14 months already!

Wow, I’m not even sure where to start. Pre-Riley, if 2 months went by I probably would have to scrounge for even remotely interesting things to report to you people. Now, well, I don’t have enough time tonight to come close to sharing everything with you.

Normally in my past posts I’ve tried to list some of Rile’s recent accomplishments but she’s learning things way too quickly now to keep them straight. So here is a little 10 minute recount of when I came home from work today.

I walk up the driveway to hear squeals and Da Da Da Da coming from the kitchen. It's Riley standing at the window with the biggest "Daddy I love you" smile stretched across her face. I wave hello and quickly receive a return wave from her. After a rather noisy greeting at the front door, I grab a drink. Riley is very excited by my drink and definitely wants some so I explain to her that iced tea is for grown-ups. But I’m stopped mid sentence when she repeats "ice tea" crystal clear as soon as I say it. Obviously it’s not as big of a deal to her as it is to me because she’s off to more important things like playing with my keys. The fact that she’s playing with my keys isn’t very special - she loves shaking things and the more noise they make the better - but today she did something I’ve never seen before. She took them and went to the front door and acted as if she was going to unlock it. She even stood on her tip-toes because the knob is still a few inches out of her reach. After that she settles down and I let her know I’m going to go “take a bath”. I’m really going to take a shower but she knows “bath” and does her best to say bath-bath and gives the sign language gesture for it by rubbing her hands around her belly. I get a kick out of watching her do the sign and telling her I’m going to take a bath has become a recent routine. Usually on my way to the bedroom I’ll play peek-a-boo with her for awhile, but today I blew her a kiss and was pleasantly surprised when she immediately blew one right back.

I was hoping to write a little more but it’s getting late and I've been sitting here for about 30 minutes trying to figure out what Riley events are more important. I have so much news it's hard trying to find an order to put everything in to keep it relatively short. So I’ll leave you with some newer pics and a promise of more frequent updates. Hopefully you all will be able to catch up with us to see Riley in live action, but for those of you who can’t check back here as much as you can.

Tomorrow is Halloween and I’ll post some of her costume pictures in a few days along with a pretty funny video short which does a good job of capturing a side of Riley that only a privileged few get to see.