Lily's Latest

Lily continues to change and grow at an amazing rate. These are a few of her latest tricks:

• Dancing. Whenever she hears music, she starts bobbing her head & body and is about the cutest thing ever. Judging by her impeccable rhythm, she has some strong Pellerito genes in her.
• Kissing. She is clearly trying to kiss us now. She starts out with an open mouth and then closes her lips around our cheeks. It comes off more as a bite, but it is clear what she is trying to do. Adorable!
• Talking. She has been saying "da, da" for a while, but she has added "ba, ba" and finally "ma, ma". Of course, she doesn't associate any meaning to these sounds, but I still love it when she says "ma, ma" - what an incredible feeling.
• Smiling with her tongue out. Need I say more?
• Peek-a-boo. I haven't really played peek-a-boo with Lily that much, but she has started playing the game with me. She first did this by holding a blue see-through lid in front of her face and moving it away while smiling. When I changed Lily this morning, she put her onesie over her face and moved it away very quickly. She had herself and me rolling! She is just so much fun.
• Standing. Lily now stands in the middle of the room while holding onto nothing for long periods of time. This is probably the most amazing development to me. I honestly just sit in awe of her sometimes.

So, I'm clearly a new mom, but I feel so lucky to be able to witness all these developments in this awesome little baby.

I also had a first today. We have Teacher In-Service days today and tomorrow, and so I had to get a babysitter for Lily. I was pretty much a wreck yesterday, but everything went off without a hitch today. I was apart from Lily for 10 hours (the longest time yet in her 9+ months of life), and I missed her like crazy. But, I am relieved that we have this experience behind us, and now I feel much more comfortable being able to leave her with a sitter once in a while.

So, everything is great with us. We have two trips coming up that we are very excited about - our first family vacation to the Chesapeake Bay and a trip to St. Louis to meet Lily's cousin Katie. We can't wait.