Rice, Rice Baby

I love steamed rice. Love it. I am happy to eat a bowl of steamed rice all by itself for dinner. When I was a kid, my mom joked that it's a taste I inherited from my Grandpa John, seen here partying at Chuck E Cheese in the early 80s.


It was a joke because, as you might have noticed, my grandpa was Japanese and I am whiter than the freshly driven snow. He's technically my step-grandpa, and therefore unlikely to have passed anything into my bloodline.

Fast forward some years, and it turns out that another one of the myriad ways in which Lily takes after me is her taste for rice. She loves rice. The girl is an eater and likes most things we give her, but has particular enthusiasm for a handful of things, including rice, which she calls, "Wice! Wice!"



Something not everyone knows about Lily is that she nearly died at birth. She was in distress, there were complications, she didn't breathe for several minutes, and it was only by the grace of God -- and the extremely serendipitous fact that the head of neonatology at my hospital just happened to be standing outside my room when Lily was born -- that she survived. My mom had a dream that night where she saw Grandpa John, who let her know that he had helped save Lily. So Grandpa, this wice is for you. Thanks for looking out for my baby.

Whoops

A couple weeks ago I picked JJ up from school and as we were driving home, we were snickering at something funny Jason had done. JJ said, "Jaimee, how come you never do anything we can make fun of?" That was a shocking question for two reasons:

1. I am a huge dork with essentially no sense of shame or dignity. The other night, for example, JJ asked me to tell a funny story about my sister Jenn, so I told him how there was this song that went "Buttermilk biscuits! Woohoo!" and how my sisters and I had this lame dance we did to the song where we hooked our thumbs through our belt loops and stood with our feet splayed, singing the song with a Southern drawl and doing this weird squatting dance move when we hit "woohoo." You can't really explain that kind of move with words, so I stood up from the dinner table and performed it for him and Jason in the kitchen. And this is the kind of thing that a 30-year-old woman should probably find embarrassing, but that I find hilarious and therefore do often. I mean, when I was a kid I was known for my Steve Urkel impression of all things. (Yes, you read that right. Steve Urkel. From Family Matters.) And I'm still willing to perform that impression when asked. But for whatever reason, JJ does not think that makes me worthy of mockery.
2. I am very clumsy. Walk into walls clumsy. Drop steak knives on my foot clumsy.

Point #2 is what I reminded JJ of in the car that day, reminding him that more than once he has teased me about the genesis of some random bruise or cut.

Less than one hour later, we were walking in the park and I tripped on a pine cone and fell to the ground. (Can I defend myself by saying that I was walking at a pretty serious incline, wearing cute but impractical shoes, and carrying a 28-pound squirmy toddler who really threw my balance off?) I literally fell to my knees. (My maternal insticts thankfully outweigh my clumsiness, and I did not drop Lily.) JJ got a bit of mileage out of that one, but because he was there and saw firsthand all those extenuating circumstances, he didn't make fun of me too much.

But when he comes back here from his mom's house tomorrow, I've got a doozy for him.

The other night I was closing the shades in our living room and stubbed my pinky toe in a major way on the brick hearth of our fireplace. (You'll want to stop reading here if you're squeamish.) I broke the toe, which was bleeding where the toenail got bent back. If you're grody like me, click here for a picture of my bloody and mangled toe before the bruising set in.

Today I was inspecting the toe and realized that the nail sort of flops around on top of the nail bed instead of staying firmly attached like toenails are supposed to do. I had Jason examine it (he's a nurse), and he delivered some bad news: he's "85% sure" my toenail is going to fall off. What?!? That's a thing? Your toenails can fall off from extreme stubbing? I expect a full round of teasing tomorrow, followed by another, more thorough round when the toenail actually comes off.

Sunrise, Sunset

Do you ever look at your children and think, "Where did my baby go?"


Sometimes Lily looks (and acts) like such a big girl. It's hard letting go my little baby.

The Flight Home

All good things must come to an end, and that included our trip to Chicago. Jaysa dropped us off at the airport and we made our way through security and down to our terminal. Lily was a little antsy and we knew she was going to have to sit for three hours once we boarded, so Jason walked her all around the terminal. Her favorite part was the moving walkway. She stood on it in front of him, reaching up with both hands to hold his index fingers, and they rode back and forth and back and forth through the terminal.

When we got on the plane, Lil tried to buckle herself up, which mixed results.


Once we took off, we had plenty of entertainment for her. Auntie Jenny sent Lily a ton of MegaBlocks, so we took a bunch of those on.


I also let Lil listen to my iPod for a while. I put one earbud in my ear and handed the other to her. She was pretty excited and said, "Dance! Dance!" then gave a little shimmy.


About two hours into the flight, I carried her down to the restroom to get her diaper changed. We were standing in the aisle, waiting for it to be free, and Lily was looking around at all the passengers, saying "Hi!" to everyone and seeing who might make eye contact and say hello in return. A very nice gentleman in a turban said hi back to her, which meant she then said "Hi!" to him about thirty more times, mixing in the occasional obseveration of "Hat!" while pointing excitedly to his turban. He was extremely good-natured about it. The flight attendant came down and gave me a garbage bag to put the dirty diaper in, so Lily waved the empty bag around to everyone, saying, "Twash! Twash!" That kid is friendly.

At the end of the flight, she was getting pretty sleepy. I was singing "Wheels on the Bus" to her (a big favorite of hers) and Jason started to sing along as well. Lily was thrilled by that. She looked at me and was pointing at Jason, as if to say, "Did you know he knows the words to this too?!?!"

We had a great time, but Lily was very happy to get home and see her brother again.

Auntie Nay-Nay

While in Chicago, Lily also got some face time with her Auntie Nay-Nay (actual name: Jaysa). On Saturday morning Jaysa and I decided to go shopping with Lil and leave the boys at home. I asked Lily, "Do you want to on a girls' day?" and she nodded heartily and said, "Yes!"

She looked very stylish walking around the mall in Auntie Nay-Nay's shades.


Nay-nay took her into Starbucks and let her have some chocolate chip cookie.


And Nay-Nay was also nice enough to put Lily on a car ride, letting Lil hold her car keys for effect.


It's so wonderful to have such a nice auntie!

Go Bears!

While we were in Chicago the Bears played the Cowboys, so Jaysa and Mike had a little family get-together for the game.

Everyone was decked out in Bears garb.


Even little Dee (seen here with Uncle Ken) had her Bears collar on.


Lily enjoys football. She likes to get right in front of the TV and yell, "Football!" (which sounds more like "poobah" when coming from her). During this game, however, she was distracted by a couple of things.

First of all, Grandpa Bob arrived with a new baby for Lily, so she had some very important caretaking to do.


The other big distraction was the snacks. In particular, the chocolate banana pudding.


Fortunately, despite Lily's fickle support, the Bears won the big game.

Taking Care of Baby Ben

Everyone knows Lily loves to take care of her doll babies. But what happens when she's around a real one?

Uncle Mike

Our first night in Chicago, Uncle Mike showed Lily an animal book and she hopped into his lap. He quizzed her on the various animals, thereby winning her over right away. (Being quizzed on anything she knows -- animals, animal sounds, body parts -- is Lily's favorite activity.)


By her last night in Chicago, she was completely in love.


She got plenty of belly kisses.


She played quite a bit of peekaboo.




And of course, she demanded the occasional hug.

Illinois Park Trip

On Sunday morning while Ben was napping, my sister and I walked down to her neighborhood park with her dog (Dee) and Lily.


Lily loved riding in the bouncy car.


She also made time to stop and pick a flower.


But it was staring pensively off into the distance that she really did best.

Campground Visit

On our second day in Illinois, we planned to drive out to my dad's campsite to see some family. Ben had to rest up for the drive.


When we got there, my dad immediately bribed Lily with a Hostess cupcake. Lily gladly accepted the bribe. We never let her have sugar, so it was a pretty special treat.


Ben wasn't feeling great that day, so he spent plenty of time hanging out with his mama and sleeping on anyone who'd hold him long enough for him to start snoring.





Lily, on the other hand, came to party. She batted her eyelashes at everyone, and got a few people to take her for walks around the lake to look at the fish.


The men played some bags, and Lil got in on that.






The ladies made some smores, and Lily enjoyed that as well.






Lily, did you enjoy your first day of "camping"?


Yes!

Lily's First Airplane Ride

Last night we got home from our vacation to Chicago. JJ couldn't go because of school, so it was just me, Jason, and Lily. I'm going to break the trip out into a few posts to cover all the excitement.

This was Lily's first time on an airplane. She was very excited. Here she is on her way to the airport, clearly thrilled.


Once we got all checked in and made our way through security, we got to go hang out at the gate for a while. Lily stared out the windows at the planes and ground vehicles, calling out, "Airplane! Beep-beep! Vroom! Beep-beep! Airplane! Vroom! Toot-toot!" The big thrill of window-watching was when a member of the ground crew looked up and waved to Lily, who started waving frantically and shouting, "Hi! Hi! Hi!"


We got on the plane and got settled into our seats, where Lily and her baby got buckled in.


We asked Lily, "Is this fun?" and the answer was a definitive, "Yes!"


Just as we pushed back from the gate, Lily thoroughly reviewed the safety information, taking particular care to memorize what to do in case of a water landing.


During the flight, Lil was a total doll. She was excited to be on an airplane, and content to sit in her seat, reading books and talking to Mama. We did, however, give her a couple of breaks from sitting still so she could sit in Dada's lap and gaze at the clouds.


Lily got a little sleepy at one point and was asking to go night-night. She curled up with Jason to try to take a nap.


The flight was just too exciting, though. Lil couldn't sleep, so instead she finished out the ride making funny faces with Dada.


After we landed, it took a while to actually deplane. We were near the back and it took a long time for everyone to clear out. While we were waiting, Lily stood in my lap, saying hi to everyone (and I mean everyone) around us, and occasionally adding, "All done!" to let us know she was ready to get off.

Once we got our luggage and got picked up by Uncle Mike, Lil was able to get some much-needed rest to prepare herself to be charming for the rest of her trip.