Lillian's *favorite* stuffed watermelon was hiding under the pull-up table. Lillian only had eyes for her watermelon and I guess didn't see the table hovering over it. She crawled at the table, banging her head into it a couple times before she finally nudged the darn thing up enough to slip under. Unfortunately for her when she finally got to the watermelon she was stuck. She tried to sit up and there was something above her. Frustrated noises! She tried going straight and just banged her head into the drawers of the TV stand. Angry exclamation! Finally she just cried a helpless, super frustrated cry and tried over and over to crawl through the drawers. (bump, bump, ahh!)
Like all good moms I took a picture before rescuing her from the table. When I lifted the table off of her she sat right up and glared at it with a betrayed look. Wish I had gotten that look as well but I was too busy laughing. At least she had the watermelon.
I did a terrible job getting it on film, but she can stand on her own for like 30 seconds. Not bad for an almost 9 month old. Very advanced for her age, you know.
Friday Jenn called in sick so I stayed home with the kids. We went to a new park after Lillian's morning nap. In addition to a huge grassy field, there were a bunch of baseball diamonds. The one closest to us had a high school aged boy practicing pitching for about an hour. Simon watched quite intently most of the time. So intently, that as we were leaving one of the guys walked up to me and gave me his business card. Apparently he's the baseball coach at Lane Tech and also gives private lessons on the side. He usually coaches kindergarden and up, but said Simon had more focus than many of his kindergardeners.
Is it crazy that I'm considering doing some lessons for Simon? He loves it so much and picks up everything we tell him so fast - shouldn't we get someone who really knows what to teach to show him? Not enough to make it not fun, just one or two... Now, in the comments, please stop the crazy mom.
Run free!
Happy baby.
She's ready to play kickball with Simon.
Watching (and pretending to bat for) the boy doing pitching practice.
He climbed about 2 feet off the ground and dropped a few times.
For a few weeks now, when you growl at Lilly she will growl back at you. She and I have done that so much that now she will often greet me with a growl when she first sees me. This weekend I discovered that she's learned a new trick: if she hears you whistle, she'll try to whistle back. She has no idea how to actually whistle though, so she just makes a high pitched noise to try and imitate the sound you made.
Last Sunday I gave Alan a well deserved day off and took both kids out to Auntie Colleen and Joe's house. We admired their new furniture, got chipotle for a picnic in the courtyard and then walked to the park, which had a huge baseball diamond and a water-play area.
It was the first time Lillian really paid attention to Bailey-Dog and Lillian was not a big fan. Amazingly if she was on the ground when Bailey approached then Lillian was totally cool, but if you were holding her she made the most concerned noises and faces.
On Saturday morning Simon had his 2nd Dentist appointment. We drove over and parked in the Jewel parking lot because it was both pouring rain and the street was blocked in front of the dentist because of a festival (otherwise we would have walked).
We walked in right at 8am, which was appointment time, and were immediately brought back into the back room. There were three ladies who came in during our visit: Dr Ashley, Gina the hygienist and Claudia who had an unknown job description but stayed with us the whole time while the other two went in and out. My guess is that she is in charge of keeping kids at ease (and restraint if that became necessary).
Claudia talked with Simon about how cool the chair was - it can turn into a bed! - which is the first thing he tells everyone about the dentist now. She showed him the TV on the ceiling and let him choose a show that she turned on. A result of the show being on was that he became essentially non-responsive for the duration unless you said his name a couple times, but that wasn't terrible. Dr Ashley counted his teeth (20 as expected) and mentioned that he could start brushing with fluoride toothpaste once a day.
Simon was totally awesome with the dentist checkup and the cleaning. So great he got a sticker and a token for a toy. The toy he chose was a bouncy ball. We have a strict no throwing in the house rule and most balls have been removed to avoid the temptation. Since he totally loved his new bouncy ball but I wasn't going to let him play outside (in the pouring rain) or in our house when we got to the stairwell down to parking at Jewel I told him to roll the ball down the steps. It bounced everywhere and was super funny. We proceeded to spend about 30 minutes in the stairwell, he laughed SO hard and was great about stopping as soon as someone came in and most importantly not going outside even if the ball rolled outside. I took a quick video.
