Home, Home, Home!

Almost 2 weeks ago now, Lilly and I got back from spending a week with Mum and Dad. It was nice and relaxing and as always, I enjoyed being at home. As our family knows too well, Dad wakes up at an ungodly early to make tea. He's pretty notorious for this as he does it wherever we are in the world. We all make fun of him because he tries to not wake us up when in fact it is impossible to sleep through all the "tea-making" noise. The running water, getting out mugs, opening the fridge for milk, the dinging kettle, the stairs...it's all loud and inevitably, if you are sleeping anywhere near the kitchen, you are a victim to these early wake ups as well. I can't complain too much because I always end up with a cup of tea in bed; it's just usually at 5:30 or 6 in the morning! So, Lilly adjusted to life with her grandparents and started waking up at 6:30 instead of 7:30 (thankfully, as soon as we returned home, she started sleeping until 7:30 or 8 again) but while we were with Mum and Dad, it was perfect. Lilly got to spend time with Dad before he left for work and we had nice mornings sitting outside, drinking tea and coffee while Lilly played with her watering can. Mum bought her a watering can so she could help water the garden while she was staying there and naturally, Lilly prefers to use the real watering can to water the plants and only uses hers to water the ground.

It's amazing how many things Lilly can learn in a week. She learned how to laugh while covering her mouth, like Grandma does. If you start laughing with your hand in front of your mouth, she will now do the same. She does it all the time on skype now when she talks to Grandma! Grandpa taught her to open her mouth when it's full of food and show it all to him. What a fantastic life skill. Luckily, she reserves this trick for Grandpa and it is one that hasn't carried over to her daily life. She learned how to say "shhhhhh" (which sounds more like "sssssss") while putting her finger over her mouth. I'm trying to get a picture of this because when she does it, she not only puts her finger over her mouth but she rests the tip of her finger in her nose. Naturally. It just fits. Every time she does it, I laugh even though I know I shouldn't and it's a bad habit. But I just can't help it. Lilly wants to help with whatever anyone is doing, so she was very interested on using the broom whenever Mum brought it outside. She wouldn't let anyone help her with it so we sat there dodging the broom handle while trying to enjoy a beer.

She was also a huge help in the garden and loved going down whenever Mum had to move the sprinkler or pick some lettuce. One time, both Mum and Lilly came back soaking wet. Apparently, the sprinkler won.

Mum has a bowl full of decorative eggs from Bali, I think, and Lilly loved these eggs, especially when she learned that Grandpa could drop the eggs and make them spin! So she'd pick up the eggs and bring them over to Dad and he'd have all these eggs spinning around her. Naturally, Lilly wanted to try dropping them and making them spin. Unfortunately, when she did it, she'd just hurl the eggs on the ground and they'd make a really loud bang before rolling somewhere. She got the point but didn't quite have the technique down. Maybe next time. Lilly also got to watch some cycling with Dad, and Dad could tell her all the "interesting" things he wanted since she was locked into her high chair with nowhere to go.

Lilly heard Mum telling Tess to "sit" so now, when Lilly sees Tess, she points her finger at her and growls. It must be her way of telling Tess to sit. Poor Tess. She's such an old dog and continued to be tormented by Lilly for the duration of our stay. Lilly even learned that if she carries a cracker around, Tess will follow her. So she'd do this for ages, running laps around the house with Tess hot on her tail. Eventually, Tess would always get the food so it worked out for both of them. Lilly tried to give Tess whatever was in her hand so Tess was subject to everything from magnets to a brush to a shovel to fruit. She loved patting Tess, especially her nose and eyes. It was an exhausting week for Tess and I'm sure she's still recovering from our visit.

It was a week where I had so many intentions of things to do and people to see but as is the case so often when I'm home, I ended up just being home. Mum and I enjoyed coffee and fruit together for hours in the morning while Lilly was having her nap. We had BBQs and beer and wine at night, watched a baseball game or two (or twenty...) with Dad. It was a great week that flew by and before I knew it, we were heading back to CT. We skyped with Jim in the mornings before he went to work and at night before Lil went to bed which we all loved. Lilly showed off her newest tricks and Jim got to be a Dad and make his silly noises and faces that make Lilly laugh. Technology is amazing and Lilly is going to grow up with Skype as a part of her daily life. Pretty unbelievable. When she hears the skype phone ringing or the ding of a skype chat, she goes sprinting over to the computer! She's our little social butterfly.

We've been making the drive down to DC since Lilly was only weeks old and it's definitely gotten easier. The fact that I don't have to feed her every 3 hours combined with her ability to entertain herself makes the five and half hours not so bad. This trip was great. She had some toys and for the first time she was interested in reading some of her books! We stop once to have lunch each way, and Lilly usually sleeps for at least 2 of those hours so it goes by pretty quickly. Mum's in Italy until July 30th so our next trip down will be sometime in August when Ellie will be home!!