Last night we went to see Hamlet at Lamb's Players Theatre and left the little Lil with my mom. She had napped really well while spending the day with her daddy and so, when deposited at my mothers, spent the evening playing and laughing and crawling happily about. My mom said they had a great time! When we arrived just after midnight to pick her up, however, she had suddenly reached her limit and as I stepped from the car heard angry wails from my sweet baby. As I had already had a bit of a leak at the cast party, I went running for my girly! After just a quick nursing session, she was ready to play again. We got home around 1am and put our sleeping baby directly to bed... where she stayed until almost 11am! She woke to nurse around 7am and I actually got out of bed (feeling refreshed, rested, HAPPY) around 9:30 and baked a coffee cake, did some cleaning and just generally felt better than I have in a LONG time. It's a wonder what some good solid sleep will do for you.

Today we closed escrow on the dream home! We don't get to move in until next month as the previous owner is doing a 30 day rent-back. BUT, it's ours! We'll be moving at the end of February, hopefully on Mark's birthday (the 28th) and will be having a pizza/moving party to celebrate. Let us know if you want to sign up. More details will be forthcoming as we work out the exact dates of our move.

Off to celebrate...

We didn't close.

They forgot to have us sign the original Loan Application.

Crapity Crapertons.

We'll close Monday.

HOUSE UPDATE
We signed loan docs last night and should be closing today! If we don't, we're going to be homeless for a couple of days as the sale of our current home will close before the current owner of our new home will be out (he's doing a 30 day rent back). Getting the docs signed last night was a nightmare! Lil was a major cranky pants, barely took a nap all day, then Mark gets home and says we need to sign docs tonight so as to avoid the homeless situation. So our agent (fabulous man named Bob) comes by to give us the skinny; turns out the title company is having trouble getting them to print out. At 5:30 we are told we have 1/2 and hour to get over there and get the doc picked up... but their notary has already gone home for the day. So I call my cousin Jen (a notary) and get her to meet us at Mission valley on her way to dinner with friends. We jump in the car and head for the title co, which is, of course, in the middle of nowhere. The freeways are a mess (it is, afterall, 5:30) and we got just a little lost and the whole time I'm thinking "They're not going to be there, they're going to have gone home, we're going to get all the way out there and no docs" which is making me a little crazy and, well cranky. We finally find the darn place and they are still there, so we get the docs, but the notary spots aren't marked and this is no small packet of papers. We jump back into the car and race off to Mission Valley, meet my cousin and then realize that we have pages that don't make sense, they impounded taxes and fees when we asked them not to, and finally (as Jen is getting later and later for her dinner with friends) decide to just sign everything and get this thing DONE! After it's all done, I'm STARVING so we go to get some eats, get CRAPPY service and Lily is hungry as it's been a while since she nursed, but won't nurse without exposing my breast to the entire world (not only the restaurant, but we were seated next to a window that the entire Mall is walking past). The last bit of fun is that we are told at the last minute that our personal checks are useless, we have to get a wire transfer or a cashiers check... as though we're going to bounce a check on our HOUSE! So, this morning, Mark had to be late for work as he made calls and ran around getting the transfers worked out.

By the end of the day we'll know. As it is, I have to get to work.

OH, and Lily has a strange rash... BLAH!

BUT, as Allyn keeps telling me: Don't Push the River! It'll all happen if we can just go with the flow. Our lives are so incredibly sweet, this kinda thing isn't really that big of a deal in the whole scheme of things!

I GO!

I'm watching Lil as she sits on the living room floor and carefully removes item after item from a basket, examining each object as she goes. And of course, everything needs to be growled at. Then I fill it back up and she does it again. She's so inquisitive... so interested in everything.

When I went to pick her up from my moms yesterday, she was zooming around in a box. Mom was pushing her around in it... big grins all around. This kid has toys... but she LOVES boxes, water bottles with colored water and dish soap in 'em, brochures, bits of cloth, kitchen utensils, etc. She plays with the toys too, but I don't think she'd miss them much if we didn't give them to her. Ah, what a good reminder to get back to basics.

We'll be moving soon and with the new house comes a vast difference in storage. We're going to have to clean house and let go of old treasures that aren't really treasures at all. I'm learning to let go of STUFF. Not so easy, and yet, fantastic!

OK, off I go. Walk the dog (or as Mark says "Dock the Wog") and get some groceries

CONVERSATIONS WITH MY MOTHER:

NOW THE BANANAS MAKE SENSE
"Hey, so how'd Lily do today?" I ask.
"Great, she's always a lot of fun" my mom replies.
"How'd she eat today?"
A hesitation, followed by "What?"
"How much did she eat?" I repeat, thinking how odd it is that my mom should suddenly sound a little nervous.
"How did you know that she ate?"
Now I pause... "By the mostly empty bottle in the diaper bag."
"OH! Yes, she ate almost the whole bottle."
I wait for a moment... "Mom, what else did she eat?"
"Well, you see, I was eating some steamed carrots for lunch" mom's explanation is rushing at me, giving me no room to jump in, "and she was reaching for the carrots, so I gave her one to hold and she put it in her mouth and licked it and mashed it around and seemed to be having a really good time experiencing it, so I took one into the kitchen and mashed it up with some breast milk, because you told me that that's a good idea and I offered her just a little on the tip of a spoon and she tasted it and really liked it, so I gave her a little more and really, she had like a grand total of 1/2 a teaspoon, but she really seemed to like it a lot."
I give her a minute to catch her breath.
"OK, well at least you didn't give her a cookie." I realize that may sound a bit critical and add, "No, it sounds like you did great, you gave her a good first food and mixed the breast milk in with it and it sounds like she did respond well. Just make sure you tell me about this stuff so I know what it means if she has a reaction."
"I didn't know how you'd feel about it..." She adds.
"It's OK, you did fine. I'm not mad." And the truth is, I'm not mad. I've been listening to all these other moms talking about their parents and in-laws and how amazingly disrespectful they are of their wishes and parenting choices. When you look at it, Mark and I have chosen to parent Lily much like our parents parented us... we've had great, loving moms and my dad was a great dad! My mom often ends up holding Lily while she naps... for hours.

But now the bananas make sense. Last month, I mashed up a banana with breast milk and offered it to Lily. She wasn't quite six months yet and I wasn't quite sure if she was ready. She pushed the banana around in her mouth a bit and pretty much ejected most of it onto her chin. A clear sign that she wasn't ready to commit. And that's OK, I froze the rest and figured we'd give it another try in a month or so. Part of me wondered why I had even tried at all at that point, but now I know that it was so that I wouldn't feel hurt or like I was missing out when my mom was the first to give our child solids. I still have that claim! If I hadn't had that try with the bananas, I'd be OK with what my mom did, but really sad that she got to do it first.

Today, I gave Lily some more carrots and she really did dig 'em. I let her have access to my breast as well so she could nurse, ask for carrots, nurse some more, grunt for carrots... etc. Worked out really well. I guess we are officially on the path towards solid food. Yikes.

WHOOPING IT UP
"She slept a lot today" my mom tells me with a concerned look in her eye. I'm not yet sure where this is going.
"Yeah, she's been sleeping a lot more since she's gotten mobile and has had this cold." I tell her.
"And you know, we were all upstairs and she was crawling around on the bed and she started to make this really scary gasping sound. I think she might have whooping cough." Now I know where this is going.
"Really, what kind of sound was it?" I ask.
My mom starts gasping in example.
"Hmmm" I reply. Wait for it.
"Has she had her shots?" And here it is. I knew this would come up sooner or later.
"Nope. We've chosen not to vaccinate."
And there's the face... the disapproving face.
"Look Mom, I did my research on this one. The chances of her getting a lot of this stuff is really rare these days and even if she did, everything they vaccinate against is totally treatable. Besides, statistically, she's more likely to have a bad reaction than to get the darn disease."
"You really have to take her in, this sounds bad... I think she has whooping cough."
"I'll have her checked, Mom."

So I stay and chat some more as the baby nurses and then put her down to play. She's roaming around, doing her thing, when she starts vocalizing. "That sound? Is that what you're hearing?" I ask. My mom listens for a bit and then nods in agreement. "Mom, she's been making that noise for months. She's just playing with her voice. Besides, I believe I read that whooping cough sounds like a seal barking... that's no seal." Mom argues with me, saying that she's never heard that noise before as I assure her it's something I've been hearing for a long time.

We both let it drop, but I have a feeling this is going to be a "bad penny" subject... it'll be back.

Lily has this crawling thing down now. She uses her knees and can cross a floor in a hurry. She LOVES cords, computer cables, light plugs, cable cords, etc. She makes a bee-line for these things, grabs ahold, and whacks it up and down. Looks like we're going to have to baby proof a bit before we move. Ah well.

She's also learned to growl. It's hysterical; she plows along the floor (always taking the past of most resistance) and growls at everything. Mark carries her around and she growls at everything she passes. Cracks me up.

Last couple of days, Lily has been figuring out that to stand up her feet need to be flat on the ground. She'll stand up when you give her hands to hang onto and will hang out playing with her leap table for a good ten minutes. Kinda cool to see her just standing there. She's ranging all over the place now, crawling really well and checking everything out as she goes. Today I had to put the gate up at the top of the stairs so I could fold laundry without worrying she'd take a trip down the stairs unassisted. And she crawled headlong into a picture I had propped up, which promptly came down on her head. Thank goddess for cheap, lightweight, plastic Ikea picture frames.

She's definitly a path of MOST resistance kinda gal!