14 months

What have we been up to? This month has gone by in a really long blur!

Bryan went to Columbus last week for a recruiting event. In just 18 hours he paid separate visits to Grandma and Papaw, judged an Ohio State Robotics competition (heaven for him), went to BW3's (more heaven), and crashed at Erin's before they caught a plane back together Friday morning.

Erin was with us for Memorial Day weekend. She got some insanely cheap tickets from Columbus to Pease in Portsmouth. We had a great weekend! We packed up and stayed at my mom's at the beach. On Saturday Becky and the girls came over for breakfast. After cleaning up and playing with the girls, we went to the North End to meet Angie, Rob and Evan for lunch. It was great to see them. Evan is so big now, starting on solid foods and sporting a Red Sox cap. So much has changed for us all! We used to be so free and easy. It's comical to see the lot of us trying to navigate through the crowds with diaper bags and strollers now. Angie deserves a medal for getting through the fish/farmer's market with Evan's stroller.

On Sunday we took a walk to Boar's Head on Hampton Beach and stopped to buy the first salt water taffy of the season for Erin to bring back for Patty. We took a drive up 1A to Portsmouth and walked around town and to Prescott Park before Jill freaked out and had to go back to Nana's for a nap. The one negative for the weekend was that Jill really was a nightmare in the car. I don't know if it was that she isn't used to having a passenger in the back with her, but she required constant maintenance in the form of songs and Cheerios or the yelling was relentless! Not good.

We wrapped up the weekend with a quick cook out with lobsters before Erin caught her plane home. All in all an A- weekend. The minus is for Jill's behavior in the car!

Car rides notwithstanding, Jill has been super cute lately. Our neighbors, the Fondas, gave her a mini rocking chair and she loves sitting in it. The first day she took a couple of nasty spills out of it onto the carpet but soon she perfected her entry and exit strategies. Now she has moved on to standing on the rocking chair. Lord help us!

On Wednesday, Jill blew me a kiss for the first time. I was working from home in the dining room and she began to peer through the French doors to distract me. She can be VERY charming when she is trying to get your attention. When she caught my eye, I blew her a kiss and she took her hands off the door, balanced on her own, and blew me several kisses.

We've heard several possible new words from Jill. She says "hi" reliably and calls Bryan "Dah doo." Another source of new words is this Leapster driving game that Erin got her. The Leapster counts and sings the alphabet. Jill is obsessed with it and the song has been on constant repeat in my head during my runs this week. "This is Leap, and this is my car! Beap, beap, beap beap, beap. We can drive real far!" My mom and I each heard Jill say "Eight!" after the Leapster said seven. She did it twice but hasn't done it since. She definitely says "thuh-reeee" (3) with relish, we think we got "all done", "up please!" and "cheese" this week. But before we declare her a baby genius, I have to say that what Jill is saying is very open to interpretation. For instance she could have been saying "up cheese!" rather than "up please!" which not only is less polite, but just doesn't make any sense.

And finally, unfortunately, she might have said "crap" She was mimicking her dad who had just realized we missed the deadline to purchase his Ohio State football tickets. Whoops!