way all of us did before her, and she will break my heart a million times in the years to come, but her Daddy and I will always love her no matter what.  It’s a funny thing, parenthood.  You want to hold on to them, but without holding them back.

So what did I do last night?  I sang “Baby of Mine” to her, I got choked up like I hadn’t in months, I kissed her goodnight, told her I loved her, and I put her to bed.  And guess what happened?  March 9th DID slip into March 10th, and now my precious BABY is not such a baby any more. 

On paper.

Because seriously, she is still bald.

And she still acts like a baby at times (OMG – you mean she doesn’t smile ALL THE TIME?)

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So really, today is not a bit different from yesterday.  Being “1” doesn’t make her suddenly understand sharing or the meaning of the words, “no, Lily, you can’t gnaw on that frozen turkey in the middle of the grocery store.”  She doesn’t understand why we need to put shoes on our feet instead of in our mouths, and she doesn’t understand why food should stay on the tray when it looks so much more beautiful on the kitchen floor.

But she does now know what a cupcake tastes like and how it looks on her eyelashes.  And she also has her very own MP3 player.

So that’s something, right?

:-)

Yes, as much as I miss the bitty baby stage, I am genuinely loving the stage she is in now, and it keeps getting better.  Watching her try to communicate with us is amazing, and watching her light up when she realizes she can make us laugh can just take your breath away.  She toddles around here more often than she crawls, and we already have a goose egg on her forehead to show for it. 

Yes, my baby is growing up, and I’m so happy.  For her and for us. She is already an incredible little girl, and I can’t wait to watch and help her continue to grow and develop into the amazing person I know she will become.

And now, my friends and family, I will bombard you with WAY too many photos (a nice change, at least, from WAY too many words, right?). 

I proudly present:

A (Birth)day in the Life of Lily Grace Bogle

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We began our day with blueberry pancakes!  Yum! 

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Then it was time for our weekly picture in the chair that Mommy has grown to hate after seeing it in pictures every week for the past year.

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Then she was off!  (It was mid-week last week when she seemed to finally decide that walking is faster than crawling, and usually chooses to walk instead of crawl)

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Then she played the harmonica.

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Or maybe gnawed on a rubber duck.  I can’t remember which.

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Then she contemplated the backyard while waiting for lunch.

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Later, she got an extra special snack time.  A sugar cookie, milk, and watching TV (which she never gets to do).  Apparently she’s a fan of Yo Gabba Gabba. 

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After her evening nap (which we woke her from around 7:10 PM…yikes!), it was time to admire her balloon by pointing at it and yelling, “ba!” repeatedly!

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But we decided the wagon and presents would have to wait until after dinner.

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After dinner, Lily had her first cupcake.

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She dove right in without hesitation, and LOVED the icing!

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She pretty much ate icing by the handful, and then picked the whole thing up trying to eat it, but dropped it.

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Truly her mother’s daughter, she later decided to eject some of the bothersome “cake” material that was getting in the way of the icing.

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Still digging in.

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In this pic, I was trying to capture the icing that’s on her eyelash at this point. 

Michael was trying not to freak out at the stickiness of the situation.

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I kept trying to get a picture of her face without her fingers in her mouth, but she wouldn’t take them out.

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I’m apparently quite dumb, because I wondered if it was because she is teething (which she is, but she usually will take her fingers out of her mouth for a minute).  And then I realized she just didn’t want to stop licking the icing off of her fingers.  Oh, you are a “Baby of Mine.”

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“Duh,” Mom.

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Earlier in the night, Michael and I had thought maybe we’d skip Lily’s bath to give her more time to play with her new toys. 

Then we took a look at her and realized that that was not really an option tonight!

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After bath, it was time for presents.  One of her favorites is a baby-friendly MP3 player loaded with her favorite songs.  Most are kids songs, but her very favorite song is “Fireflies” by Owl City.  I totally owe you a video of her dancing.  It’s awesome.

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She opened her presents, and inspected them. 

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They met with approval, and she enjoyed a little bit of playing before bedtime.

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Then it was off to bed for our TODDLER!

Happy Birthday, sweet girl!