Lily at 7 months

Hi all. This is just a quick post to celebrate Lily at 7 months!

Lily is so awesome now. She clapped her hands by herself yesterday. Of course I haven't been able to get her to repeat it again, but it was so cute.

She also plays a game with Abby. This is how it goes:

Abby screams in Lily's face. Lily laughs her head off. Lily screams in Abby's face. Both Lily and Abby laugh their heads off.

It is apparently even more fun to play in the car. At the top of their lungs.

And while Joel and I are reaching for the Tylenol, the girls are giggling madly in the backseat. Kind of makes it hard to get upset with them.

Another cute Lily thing: Earlier this week, Lily was hanging out in the living room in just her diaper (she had just drooled through her shirt and I hadn't gotten around to putting a new one on). And she started laughing at something. And her entire body was jiggling with her laughter. Like the poem says about Santa, her belly "shook when (she) laughed like a bowlful of jelly." It just cracked me up.

Lily looks like a tiny little roly-poly. We look at her and think she's such a little gorda (that's like calling someone "fatty," but it's an affectionate term) because of all of her rolls. But then I get her weighed and she's just in the 25% percentile for weight (50% for height) so she's really not that big. She weighs less than Abby did at that age even. She just eats like a linebacker and has rolls like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.

Lily is quite vocal and stays quite opinionated. Lily's quick to yell at Abby when she starts bugging her. If you don't feed her fast enough; she will tell you. If you don't pick her up fast enough; she will tell you. I know that might sound as if I'm being negative, but actually I appreciate it. You always know where you stand with Lily. And as quick as she is to tell you what she doesn't like, she's also very quick to dole out the love and affection. She is great about giving hugs and kisses to people she's comfortable with.

We're pretty sure we're moving into teething now. Lily's regular drool has turned into a running faucet. Just this morning I had to get a towel to completely wipe her face down- it was like someone had poured a glass of water on her front. And she's getting really clingy. She's getting very difficult to put to bed, and last night refused to go to Joel at all (maybe he smelled funny, dunno). So it's time for me to dig out the teethers and put them in the freezer and find the teething tablets to give her.

It seems like Lily is going to end up being just as social as Abby. She LOVES going to the playground with Abby and the housekeeper, Iris. (Iris loves to take Lily to show off, because according to her, we have the cutest girls in the subdivision. Well, duh.) While Abby is running amok with the bigger kids, Lily sits on the ground with three other little ones and attempts to eat the grass. According to Iris, she's getting quite fast at pulling up the grass and getting it into her mouth. I guess she needs a little bit more roughage in her diet, huh?

(Lily at the Children's Museum)

So, we've been able to make it seven months breastfeeding and still going strong on that. And Lily loved to eat food and gnaw on those little Gerber baby cookies. So far, the only thing she absolutely refuses to eat is brown rice. That might be because I made it (the housekeeper tends to be a little too generous with the salt).

Okay, I've blathered enough for this post. Talk to all of you soon!

(just because I like this picture)

Love,

Julie