Eight Months and Learning So Much

learning to feed myself

learning to crawl

learning about eco-friendly fashion

learning about things I don't like

teaching others about things I don't like

learning to clap my hands

learning to share

learning to wave

learning about first boo-boos

but still happy

Lily is now eight months old, and it seems that everyday she learns something new and exciting. In the past week she has learned to clap her hands and make a "yay" sound while doing it, mimic her dad's tongue clicking noise, and wave hello. Over the past few weeks she has gotten very mobile as well. As a result of her new agility she had her first encounter with rug burn. Thankfully, it wasn't a very serious accident, and she was happy and smiling within minutes, but her nose was a little worse for wear. In addition to all her new tricks, she had her first tooth come through on the bottom. We have really enjoyed experimenting with giving her new foods to try. She enjoys chewing on celery, cucumbers, dried apricots, crusty bread, and her favorite...pickles. She'll try anything we hand to her, and for the most part always makes some sort of dramatic, disgusted look, but she will continue to gnaw on it until it's soggy, taken away, dropped, or shared with her brothers. While at a restaurant, we happened upon one item that is now never shared or dropped...we allowed her to try a pickle spear, and we couldn't get it back. She loves pickles, which is not a surprise since they are one of her mother's favorite treats. We also learned this week that Lily does not like having stuffed toys place on her head. As seen in the pictures above, daddy was trying to be silly with her at the dinner table, and what started out as an innocent game turned into a traumatic experience. Lily's concerned look made dad think that not only should he remove the toy from her head, but he should show her it is OK by placing it on his own head. This decision was then met with a very red face and crocodile tears. Needless to say, we will not be putting anything on Lily's head or her dad's head for a very long time. We are also trying to instill at a young age the importance of taking care of our planet. This past weekend we visited our local farmer's market, where we purchased some local organic cheese from the Ropp Farm. We also visited Brown's Produce, and Lily picked out her first pumpkin. Lily is already personally contributing to the cause, via her Aunt Molly, by wearing eco-friendly and very chic soy fiber clothing from Babysoy.

The last eight months have gone by so fast, and we can't believe that our little baby is not so little anymore. It feels like I was pregnant just yesterday, and so many things have changed in my life since she was born. Eight months ago, while I would have said I'd try, I wouldn't have thought I'd still be nursing at this point...now I'm not really sure when I'll ween her. I would have never guessed that I would feel so terrible (and actually cry) when she got her first boo-boo. When she was first born, I had given up on the idea that I would ever sleep again. Now, for the most part, she sleeps through the night and so do I. I never thought that I would be more interested and excited about getting my Cookie and Parenting magazines than getting my Instyle. Before I was pregnant, I never really did much research on anything. Now I research everything...from bottles to clothes to toys to books to furniture and everything and anything that could potentially affect my child. Purchasing fun and new things for Lily is far more exciting than buying something for myself. She is pretty much all I think about and find myself talking about. Yes, I am one of those parents that loves to talk about her baby. Are there any that don't? No matter how many times someone tells you that having a child will completely change your life, there is no way to fully appreciate or understand it until you bring one home. I definitely knew my life would be different, but what I wasn't prepared for was how much I could love her. I miss her when I am at work, and I miss her when she goes to bed. Everything she does is entertaining and amazing to us, and we love taking her everywhere we go. I don't know how I could love anything more.

It's all Greek to Me

Lily learning her first dance moves
Wow, look at our hands
More playing with Aunt Dana

Silly Uncle Moks
I love my Greek Grandpa Nick

I love my Grandma Judy too!

In celebration of the September birthdays (Dana's and Katie's), the Mavros family met up in Greek town on Sunday in Chicago for a beautiful authentic Greek lunch. Although Katie has spent a lot of time with some authentic Greeks, this was her first experience at a true Greek restaurant. It was a gorgeous day, and as you can see from the pictures, Lily had a wonderful time visiting with her family. Per usual, she was a perfect angel. She slept the entire way up and played happily in her stroller throughout the meal. After lunch we went to Aunt Dana's to see Lily's furry cousin Ryan and have cake and open gifts. We really enjoyed seeing everyone, and we even got to visit with Lily's future boyfriend, Will. Lily's first trip to the big city was a success. She enjoyed the culture, the sounds, the sights, the smells, the traffic, and most of all...visiting with her loved ones.

In other family news, we have put our house on the market and have made an offer on a new one. The offer is contingent that we sell our house first, so the new one is not ours yet and it may not be, but we are excited nonetheless. So hopefully we will have pictures of our new digs soon! We had a pretty successful open house on Saturday, and we hope to hear back from people soon. We will probably have another open house this coming weekend, too, so if you know anyone looking to buy a cute older home close to IWU, please send them our way.

Booty Call

We are now back into the swing of things after our long vacation. Lily has come back sleeping like a champ. She, for the most part, has been going to bed between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m. and sleeping straight through the night in her crib until 7:00 a.m. There have been a few nights where she has ended up in our bed around 5:30 a.m., but I'll take that any day. She is also working on her waving good bye skills as well as crawling. Both are in the early stages, but she is a quick learner. We are also pretty sure she is going to have her first tooth poke through any day now. She hasn't been too crabby, but we think that is the cause of a few of her late night wakings recently. Lily also has some new faces watching over her. Last week her new babysitters started watching her on the days I am in the office. She has Ewelina and Bridget splitting the days on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Jackie is going to be watching her on Fridays. Lily and her parents are very excited about her new babysitters, but of course we will miss Aunt Molly and Grandma Judy.

Beach Babe

The past two weeks Lily and Company have been vacationing on the wonderful Hilton Head Island. During the first week Lily got to spend tons of quality time with Grandpa and Grandma Mavros, Uncle Moks, and Aunt Dana. Lily also got to meet her new furry cousin Ryan. Lily enjoyed going for walks both on the boardwalk and on the beach. Mom and Dad enjoyed having some sun time down at the pool while Grandpa and Grandma looked over Lily as she napped. It was so nice that Lily got to be with her extended family for an extended period of time. There definitely was not a dull moment as Lily is quite the entertainer. She added a few new faces and sounds to her routine as well as her new trick of sitting up all by herself. She waisted no time in adding a new food to her diet as well: sand. As seen in the picture above, we made the mistake of setting her on the sand for a picture without putting anything under her. Of course the first thing she did was put the sand in her mouth. As always, Lily was an excellent traveler and we thank her for being such a trooper on our 15 hour drives and for being such a great baby during our time in Hilton Head. I think Grandma will let her come back to visit her condo again.

In other news, we celebrated our third wedding anniversary and Jeff's 31st birthday while we were away.

Like a Dream

Lily's new sleep habits are worth a high five.

Lily had her six-month check up earlier this week (I know, we couldn't believe it, either). She was given a clean bill of health, and she received four shots in the chubby legs for her trouble. Our baby is now 15 lbs, 9 ozs, which puts her in the 45 percentile for weight. Her head circumference (an important measurement, to be sure) is in the 35 percentile, and her length of just under 25" places her squarely in the bottom 20% of her peers (no surprise there).

While speaking with Dr. Boe about Lily's development, we got talking about her sleep habits. Specifically, we discussed the fact that though she'd been sleeping fairly well in bed with us, she still wholeheartedly refused to spend any time in her crib. Additionally, sleeping "fairly well" in bed with us meant that she would wake up at least two times a night...and Katie would nurse her back to bed. Dr. Boe told us we have a window between 4-7 months to get her to sleep well by herself, and he encouraged us to try again with her crib. Though Katie had been very reluctant to let Lily cry in her crib to that point, we left with a renewed determination to make progress on the sleeping front...though that didn't mean we were going to let her cry herself to sleep...

That night we did our usual routine: bath, books, and bed. But this time, dad was solely responsible for the latter two so that breast milk was not an option. After Lily's favorite books, The Noisy Farm, Where is Baby's Belly Button?, and That's Not my Puppy, we retired to her room where I rocked her until she was visibly sleepy. Then, as I had done so many times before, I lowered ever so slowly onto her crib mattress for what I was sure was to be a veritable fireworks display of vocal protest. With Katie downstairs monitoring the monitor, I retreated to our bedroom and turned on ESPN, determined to stick to the plan of reassuring Lily after five minutes of crying, then ten, etc. As expected, before I could even get the score of the game, her wails filled the room...and the five minute allotment. Staying true to the plan, I went in and retrieved her, rocked her gently and talked quietly to her, promising that she was all right and her parents did truly love her (though I don't think she believed me). When she had settled down, I returned her to her crib, and the crying resumed. As I sat on my bed attempting to watch the baseball game for the second time, I checked the clock for no other reason but to know when the ten-minute interval would be up...and then an amazing thing happened. The crying got softer. Then it slowed. Could it be true? Could our daughter be falling asleep by herself? Lo and behold, it was true. Little Lilian's crying stopped within about a minute of her being put down for the second time. This was truly newsworthy. And even more amazing, our baby has consistently slept in her crib for the entire past week...both at nighttime and nap time. How? We don't know. Why? We're not asking. We're not looking a gift horse in the mouth. The only catch...dad is the only one who can put her down. So nighttime duties have largely switched from mom to dad. And Lily has in a small way switched from a little baby to a little girl. And we couldn't be more proud.

Vacation, Baby!

This past week Lily took her first big trip and had a wonderful time! She was a perfect angel the entire trip, starting with the airplane ride all the way to our arrival home at our back door. Lily, Mommy, and Daddy traveled across country to Scottsdale, AZ for Mommy's Association of Luxury Suite Directors Conference. We stayed at the very fancy and beautiful Hyatt at Gainey Ranch, which included a professional golf course, 10 pools (Lily's favorite part), and a lot of heat! We arrived late Saturday night and had all day Sunday and part of the day Monday to enjoy each other before mom went off to meetings. As you can see from the pictures, Lily had fun playing in the water with her parents. As she splished and splashed, she hummed a cute little tune. After all the excitement during the day, Lily was tuckered out and happily went to bed each night without a fussy moment the whole trip. The best part of our little getaway was that Dad and Lily got to go with Mom on her tours of the venues, which included a posh dinner and free drinks. We received so many compliments on how well behaved our child was, especially after our bus ride to U.S. Airways Center which had no air and lasted more than a half an hour. Everyone, adult and baby, was miserable, and we did everything in our power to keep her occupied. Luckily, we made it there before we all melted and before Lily could have a melt down. While Mom was at her very informative sessions, Dad and Lily took strolls around the grounds of the hotel and went for a few dips in the pool. The hotel was so beautiful and was surrounded by so much green and flowing water that it almost made you forget that is was a cool 110 degrees. Everywhere you turned there was the sound of flowing water, flowers, palm trees, and green. The view from our room was incredible, it was so nice that the hotel even used it to take a picture that can be seen in their brochures. We joked with some of our friends from the conference that Lily has now been spoiled and she will not stay anywhere less than a four star hotel. In addition to our friends that we made at the conference, Lily attracted a lot of attention from the hotel staff as well. The concierge office wanted to see her everyday and by the end of the trip everyone from the conference and hotel staff was stopping by to say hello. She, in true form, smiled on cue and managed to be at her cutest. All in all, it was a wonderful trip and it was so nice to have bonding time as a family with no stresses of work, errands, dogs, or anything else but Lily to worry about it. We love our little traveler and can't wait to have many more fun experiences like this together!