May

May!!! What a busy month May was! I worked at the Lion King quite a bit, and Jason worked everywhere else - some prepwork days in the shops, a few days at Mary Poppins, a few days at In the Heights, and on Mother's Day, a 20-hour overnight work call for NBC's event to announce their fall lineup.

For a while this month, Jason and I always seemed to be working at the same time, so Lily made the acquaintance of two new babysitters, whom she adores. We were a bit sad to leave her behind as we headed out to work, but we also got a lot of reading done on the train...

Lily has pretty much left crawling behind, except when she sees something she shouldn't have and is trying to get to it before we take it away from her. :-) She's getting to be a pretty speedy walker, though, and her balance is improving - she can now stop, squat down to pick something up, and stand up again without falling over. Much.

While her balance is improving, her understanding of gravity is not, so we spend a lot of time soothing owies from overbalancing and overreaching.

Lily is also learning to communicate a little better - she now says cat, dog, bye-bye (but refuses to wave), and occasionally da-da, and signs eat, sleep, bird, all done, and up. Her first 'official' word, that she uses consistently and is recognizable, is 'cat'. Which I find fascinating because, well, we don't have a cat. She will also tell you what a bear says if you ask (it says 'grrrrrr').

April

A Word About Thank-You Notes.

So here's the deal - I can't find the list of thank-you notes I wanted to write after Christmas. I've been looking for it for months, and I'm pretty sure that at some point it was accidentally discarded. You all know I'm the queen of the written tthank-you, and I really wanted to write them this year because everyone was so generous with their gifts for Lily, and truly, she loves every single thing that folks sent to her. But I'm not sure that I can name everything on the first try, and I wouldn't feel right if I accidentally left someone out because I was trying to do them from memory.

So just this once, and I swear I'll get back on track as of now - Thank You to everyone for all your generous blessings. Lily and Jason and I love everything that you sent, and Lily has worn/played with/eaten everything that was sent to her. It means so much to us that Lily has this huge, warm, extended family who love her so much.

Thanks again.
Much Love,-Lily, Jason, and Joelyn

Peas!

And Thank You!

April

I'm caught up! I'm caught up! I have thirty-four days before ...

March

Lily has been growing and changing by leaps and bounds, which is part of the reason I've had so much trouble keeping up with this site.

Look, Ma!

Our daughter, Gene Simmons.

Story Time

Lily is way into books.

Did I mention that I cut all my hair ...

February

Well, the trip to Boise was fun, but it seemed to trigger some regressive behavior in Lily - after five months of sleeping through the night, she started waking up every three hours demanding a bottle. It was probably the excitement of learning to crawl combined with the time zone change, but it took a good three weeks of sleep retraining to get her back into her old routine again. I don't really mind getting up for the 2am feedings, but it does annoy me when Jason doesn't realize that there WAS a 2am feeding. He's a bit of a sound sleeper...

New foods this month: Mango, broccoli, potato, and blueberry. I found blueberry a terrifying experience m- cooked and strained blueberry is essentially paint, and I was convinced every time I fed her that she would sneeze and I (and the living room) would end up covered in purple baby food. But it was fine, and of course she looooves blueberries right now. I figure cherries and beets are going to be just as much fun...

Lily gets to become a carnivore this month - as a Texan and twin sister of a professional competitive barbecuer, I'm a little excited by that. :-)

Okay, okay. So it's almost May. We've been a little busy. Mommy has been working 50-hour weeks, and Lily has been teething, crawling, pulling up, learning how to open tupperware...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's pretend it's still February and I've just gotten up for a moment to get myself a cup of tea.

Lily has become a carnivore! We started chicken... and she hated it. Who could blame her? It was steamed chicken pulverized in a blender - I wouldn't eat it either. But with the addition of some sweet potato and some apple juice - best baby food ever! She's come around some. She also has occasional overpowering urges to hold the spoon. Not to eat from it so much as to fling it around in big circles over her head. for maximum wall food coverage.

And... (drumroll please - ) she has teeth! Two of them, and they were hard-won prizes. She doesn't seem to use them much, except on our fingers, when we're dumb enough to stick our hands in her mouth. They are awfully cute, though.

More new foods - barley, chicken, egg yolk, onion, apricot.

Did we do anything for Valentine's Day? I'm pretty sure we ordered pizza. Not a big holiday for us.

Blueberries! Nuff said.

Socks? What happens when Mommy and Daddy get bright ideas while folding laundry

On My Own...

Yep, she's pulling up. She'll start marathon training next week.

bleahh!
The picture is fuzzy because I was laughing too hard - Lily is trying to scrape chicken baby food off her tongue. Apparently, yes, it was that bad.

Brrrr!
Not Lily's first snowfall, but the first one she got to play in. She was fine until she got snow on her fingers, then she wanted to go inside.

Well, hello there!
Our friends Molly and Brady got Lily some sunglasses. She won't wear them over her eyes unless we're outside, but boy, does she love to put them on top of her head!

Just between me and the dog here...
Cristina caught Lily winking when we visited Boise.

Mmmm...
Lily finally decides to play with her baby doll... the way a cat plays with its dinner.

January

Happy New Year! Lily celebrated by... sleeping. We celebrated by... playing World of Warcraft. Yep, exciting times in the Wilkosz house, lemme tell ya.

Jason finished his run of Cyrano de Bergerac, and Lily got to meet Jennifer Garner, who pronounced her 'adorable'. We agree, Ms. Garner, and thank you.

January was an exciting time for Lily gastronomically - she got to experience red beans and rice(for New Year's, of course), sweet potato, oatmeal, and wonder of wonders, that magical finger food, Cheerios!!! She's really excited to pick them up, and really excited to put them in her mouth, but the joy seems to stop there - actually eating them is apparently a letdown. You won't see any happy pics of Lily eating Cheerios - because we don't have any yet. :-)

And we went to Boise! Lily traveled like a pro on our twelve-hour travel days, and was kind enough to sleep on the plane so that Mommy could too. We visited Granddad and Grandma Lisa, and Nana and Grandpa Larry, and Uncle Rex and Aunt Cristina, and Brock and Austin, who are quite possibly the coolest cousins west of the Rockies. I spent the first day and a half wondering where in the house people kept getting apple juice and beer from, since I couldn't find it in the fridge - for my fellow Texans, I provide the answer - it was in the garage. The garage is the same temperature as the refrigerator. Which says everything I need to say about the weather.

Jason went snowboarding, Cristina and I went to see Sweeney Todd, and Lily was the belle of the ball everywhere she went. Nana has lots of hardwood floor, so Lily's crawling skill (and speed) increased dramatically while we were there.

Did I mention I had the flu? I only bring it up because it made me a believer in flu shots. I'd never had it before, and never felt the need to get the shot, but I made Lily get one anyway because, hey, we work in Times Square, and it's like the Germ Olympics some days to get to work. And then one day I woke up feeling like I'd been run over repeatedly by a large truck. It was two weeks before I felt like myself again. And Lily was fine. So go get your flu shots, people!

Even though it's January... Lily still wants to eat this Christmas card. I guess it's like snacking on leftover candy canes...

Well, hi there! It's very hard to take candid pictures of Lily now, since she's fascinated by the camera the second you pick it up.

Red Beans and Rice New Year's Day. Had a rough night.

Eatin' my red beans and rice. No more cameras until I find my comb.

Cheerios! Exciting? Definitely. Tasty? Not sure yet.

Rockin' Baby! Nothin' better than a cool diaper and a hot guitar.