Lillian Enjoying The Simple Things

This weekend, Josh’s mom and dad, Peggy and Keith Denby (better known to Lillian as Na-Na and Paw-Paw) came to visit Lillian and her dad. Here is Peggy’s report, along with some pictures:

On our visit this weekend, Keith and I enjoyed playing with Lillian while Josh got his errands done and enjoyed a little grown-up time.

The pictures show how easy she is to entertain! She loves singing BINGO. She gets excited and gets a couple of the letters — but always ends loudly with a grin on her face! She made two of her baby dolls dance while we sang the song (of course, I was provided with a baby doll to make it a real dance party).

Also, please note the “dinosaur” she drew on her magic drawing board! Well, NaNa thinks it looks like a dinosaur!

For quiet time after lunch, we watched the OLD Winnie the Pooh; I really didn’t think she would watch it, but she sat on my lap and quietly watched the entire story of Pooh and the Honey Tree! At the end, she jumped down and got close to the tv and stared at piglet and pooh — I wondered what she was thinking! Anyway, Dora and Bubble Guppies were forgotten for a while.

Friends

Hanging out with two-almost-three year olds is, while exhausting, often loads of fun. They are endlessly inventive and curious and their light, sweet voices are a most delightful music.

And, once in a while you get a monologue like this:

Lillian (points to herself): “That’s Lillian.”
(Points to her grandfather): “That’s ePa.”
(Pauses, places finger on chin, considers): “Lillian. ePa. Friends.”

In Charge

A Gathering of Denbys

A special report from grandma Peggy: Lillian enjoyed playing at Great Grandmother Denby’s house with her Aunts, Uncles, Grandparents, Cousin Katelyn and second cousins Luke, Joel and Anaya. Bubble and balls proved to be fun for the children and adults. And the youngsters decided balls were great for sitting and bouncing. Aunt Cari is a favorite and just one of the girls!

We hope to get this group together more often!

Long Week

What a week it was! My mother, Anne, had a scheduled knee replacement on Tuesday; we planned carefully, and had Lillian covered (thanks, Lauren!), and had carefully parceled out shifts at the hospital so no one would be too exhausted. But Nancy came down with something in her throat (not yet determined) and ended up in the hospital herself. So we had Anne at the Methodist Hospital and Nancy at St Luke’s. There’s a handy tunnel connecting the two, and it got a lot of use this week.

My brother David pitched in, and spent his off periods from school sitting with my mom (who is a difficult patient), and I stayed with Nancy, mostly (strolling over to see my mom a couple of times a day), while they pumped Nancy full of antibiotics, steroids and morphine, and did a series of tests (ending in some biopsies) trying to figure out what exactly was going on. (Results are due Tuesday). Some kind of infection is involved, and antibiotics and steroids have helped, but the doctors seem to think something else may be going on in or around the thyroid.

But, Nancy got released to home and bed rest today, and is happily ensconced there with cold soft drinks and an ice pack on her neck. I am spending another night at the Methodist Hospital, helping my mom, who is in rehab, and is a tad disoriented and anxious. Last night, I relieved David just in the nick of time for him to make the father-daughter dance with the lovely and graceful Miranda Graves at the Cotillion; and tonight, he and his intrepid son Nathan went with the Scouts to Corpus Christi to spend the night on the aircraft carrier Lexington.

On the way home today, Nancy and I stopped and visited with the talkative Lillian Grace Denby, whose word explosion continues. The names of colors and numbers and animals and more pour from her mouth. There are verbs and nouns and adjectives and phrases and (probably) stories and poems and jokes. Her grandparents Peggy and Keith were visiting from Huntington, and The Lilibug offered some of her famous dramatic improvisations. After several days in the houses of the sick, even just a few minutes of the Bug is a wonderful tonic.

Visiting Family

Lillian’s Na-Na and Paw-Paw, other wise known as her grandparents Peggy and Keith Denby, came down from Huntington to visit Lillian and Josh on Saturday. While they were there, Lillian helped Peggy do laundry and some other chores, then got to play with her LeapPad kids’ tablet as a reward. (Lillian is fascinated with all things electronic, and loves Yia-Yia Nancy’s iPhone: if you get any strange emails from any of us, it’s likely Lillian has taken over one of our computing devices). While the Denbys were visiting, Lillian’s great aunt came over from Austin to check up on Lillian.

On Sunday afternoon, Lillian packed into the car with Nancy and her great-grandmother Anne, and drove over to Pearland to visit my cousin Deborah and her husband Joe, her mom Donna (my Dad’s sister) and dad Robert, and her son Justin and his wife SuSu. My brother David and his wife Michelle came as well with their four kids; the cousins kindly helped keep Lillian occupied: Deborah and Joe have cats and stairs, so Lilz spent the afternoon chasing cats and climbing stairs: she may have worn the cousins out. The rest of us had a great time catching up and talking about old friends and old times.

A New Year

One of the advantages of traveling around at Christmas time is that you have multiple opportunities to open presents. Here’s Lillian with Nancy and Josh opening presents from her great-grandmother Anne.

We’ve somehow made it into a new year: Josh and Lillian made the transition from 2012 to 2013 quietly in their home: Lillian very quietly as she slept through the great event.

Josh and Lillian have been organizing their living space (actually, Josh has been arranging, Lillian has been un-arranging and Josh has then been re-arranging). Lillian has out-grown her high-chair, and they are preparing to set up a new table and chairs in their dining area. Josh and grandma Nancy have to go back to work tomorrow, and Lillian for now will spend the days with her great-grandmother Anne and her grandpa John.

We’re all doing okay most of the time, missing Ashley terribly, of course, but keeping busy, and relying on the continued support and kindness of so many friends. Lillian is a great joy: an intense, demanding and exhausting joy, to be sure, who every now and then finds it necessary to remind you that she does indeed know how not to be a joy — I’m sure just so we can be grateful that she usually chooses joy.

The Denby Clan (and its non-Denby groupies) wish you all a very happy new year!

More about New Words

“Yuck”

Lillian’s grandma Peggy says:

We are missing Lillian and her cute little words. I don’t know if we’ll ever figure out “ani” but “yuck” is expressive of everything she sees (and does). One night when I had put her down for the night, and after about 20 minutes of her usual figeting around in the bed, she started saying “YYYYYYuck”… “YuCK!”… “yuCK”… “YYYYYYYUCK!”. I really thought it was cute until I smelled the reason–a full diaper–so I went back to change her (again) and start the sleep process all over … So I know sometimes it REALLY means “YUCK”.

She also used it properly when she was eating a bowl of raisin bran cereal (from which I thought I had picked out all of the raisins) and accidently chewed a raisin … out came the raisin … followed by a convincing “YUCK”.

Now if we can just get her to add a few more words to her vocabulary to help us follow her spoken instructions. Being dragged around by a finger, followed by a finger pointing at something, which as silly adults we do not always interpret to her satisfaction, is sometimes annoying to Lillian (as we all discovered). Aunt Cari was pretty insistent that she “use her words” and Lillian did say a version of snowman (no mis) and reindeer (rrrrreer) for her.

More East Texas Christmas

Lillian sculpts in Play-Doh with her aunt Elli and cousin Katelyn:

Katelyn and Lillian and a keyboard:

Lillian in the sandbox:

Motoring with grandpa Keith:

Reading Kai-Lan with dad:

Sunday at Katelyn’s

Lillian’s social calendar continues to be full: on Sunday, she and her dad and grandparents went to her cousin Katelyn’s house for burgers cooked by her uncle Josh and aunt Elli.

Katelyn has a playhouse and swing set in the backyard. Lillian, who has become something of a connoisseur of playgrounds and playhouses, thoroughly approved. Here she is with aunt Cari:

Sometimes, you just can’t resist tickling a little girl:

Underneath the playhouse is a set of drums:

And, best of all, Katelyn has a set of swings. Grandpa Keith gives Lillian a hand with the big girl swing: