May 5, 2008

One year ago today was the day I became a mother. I can't believe it's been a whole year already. It's gone by so fast. It really has been the best year of my life. Even though it's trying sometimes this is the best thing I've ever done. Raising her is my proudest accomplishment. Birthing her naturally was my biggest triumph. Every day I learn new things about her and about myself and Scott. Scott and I had a loving and strong relationship before Lily but since she's joined our lives that bond has only strengthened. Raising her together is the most important thing we'll each ever do and she is always our number one priority. Every choice I make is a reflection of that.

I knew I would love her. I thought about holding her for the first time. I imagined rocking her to sleep. But I never imagined how my heart and my whole body would ache to see her when she was away (even just sleeping in the next room) or the joy that I would feel when she laughed. It's completely overwhelming and wonderful. I know all mothers think their children are perfect but we truly got the perfect little girl. She's smart and funny. She teases and jokes. She's acrobatic and brave. She loves the wind. She adores animals--even the ones most people ignore like pigeons. Her face lights up when her daddy walks in the door at the end of the day. She's a mommy's girl when she's sad or tired but when it's time to play no one is better than daddy. She's a voracious reader and a wonderful dancer.

She's everything that I thought she would be and a million times more. I know she will continue to amaze me in the years and decades to come. Happy Birthday Lily. We love you so much.

Coming home for the first time.

Only a few days old.

She seems closer to a teenager than a baby sometimes.

We have a walker!

Well the beginnings of one anyway. Lily has officially taken her first steps. Yesterday she took three small steps twice in our living room. She's still crawling pretty much all of the time or walking while holding onto things but the beginnings of walking has begun. Ask me in a week if we're still excited.

Lily's 1st Birthday Party!

11 months

Another month has gone by already. One month until she turns 1! I can hardly believe it's been almost a year since she was born. But I also can't remember what our lives were like before her. How did we spend our time?

Lily is a crack up these days. She's hilarious and sometimes on purpose. She likes to have our attention all of the time. She'll often lean really far to one side to get into our field of view. When she wants to give us something (usually a book, but sometimes toys), she'll grab our hand, turn it over and put the item in it. Usually this is because she wants us to read a book for her. She definitely has favorite books. She's always giving us the Eric Carle books (Brown Bear and Polar Bear) just like she was doing last month. But now, she's also giving us two new books Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb and also Ten Apples up on Top. Just like with the Carle books, these also have a sing-song rhythm. Sometimes she just watches intently while we're reading, sometimes she laughs and sometimes she dances.

She's so close to walking. She's very good at standing on her own. She can push herself up onto her feet without pulling up on anything. On her hands and feet she pushes her butt up into the air and then pushes off her hands to standing. She's loves practicing this on our bed. Every morning when she wakes up she comes into bed with us to nurse and cuddle for a few minutes. She loves standing up, clapping her hands and then falling back on her butt. She also likes slamming her whole body back into the bed. Unfortunately she doesn't look where she's going and a couple of weeks ago, she slammed the back of her head right into the bridge of my nose and make me see stars. It didn't hurt her at all but it sure hurt me. I thought I was going to get a black eye. Now we're a little more careful about watching where she's going, lest we want broken noses and black eyes.

She's been sleeping really well at night. She goes down to sleep at night with absolutely no problems whatsoever. We turn off the lights, turn on the nighttime music, nurse in bed, then she goes in her crib with her blanket, pacifier and puppy and goes right to sleep on her own. She never makes a peep. She just lays down and goes right to sleep. Occasionally she'll wake up a couple of times during the night very briefly and goes back to sleep without needing anything from us. Every once in a while she'll get up earlier than she's supposed to (like at 5 AM) and want to nurse and then go back to sleep with us. Since this is pretty occasional I let her. Typically, she'll get up for the day between 6-6:30 AM.

Napping isn't so great. She doesn't really like to take naps. Morning naps are hit or miss. She always takes at least 1 nap each day though. I don't worry about it too much. She's pretty agreeable even if she doesn't want to take her 2 naps.

Milestones
*Wearing 12-18 months or 18-24 month clothing. Sometimes the pants are still too long though.
*Wearing a size 4 diaper.
*Wearing a size 5 shoe.
*Loves music and dancing.
*Loves to read and be read to.
*Loves to eat.
*Loves to eat whatever mommy and daddy have.
*Tries to put on her own clothes. Sets her socks and shoes on her feet. Tries to put bows in her hair.
*Is the center of attention of her daycare buddies. She's the ringleader.
*Very opinionated. Shouts if you do something she doesn't like. But she's easy to distract and will forget that something made her mad.
*Loves to dance. Loves music.
*Likes to shake her head back and forth (like to say 'no') and loves it if you do it back to her then she'll do it again. She loves this game.
*Can stand on her own.
*Can go from squatting to standing and back again without holding onto anything.

Lily at the beach on her birthday. First time in the ocean!

Happy to be at the beach.

Busy at work.

Egg hunt within our complex. But there were no eggs left!

Playing in the grass after a hike when Aunt Kellie was in town.

Garlic rolls. Yummmm.

A tunnel at the playground.

Walking and reading and Aunt Kellie's visit

Swings



The cargo ropes

She's so proud of herself.

Waiting for the bird show to start at the zoo with Aunt Kellie.

Hiking through the Santa Monica Mountains. Not a bad way to spend the first day of Spring.

Aunt Kellie came to visit for 5 days. It was her Spring Break and after her next semester she's going to Rome for a few months and we might be in Connecticut by the time she returns. All of the Horrocks siblings were relatively close together but in a matter of less than a year we'll be scattered all over the globe (Oregon, Connecticut, Dominican Republic, Italy). At least most of us have definite plans on returning to the West Coast.

While Kellie was here we visited Santa Monica (the beach, the pier and the Promenade), took a hike in the Santa Monica Mountains at Will Rogers State Park, and spent a day at the zoo. Kellie was also lucky enough to get to babysit Lily for two days while I went to work. She didn't even quit after day 1. We had fun and we hope Aunt Kellie did too. Now we just need to get Aunt Melody and family to come down some time.

Save the Date

You're Invited!
Lily's 1st Birthday!
May 9th, 2008
11 AM to 1 PM
Los Angeles

Invitations to follow.

10 months!

Didn't I just post a 9 month update? I guess that's what happens when I post over a week late. Time is flying by now. Work is busy, I have a lot of projects going on outside of work, and I'm feeling my productivity slipping out of my grasp. Par for the course in the life of a working mom? I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Luckily there are a few things that are going better lately...I have been cooking pretty much all of our meals at home. I've always cooked a lot but I slacked on the meal planning and on nights when I was feeling tired Scott would pick up Poquito Mas on at least a weekly basis. But we've only had it once in the last month. And we really haven't gone out to eat much at all besides that. I'm actually surprised how well we've done...or how well I've done, everyone else is just eating I'm the only one doing additional work. I know you're wondering what in the world this has to do with Lily, or her being 10 months old? Not much I guess...

Back to Lily-land. She's wonderful, happy and full of opinions and ideas about how things should be. Stuffed puppies, kitties and teddy bears are made for kissing, but never mommies and daddies. Food is much more fun when squeezed in between our fingers and sippy cups are better to drink out of upside-down (the sippy cup not the baby). It's also incredibly entertaining to throw yourself back on your back even when you're sitting on the edge of a bed, in a shopping cart or on Daddy's shoulders. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? must absolutely be read at least 15 times a day, sometimes backwards and sometimes upside-down. Peekaboo must also be played only at lightning speed. This is what's important to a 10-month old, or this 10-month old anyway.

Diaper-changes are also probably the worst thing invented. It's much more fun to lift our legs up as high as possible in the air and then slam them onto the changing pad. If they hit mommy on the way down--bonus points!

Cheerios are great any time of day. But Gerber puffs are better. Hard-boiled egg yolks are always last. Black beans are good. Cheese is good. Blueberries with yogurt and mango is delicious, even when Daddy gets it in my neck cracks and eyebrows.

Lily is moving around all over the place. She's very good at walking along things and while holding onto hands, but still a little unsure about walking holding onto one hand and balancing the other. I think walking might still be a little ways off. She's stood a few times on her own without support. Stragely she usually tries to do this in bed with us in the mornings, maybe she's trying to scare us into thinking she might fall off the bed so we wake up and pay more attention to her? Although she did recently stand up without support so she could clap. Clapping is still a big part of her day.

She has to read books every day. She doesn't necessarily need to be read to, she enjoys going through the books on her own, touching the words on the page, and then turning to the next page. She's always been drawn to words in print, she loves when I wear shirts with words on them. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? is her current favorite book. She is especially fond of the last page which shows all of the animals that have been "seen" (a brown bear, a red bird, a green frog, a yellow duck...). Usually when we get home from work and daycare her first activity when I set her down so I can take off my jacket and shoes is to grab that book and read it.

But it's a toss-up whether she's more fond of books or music. She loves to dance. If any music is on she'll dance. This usually means swaying from side to side or just bopping her head. In the play area she often presses a button on one of her toys to get music to start and then continues playing with other toys. She just likes to have the music on in the background. Sometimes we find her dancing when there isn't music playing and wonder what the soundtrack in her head is. We're pretty sure it's Raffi. Raffi is a genius. I don't want to know what life without Raffi is like. Raffi is in the CD player in our car all the time. If Lily is upset in the car and nothing will get her to stop crying, Raffi will. EVERY time. Track 01 starts playing "This old man, he played one, he played one on his old drum..." silence. Immediately the crying stops. Before the words even start. She loves Raffi. And for kids music, it's not that bad. I like Raffi. I find myself singing it quite often actually.

Lily officially knows her first sign! She's so smart. She knows how to say "milk". The sign is squeezing your hand together like you're milking a cow. And now she asks for milk a lot. But now you can ask her, "Lily, do you want some milk?" (while signing milk) and she'll do it back. And in the mornings when I pick her up from her crib she'll sign milk like crazy, both hands lifted up screaming MILK! We think it might just mean "mommy" to her sometimes but milk and mommy usually go together and Lily's not one to turn down food.

Also new this month, Lily is pretty much sleeping through the night. She goes to bed around 7 PM and usually sleeps until 6 or 6:30 AM. Every once in a while she'll still wake up in the middle of the night and cry for a little while. We're trying really hard not to go to her though. Usually she doesn't wake up at all. She moves a lot in her sleep though. She's always moving. She usually sleeps on her stomach now, usually with her knees tucked up underneath her and her butt straight up in the air. But she scoots around her crib during the night. She still sleeps with her little blanket too and a little stuffed bear. That blanket is like Valium. Lily's pecking order goes, blanket, Raffi, mommy...daddy?

Milestones
Learned her first sign! "milk"
Stood without holding onto something 2/3/09
Slept through the night for the first time 2/11/09
Put a Cheerio in her mouth on her own 2/10/09
In a size 4 diaper.
Wearing size 12-18 months.
Lots of babbling and talking.
Lots of pointing.
Waves when you wave at her.
Plays peek-a-book with her blanket & will sometimes try and play peek-a-boo when she doesn't have her blanket by putting her hands up on her head.
First sleepover at Uncle Gary & Aunt Cat's house (2/28/09)
Increased interest in books now. Likes to re-read books over and over again.


It is cold here every once in a while. But not too cold to swing.

Dinner out for Bauby's birthday, Grandpa Jim was on dinner duty.

Daddy on dinner duty, the blueberries won.

An outtake. Books are popular these days.