I'm back.

Sorry for the long absence. Two days of blizzard meant no work, followed by 1 vacation day, followed by Christmas break, followed by week off from Christmas to New Years with my company=2 weeks of paid time off. I had mixed feelings about returning today. I was excited cuz I do like work and it’s therapeutic to actually get out of the house BUT I was hesitant cuz I like not having to wake up at 6AM, dress up and leave my little girl. Anyhow, I’m here, Lily’s at day care and everyone is just FINE.

Our Christmas vacation was supposed to begin on Thursday, Dec. 21. We planned to surprise my mom-in-law with an early visit for her birthday on Dec 22. This didn’t happen. In case you didn’t see an ounce of news in the past 2 weeks we had a large snowstorm that caused a rift in our travel plans. First my husband was stranded on the east coast and told he couldn’t get home until Dec. 24. So he traveled to St. Louis and drove. I won’t go into detail about how his flight was diverted back to Indianapolis for a night where he sat on the plane for hours to be let off the plane to sleep on the airport floor---all before leaving AGAIN for St. Louis the following morning. Okay, so I did go into detail, but it was much deserved. From St. Louis he drove approximately 12 hours, arrived around 10PM, slept till 4AM, returned the rental car, shoveled out our car at the airport and then we left for our 9 hr drive to IA/SD. That was just the start of a crazy run around visiting everyone and cut our visit short to return to CO before the next big snowstorm. Wow.

No wonder we celebrated New Year’s Eve alone in our house without much excitement. We had been through all we could handle. We did ring in the New Year’s with a kiss and fell asleep not long after. It was perfectly quiet and peaceful.

Lily has been going through a lot of changes lately. She doesn’t throw many fits anymore. Overall, she is a very happy child and lately a sleeping champ. Her bedtime is 7PM and the past week she has slept in past her normal wake time of 7AM to wake up between 8-9:30AM. We are getting spoiled! She has been taking great naps, anywhere from 2-3 hours. Likely she is going through a growth spurt and this may not last but we are enjoying it. Lily is saying 2-3 syllable words. Her first was around her birthday when she said balloon. Now she says turtle and even said elephant. She has found interest in a basic sign language book and loves when we sign/read the book to her. She even signed eat and apple all by herself! During her breakfast yesterday she kept waving to the TV and we finally understood why when we realized everyone was waving at her during the Rose Bowl parade. Lily has taken fondly to shushing the dogs. When they start to get noisy she is quick to shush them and sometimes gets her index finger to her mouth region. Occasionally the finger has gone into the nose but its part of the shushing and not discovering a new area…yet.