Misc.

I'm mostly updating this blog out of a sense of obligation, which leads me to wonder as to its life expectancy. Lilah is still stubbornly refusing to walk. She stands with an ever-increasing sense of purpose but plops down forcefully when anyone holds their hands out to encourage that magical first step. Her favorite word is "Hi!", which she chirps to everyone. If there are no people present to greet, she simply sits by herself chanting, "Hi, Lilah, Hi Dada. Hi Mama," and then running through her ever-increasing list of friends' names.

She had her belated one-year photo shoot yesterday. My old friend Mitch Haarer is an incredibly gifted photographer and I wouldn't hear of anyone else doing her photos. We drove the nearly-two hours to Hillsdale, MI and Lilah slept until the last 20 minutes when she started to cry and chant her signature, "All done!" The shoot itself was a success. Lilah charmed the camera, sat where she was posed, pointed, played coy, and smiled winningly. However, Mitch had three locations planned, and even though it was a short drive to each, she still managed to fight getting back in her carseat and wail when strapped in. After a very long hour, we bid the Haarers farewell and drove 20 minutes to Coldwater. Lilah screamed the whole way. Dano dropped me, Lilah, and her purple carseat off at Biggby Coffee so we could spend time with the Sevens (Mike was transporting us to their house after he got out of work) while Dano jammed with Brent Yuhl. Lilah was given a chocolate chip cookie which she ate at record speed before exploring the store and generally trying to wreck everything. I had planned to read American Gods again while she sat and played with her toys quietly and we waited for Mike to be done. I'm not sure what possessed me to believe that was possible. We made it to the Severn's around 9:30, and fter Lilah made the rounds of "hellos", I could see she was over-stimulated and over-tired so I attempted to get her to fall asleep. That "attempt" lasted 3 hours of her mostly screaming. Dano got there and tried for a few minutes to no avail. I tried one more time and we both fell asleep.

Today I felt her gums and they are, for lack of a better describing phrase, riddled with teeth. At least four swollen little bumps that I could tell. She screamed most of tonight at home as well, so we gave her an ice cream, infant Motrin, and sent her to bed with fingers crossed for a regular baby in the morning, and Dano asking when he could schedule a vasectomy.