Every morning, Lil and I come upstairs to the deck and we walk to the edge (well, I walk, she rides in the comfort of my arms) and I say "Good Morning, Morning! Good Morning Trees! Good Morning Bees!..." etc. This morning, as I approached the edge of the deck Lily babbled to the exact tune of my "Good Morning, Morning." Floored me... she's so close to making these huge breakthroughs. Before I know it, I'll be chasing that girl around and having real conversations with her!

Here's what I've learned from having Mark out of town on a gig: I could handle this parenting gig on my own, but I really don't want to. It's been OK... hard, but OK. Our friends have been great, checking in on us and coming over with dinner and giving me a break while I take out the trash or clean up something. Lily has been so clingy lately and I must be in her range of sight at all times... preferably within four feet. She's just having a hard time... missing her daddy and dealing with teeth. She's also on the verge of walking; you can see her mentally planning her path and then she'll kinda start off... only to sit down hard and crawl to her destination. She's able to hover in a standing position for a moment or two, but doesn't yet have the strength or coordination to keep it going.

We went to story time at the Mission Valley Library on Monday and a dad there noticed her standing for a second before she went down and said, "wow, she's about a month away from walking!"

Freaked me out.
Big time.

I'm not ready for her to walk... too bad it's not about me!

Anyway, she's sleeping now and that's a good thing. Managed to clean up the kitchen, eat something and well, type this.

Just to be clear... I LOVE this kid. Parenting is hard, but it's a good kind of hard. A learning kind of hard. A hard that I am willing to accept any day of the week... even when I am tired, haven't showered for days, and downright loopy. She rocks my world, every moment of every day. She's my favorite topic, my saving grace, my first sight in the morning and the last thing I want to gaze upon before I go to sleep. What do I do with all this love?

Ah, just live in it. It's all good.

Today Lily is Nine-Months-Old. She's officially lived out of the womb as long as she lived inside! I guess this means she's decided to stay for a while. YEA!

The eight hour stretches of sleep I talked about in March 7th's post didn't stick. She's been constantly on the move these days, even while she sleeps. I've heard other parents talk about how right before their child make a developmental breakthrough (walking, talking, etc) they will go through a restless phase where even as they sleep they are "processing." She's on the verge of walking and her sporadic sleep may have something to do with that. She can now easily stand, she furniture walks and is taking little adventurous moments of standing alone... for about 30 seconds before she *fwump* is back on her butt. You can see that she just really wants to walk and is annoyed that she can't yet do so. She is strong willed, our girl. We can already see it. So determined and intent on her goal, whatever it may be. So full of joy, as well. She LOVES getting her tummy zerberted and will laugh and giggle as you tickle her. She loves the cat and the dog and will climb all over Maya if given the chance. The kitty still won't let Lily close enough, but boy will Lil chase that cat around, giggling, and just hoping for a chance to touch her soft fur.

Lily is still going for the solid food, big time. If she sees one of us eating she is personally offended if we don't give her some. I've started giving her canned fruit in the mornings (along with her favorite: cheerios) as it is soft and can easily be cut into pieces she can handle. Constantly amazes me that she can eat as much stuff as she can. Thursday night she ran off with a huge triangle of pita after shunning the little pieces I'd torn off for her. She ate most of the pita and then fed the rest to the dog, giggling wildly as Maya licked the treat from her fingers. She feeds the dog whatever she can and the dog has become her most constant companion. Even when I put Lil down for a nap, the dog now insists that she stay with her. Maya will come running if Lily is crying and gets very upset if there is a door or person keeping her from her crying "puppy."

Despite the teething, which frequently causes fussy days or nights, Lily is at such a fun age. So personable, so full of smiles and giggles, so incredibly her own person. And while I am exhausted, I so enjoy every moment of our life with her... we are blessed.

Check out this new "hot topic" Mercury in Seafood.

And yet, it's considered perfectly safe to inject our children with mercury in vaccinations?

My Uncle went after me recently about not vaxing Lily and I didn't want to get into it with him at the time. But it constantly amazes me that people are so unaware of the extra CRAP in vaccines and feel like I'm being an irresponsible mother if I don't shoot her up with these poisons. People don't do their research on vaccines; they just buy into the story that they are perfectly harmless and saved the world. Never mind that some of the diseases we're on the decline at the time that the vaccine was introduced. Never mind that a little of the things we vaccinate for are relatively harmless when treated properly. Never mind the MASSIVE numbers of children being harmed by vaccines each year. Want more info? National Vaccine Information Center.

We've been without internet for a couple of weeks during our move, so I'll try to give some highlights:

Lily cut her first tooth on February 21, the day before we moved out of our townhome and into my moms for a week. Fourteen people showed upon Sunday, the 22nd to help us move out... reminding us how very loved we are.

On Mark's 36th Birthday (the 28th), we moved into our new home... 15 people showed up to help us with that one.

We spent the week cleaning and unpacking like madmen getting ready to have our first party in the new home... a baby shower here for Matthew and Michelle. It was fun and we had a great turnout of mostly family.

Lily cut another tooth, starting sometime last week. She also developed an eye infection and we spent a couple of days calling her "ol' squinky eye" as she giggled around a swollen and goopy eye. We finally gave up on the breastmilk cure and called the doctor. Now she's getting eye drops four times a day and improving rapidly.

She bit me for the first time during the party on Saturday. I'd taken her downstairs for a nap and was giving her a quick nurse before I put her to bed. Just a little nip, to which I responded with a dramatic no, closed up shop and told her "no biting!" She was very unhappy with the instant removal of her favorite toy and so, I'm hoping she'll get the connection.

OH! Lily has slept eight hours in a row twice during the last week. We've moved her to the crib (still in our room) and she's sleeping better in it. Makes me a little sad as I really loved having her in with us, but hey, it's not about me. We still take her into our bed when she awakes around 5am and she nurses and cuddles until we get up and start our day.

She's NUTS for solid foods and asks for them now.

I think that's the most of it. We've decided to hold off a bit on the house warming party. Let the weather improve and get a little more settled so we can really show the place off. And on that note, I have work to do.