June 2007

Lily went up and down our stairs by herself for the first time today (July 1st). Usually we go with her, even if she doesn't hold onto our hands, but this time we let her go by herself (Michelle watched from the bottom of the stairs, and I watched from the top). Yay Lily! Michelle felt like crying.


I took Lily to the Children's Museum a couple times this month, which is one of her four favorite places to go (the others being the park, Chuck E. Cheese, and Madeline's house). She especially likes playing with the boats in the water (and getting wet).


Her friend Abby from day care happened to be at the museum too, so Lily followed Abby around for a while and they played together. You can see in the third picture that her shirt is still wet from the boats!


They have some slides and tunnels at the Children's Museum, which Lily also spent a lot of time on. She used to be afraid to go in the big dark tube-shaped slide (second picture), but this month she went in it plenty of times. I know, because I was following her down it ("Come on, Daddy!"), over and over!


Lily still goes down her own slide almost every day. This playground has gotten a lot of use since we bought it six months ago. Here she is playing with Mommy.


It's sometimes possible for me to work on my computer in the study while Lily is with me, or in her adjacent room upstairs. She likes coloring on the whiteboard. She can't put the marker caps back on completely, so they dry out rapidly.


I told Lily I wanted to take her picture drawing on the whiteboard, and she eagerly wanted me to take more pictures of her making faces. "Take picture of my cough!" (An odd request!) You can also see her happy face, mad face, and (later) her sad face.


A technophile already, Lily laid an old keyboard on her table and started hitting the keys, even though it's not connected to anything!


Lily took a couple pictures of us with the camera, which means she is now a contributor to ObenauerWeb.com rather than just its main star! I'm leaving out the pictures she took of her finger over the lens, or of the floor or ceiling.


I've been anxiously awaiting the release of Apple's iPhone, and stood in line on June 29th to buy one. It's so cool! Lily knows the word "iphone" now. I gave her my old Palm Pilot, which also has a touch screen she can play with (second picture), and told her it was her iPhone. I did let her play with mine a little. She likes using her finger to flip through photos of herself, and she likes taking pictures with the camera.


Lily and I went outside to ride her bike on the driveway. She figured out that she can ride down a sloped part of it without peddling. I took these pictures with my snazzy new iPhone! However, the camera is its weakest part. The pictures often come out blurry, the lighting isn't good, and it's hard to get pictures off the phone -- I emailed them to myself one at a time. (Maybe there's an easier way?)


One door inside Lily's room goes to a large attic that we use for storage. She wanted to go in there to visit our stuffed dog, Alfie (the attic is "Alfie's room"). She gave him a "present" (a red box of Christmas ornaments), and made him another present by building up some of her blocks that were in the attic. I took these photos with my iPhone, and Lily used it to take a picture of me.


Lily was proud of herself for standing her crayons up and balancing them, so I took some pictures. (iPhone again!)


We still let Lily watch Dora and Diego on the family room TV every day, but sometimes we tell her it's Mommy's turn or Daddy's turn to watch something. She's usually not happy about this. After watching Dora episodes for two hours, if we put something else on during "our turn", as soon as the first commercial hits she asks if it's her turn again. We bought a portable DVD player for Lily to take on our upcoming Virginia Beach trip, and Michelle had the great idea to let her use it now so we can watch something else. This worked! Lily loves her own little DVD player.


Here are some of Lily's outfits this month. Michelle got her some new tennis shoes (third picture), as well as some "Crocs" (plastic flip-flop-like shoes, which Lily loves -- not pictured). The fourth picture is an outfit Grandma Jean sent us recently (it says "Chief Executive Offspring"!).


Michelle is happily buying lots of new clothes to fit her thinner bod, and I am totally okay with her running up the credit card under these circumstances! She was also very excited about her new shoes in the second picture.