We've been meaning to post again since Lily's first birthday party, which took place a few days after our "Year with Lily" post. That was seven months ago. Clearly we've gotten behind. I could blame our busy schedules or Lily's ever increasing abilities and according potential for trouble/destruction, but it's really no one thing. At this point even a month by month recap would be tricky, so instead I'll try to restart things by hitting some big or noteworthy things that have happened since the last post.
Changing Face
Since we've had Lily, it's been crazy to look back over pictures and realize how much her face has changed. Physiologically it's been a joy to see her grow and change, seeing the features from each of us come out more and more from her. Most of these features are definitely from Regina, which I'm a fan of, but it seems like every month I see something else that reminds me of her mother. Eye shape, cheekbones, chin, and ears all definitely come from Regina. Sadly, the only real features I see from me are short and and wide hands and feet, but hopefully she'll grow out of those.
Interestingly, the changing features are not just on Lily's side. I realized a few weeks ago that my smile habits have changed. Before Lily, whenever taking a picture I almost exclusively smirked:
With an infant Lily though, I kept thinking how much I wanted her to know I was smiling and to react. So I started trying to make my smile as big as possible to be sure she could catch it. I may have gone a bit overboard on this.
Looking back at pictures where I do this, it seems pretty silly. Like really silly. But even more silly is the fact that I do this to more than just Lily, even when I'm not even around her. Last semester I caught myself doing this to my class. Of college students. I got odd looks, but even stranger is that I had a moment of confusion when they didn't smile back at me.
Friends
We've been extremely lucky to have two babies born relatively close to the same time as Lily here in Columbus. Having the chance to have Lily play with them (or more accurately as infants, lay around with them) has been a joy.
Lily has particularly spent a lot of time around her friend Beej, especially as we've shared childcare with Beej's parents. For the longest time Lily saw other kids as movable furniture more than as kids, but once she started to interact with Beej it became generally adorable.
Much to my chagrin, but these girls love dancing to Abba. Fuss coming on? Put on "Dancing Queen."
Further luckily, I've also been able to regularly take Lily to Baby Games at the Grandview library, and we've both made friends there. Seeing a Lily interact more and more with other kids has been a real joy. I generally grew up socially awkward in a number of ways, and with my milieu of oddities I didn't have a lot of friends, or any really, until near the end of middle school, and even then a small, close amount. So far, it seems like Lily's doing far better a job of this than I am.
Lunch at DK with Delaney and Cara. At one point the girls started feeding each other.
At first it was hard for me to adjust in this setting as well, due in large part to the gender dynamics of being one of, if not the only, the few fathers at baby events, but over time I've happily gotten to know some of the moms better and it's been a pleasure to spend time with them at these events and get to know their kids as well.
Turns out that if you bring freeze dried blueberries to baby games, ALL THE BABIES WILL WANT THEM
Among the moms I've come to know better through Baby Games are several mothers to twins. I would say this is where the requisite "how do they do it?" remark should go, but all irony aside, having raised Lily thus far and handled so much of the childcare trading off with Regina, I'm not sure how someone manages with two curious and continuously more mobile toddlers day in and day out. Especially for those with more than just their twins! It has, of course, been a blast to watch these twins play and interact with Lily (even if it's to see what snacks we have available), and we've even gone to some other non-library locales with the twin moms. I have to say, when you roll with three sets of twins, you make a scene.
For now, I think I'll close this entry and take up another one soon to cover other big things. There's no way to cover seven months (!) of missed entries, but we'll try to hit some of the big things.
Man! It's fun watching you two take this journey. It really makes it all come back to me. The picture of Lilly you put at the top is brilliant! I think your friend Erin S. was right in her FB post: Lilly kinda looks like Regina, but with David's facial expressions. I can also relate, David, to what you said about performing your facial expressions. I did the same thing, and I was only occasionally aware I was doing it. Did you find yourself opening your mouth when you fed her to get her to open hers? On very rare occasions, if I'm eating with my parents and start to take a large bite, I'll catch my father looking at me out the corner of his eye and opening his mouth. It's been about 46 years since he had a practical reason to do this, but yet there he is, opening his mouth. I don't think I've ever said anything to him about it, but I find it equal parts charming and mortifying. I think my favorite picture in this series, though, is you keeping a swarm of toddlers at bay with blueberries.
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