december 5th , 2008

IMAGES

misc life things

things lili is doing:

saying "dada", i think she understands what it means 80% of the time. the other 20% she says it to everything

pulling herself to a stand against me or on pillows on the bed. she especially loves to do this at night on the bed, she will pull herself up and then raise her hands straight up into the air and then fall backwards on purpose, giggling hysterically. she will do this for an hour straight

being a lot more talkative in a conversational way.
she does this thing we call "storytelling" which, to us, looks like she is giving instructions to an invisible army of elves.

sometimes, during storytelling, she will do a thing we call "casting spells" (taken from the blog "unringing the bell" where georgia did a similiar thing at her age) where she will stiffen her hands out in front of her (and legs, too) with her palms facing downwards and she will look like, for all intents and purposes, she is casting spells.
sometimes her little lioness-like roar will accompany said spell.

she is self feeding herself cheerios and she is VERY pleased about this!

she army crawls everywhere and is very close to getting up on hands and knees. she will get up on hands and knees when on the bed but not so much the hardwood floor.

she rips all the fabric off my shelves and inspects it.
i don't mind :)

she will play "where's lili?" where we put a piece of fabric on her head and then she will "hide" under it until she finally pulls it off and we say "there's lili!"
she thinks this game is HILARIOUS and she has started to put the fabric over her own eyes now to play it.

she has started to rock back and forth when she hears music.

she has one autistic-like trait of "stimming"
where she finds a piece of fabric that is small, like the tag on a stuffed animal, or a piece of ribbon or string and she will flap it over and over and hum to it.
she likes to do this right up to her mouth and feel it on her tongue. we call it her "hummingway"
i don't think she is autistic tho because she isn't showing any other traits of this. i've researched this a bunch and i sure have come across a buttload of ignorance about stimming. about how it is "unproductive" and i even had this one woman tell me that it will "erase her brain"
i am rather appalled at narrow mindedness and fear surrounding autism from what i can see so far.

the IEP people said she is doing very well and i'm doing an excellent job with her. we've cut back on the whole IEP thing to be every 3 months.

she is getting the hang of holding her own bottle.
sometimes she will even insist to hold it.

she is becoming more of a cuddlebug every day and giving me "love eyes" all the time. but she is also starting to become more defiant and stubborn and i've had to start using the word NO now (like pulling my hair or not being still when i change her diaper). and we are trying to teach her the word "gentle". i'm not surprised, she is a leo :)

somedays she needs my constant attention, but most days she is content just to play on the floor with her toys by my side.

so far, she still has no teeth!

she has been really healthy. not even a cold.
the only thing we have to do is give her a little miralax everyday for constipation. but as long as she gets that it's all good.

she weighs just a fraction under 20 pounds which puts her in the 75% percentile on the DS chart.

i don't know how tall she is, but she fits perfectly into 12 month clothing this month.

she has started to make the "ooo" sound again.

she is super smiley and giggly and isn't afraid of all strangers anymore.

it's getting more difficult to get her to take a nap.

things i am listening to:

tv on the radio -dear science
fleet foxes
grace jones -whatever the new one is called
bladerunner soundtrack

ridiculous things i have cried at during my pregnancy:

the beauty of tomatoes at the farmer's market

credits to an 80's teen movie that only exists in my mind,
a howard jones song playing.

the photo of douglas adams at the end of the hitchhiker movie (because he died)

the large screen in the movie theater, just because it was large and seemed so grand to me

too many other things to remember , but these are the things that stand out

other misc things:

i made that no knead bread (the recipe a few posts back in my lj)
and it turned out AMAZING! it's just like a bakery. super crusty bread with moist and chewy middle. it's PERFECT.
i made 5 loaves so far.
i want to make a loaf for everyone in the world.

on thanksgiving:

i made the turkey ( 18 pounder) and it was the 1st one i ever made and it turned out perfectly!
martha stewart would be proud! and i only basted it 3 times not every fricking 30 minutes like they said to do.

i made the stuffing, too, all out of the no knead bread i baked! it had figs, dried cranberries, dried apricots and granny smith apples in it and it was DELISH!

it was the 1st thanksgiving i have ever hosted. M made the mashed potatoes and yummy sweet potatoes with cinnamon, nutmeg and marshmallows.

it was a LOT of work. getting the turkey in the oven by 7am.
cooking a few things the day before. baking all the bread.
it was exhausting but totally satisfying.

i'm getting into cooking more and more.
i'm sort of finding my groove with the whole "housewife" thing. i sort of prefer the term housewife rather than SAHM which is just a kind of long and awkward statement.

other stuff:

it's funny and prophetic to me that the title i wanted for my last record (the one that ended up ebing called anavoog.com) was "the perfect housewife". but that title got nixed by the record co owner because it wasn't "sexy".
whatever.
also, the cover of the album was supposed to be me pregnant. but my belly was supposed to be clear and i would be pregnant with a black bakelite telephone from the 40's.
this also got nixed because, once again, they did not think it was sexy.
thank god i am not having to deal with that kind of shit anymore.
my husband and plenty of other people, i have found out, find pregnancy PLENTY sexy.

maybe that will be the title and cover for my next record, whenever i find the time to make it. god only knows now.

my home is starting to feel more like a home and less like a hotel room i just moved into and piled my stuff up against the walls. it always takes me at least a year to properly move into a place.

this year we are going to buy our 1st family xmas tree.
i'm so excited about all of these traditions i can relish in again. it's so comforting to me.
i want to sew us all xmas socks for santa. and i want to make gingerbread men and the whole 9 yards.
i get all teary just thinking about it.

i've had such a disjointed and freakshow of a life the last few decades, i am truly purring over baking bread for my husband and tucking my kitten child in for the night.
it's seriously just the best thing ever.