The problem with baby cousins is....

...they tend to wreck your stuff! Gordon caught a great photo sequence of Lily destroying a tower that Valora had just built. Note that she doesn't just wander over and give it a whack. No folks - this here is carefully plotted out demolition with lots of follow-through. She starts at the top and makes a number of passes to make sure the entire tower is wiped out all the way to the base. At least she sees things through to completion! I wasn't there when this went down - but I heard that Valora was a pretty good sport.

A weekend of little girls

This weekend we had the special treat of a visit from Gordon's brother Gabe and his family. Gabe, Que, Valora and Sera made the trek to Somerville from New Jersey on Thursday night. It was really fun to see the three cousins playing together. Lily is old enough now to "hang out" with them and she really enjoyed herself. Valora is going to be 4 years old in a little over a week and Sera is going on 2.5. Valora did a great job taking care of Lily and including her in their play. Sera was mostly amused at what a messy eater Lily is. Snack time was punctuated by lots of cries of "eeeewwww" and "her face! her face!" as Lily enthusiastically ate her yogurt.

I was home on Friday so I took the gang to the Museum of Science while Gordon was working. We played around in the main museum and then spent some time in the Discovery Center. After the museum we landed at the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. Valora's favorite part of the day was the giant lite bright in the discover center. She "put in only the red ones, no other color". Sera's favorite part of the day was "Chicken!" - and lest you be misled she means the chicken she ATE for lunch, not the cute chicks we saw hatching at the museum. I suspect Lily's favorite part was the water table at the discovery center - the three of them splashed and "fished" there for awhile. After Gordon got home we all went to Blue Fin for dinner - mmmm sushi. The girls were great and someone even asked if Sera and Lily were twins - ha ha.

Saturday started with a big old breakfast of dutch babies followed by a trip to the park. Turns out it was a little cold for that. The girls got some outside time on the back deck staging horrific ride-on toy accidents for Uncle Gordon to photograph. There was also some holding hands and dancing in a circle singing the Ranma theme song. I wish we had gotten that on tape. Gordon and Gabe went rock climbing during nap time and came back with makings for dinner. We put together a yummy chicken and rice dish with zucchini, butternut squash an baked artichoke for accompaniments. Sunday morning we said goodbye with a brunch at Soundbites in Ball Square.

We had a great time and can't wait to see them all again really soon. Lily is so lucky to have such great cousin/playmates.

When Good Ride-On Toys Turn Bad

Attention all parents out there - think twice before buying your kid those ride-on toys! As shown in this exclusive expose by a brave Somerville, MA photographer (who shall remain nameless) these toys can lead to all sorts of dangerous scenarios. What begins as a scenic drive on a nice Saturday afternoon quickly turns into mishap after mishap. We've got leg injuries, head injuries, you name it - we saw it. Thankfully one of these vehicles comes equipped with ambulance siren allowing Sera to swoop in and save the day. Until she found herself thrown violently from her vehicle as well....

OK OK so maybe, just maybe, the fault doesn't lie ENTIRELY with the toys here. There may have been some intentional user error coupled with egging on by the photographer.

The Easter Bunny Cometh

When I was a kid I loved Easter - and I mean LOVED Easter. It's probably a blog post for another day (or never) but my Mom can tell you stories about my obsession with Easter. I was the weird kid who was terrified of Santa (it was the beard) yet found nothing creepy about a gigantic bunny walking into my house at night to hide eggs everywhere. There are stories of my Mom and Grandpa being so sick of playing "Easter" that they'd finally "lose" the easter basket and eggs so I'd stop asking for them - in AUGUST.

Anyway, given this history I feel it's only fair that Lily get to play Easter too. So this year I got my act together (sort of) and in classic Becky-style colored eggs on the last possible day, the Saturday before. We didn't think Lily would be too into it, but she seemed to really enjoy watching the egg dying process. She'd sort of laugh each time the egg came out of the cup a new color. We all had a nice time with that. Gordon and I figured she'd be too interested in eating the eggs to get it.

On Easter morning, Lily woke up to a nice little Easter basket full of treats: crayons, a new pink chick and a couple of books, including Knuffle Bunny. The purchasing of that book was inspired by the post that got me hooked on Mike Adamick's blog. The Easter bunny also left some eggs for her to find - and she was pretty good at spotting them! Again, I underestimated her and didn't think she'd get the whole hunting aspect - but she totally did. She walked around clutching her new chick and carrying that basket of eggs - it was awesome.

After our little Easter at home we jumped in the car and drove to Fall River for the real family celebration. As usual, Gail and Bev hosted a big family dinner at their place. There was much eating, much family and another Easter basket for Lily from Grammy and Papa. My Grandma, Lily's Vo-Vo, was there with us, making the day even more special. Lily had a great time seeing everyone, exploring Gail and Bev's excellent home and sharing Casey's toys. Until next year, Easter Bunny!

Pink Sweatshirt

After my last "Lily is sick" post we got a number of calls/emails from folks checking on her - thanks so much! She's feeling SOOO much better now... but more on that coming up in a bit. First I wanted to post this picture of Lily waking up from a nap on Friday. She was still on the road to recovery then and Gordon snapped some pictures of her resting up in her crib. The notable thing here is the pink sweatshirt. In the past week Lily has decided that this sweatshirt is THE BOMB. Nothing else is really worth wearing and there's no activity one should undertake without the sweatshirt. It was actually a gift last summer from our friends Andrew, Tammy, Nate and Julia. Sadly it's a size 6-12 months, so it's not going to fit her too much longer. But I get the feeling we're going to get a lot of use out of it until it's too small. I wonder if she's following in the footsteps of her cousin Valora who will only wear pink these days? I'm not sure if it's a color or a texture thing yet!

sick, sick, sick

One of the motivating factors behind starting this blog was to have a way to keep track of Lily's firsts. I did go out and buy one of those baby memento books - but really, who was I kidding? I got stymied with it because I couldn't find a pen that "wrote nicely enough". Sigh.

Anyway, I've come to realize over the past 14 months that there aren't only a number of firsts for Lily, there are quite a few for me and Gordon, as her parents. This past week has proven to be one of those. Lily is sick. Now she's been sick before - quite a few times this winter - a runny nose here, slight fever there, some coughing. It's always been unpleasant for a day or two, but nothing really miserable and no medication. This time however, is different. She started acting unhappy on Sunday at my Mom's. By Monday it was clear that she was coming down with something. But she was still well enough that I didn't think a doctor's visit was necessary. Tuesday morning Gordon leaves for a conference in Salt Lake City and I call into work to stay home with Lily.

That leaves me - at home - alone - with a sick kid. Right there, not much fun. However, by Tuesday Lily's REALLY not well. Still have a fever and just starts acting really out of character. She wants to sleep all the time, isn't interested in her toys etc. So off to the doctor's we go. He listened to her, checked her ears, did a strep test. She was SO good through all of it. Good news - no strep, bad news - not sure what's wrong - "it's probably viral". But he took pity on my poor "at home alone with a sick kid" self and sent us home with antibiotics.

So now I go to the pharmacy and have to register Lily there as a patient. That was kind of surreal - she's never needed medication before. It's also one of those "wow so I'm really someone's Mom, now" moments. (As if 12 hours of labor and 4 months of night feedings weren't enough to convince me of that). So off we go with our antibiotics in hand, convinced it'll all be okay. Wednesday comes, no real change. And now she's decided that being anywhere BUT in her crib is intolerable. Seriously. She just wants to lie there - it's breaking my heart. I call the doctor's again in a near panic. Once they figured out that yes I was actually calling because my kid cries hysterically when she's NOT in her crib they tried to talk me off the ledge. I guess most parents have the opposite problem. Not us - Lily loves her crib - go figure.

So here we are at Thursday. She went to day care today, but definitely wasn't her usual active self there. Good news is that Mimi got her to eat - I swear that woman is magical. I'm so glad she's on our team. However, the minute I got Lily home she insisted on going right to bed. I keep worrying that something deeper is wrong - but the prevailing opinion among polled medical experts (her pediatrician and my brother-in-law) is that if something was seriously wrong she'd be screaming ALL the time, not just when she's out of her crib. So tonight I will pull her into bed with me again and we'll cuddle and try to make it all better. Gordon gets home tomorrow morning - yay.

If this is any indication at how I'm going to emotionally handle discomfort in my kid's life I'm in a bit of trouble.

Hopefully I'll have my terrifically active and funny little girl back real soon!