19 months

I wrote in my journal

Lily is such a joy! We have been having lots of fun together. She has added much more to her vocabulary, such as “cow” and (some form of) “pajama time” when I read her books. We recently taught her some songs and she loves them. She knows the motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider and she sings along to that and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Of course, when I say she sings along I mean that she’ll start off or end each phrase with the correct word or sounds, and you can tell she’s trying to sing the right notes. No matter how many times we sing them, she claps and says “yay” when we’re done. We usually have to sing them multiple times as she loves it. The good thing is that I can use the songs to calm her down when she’s upset, or at least distract her for a minute. Lil has become very picky lately with her food. She is very good at telling me “no” when she doesn’t like my selection for her. It’s just hard to know what I should be feeding her and what she’ll eat. She is also very interested in feeding herself. She gets upset if I don’t let her have the spoon/ fork. She is actually pretty good at using her utensils. She’ll even go so far as to use a fork on her cheese- or cinnamon puffs, which is quite amusing. She has also started to put herself down for naps sometimes, which is also pretty funny to see.

It is getting harder to take her to the store with me. She refuses to sit up front in the cart and is still too skinny for the cart straps to prevent her from standing up in the front, so I just let her ride in the back. She can’t climb out but can grab almost anything she sees. She says hi to everyone who walks by :). She is very good at recognizing her regular food, so when we walk past  things like the the Goldfish display, she’ll start pleading “fish, fish, fish” and so on. Or when I put food in the cart she’ll give it to me to open so she can eat it and gets frustrated when I don’t give it to her. The best, though, is when she keeps trying to bite into any piece of produce I put into the cart. It’s funny to look away and back again and see a chunk taken out of the avocado :)

 

Weekend trip to Grandpa’s house

 

Play time

 

Putting herself down to sleep

17 months

I wrote in my journal

Lillian is now 17 months old. What a curious little girl she is! She is great at entertaining herself. Whenever we go somewhere she just takes off any chance she gets. She seems to move before thinking. We have to keep an eye on her at all times. there is rarely a time when she is timid or shy. I am seriously considering some kind of baby “leash” for going places like the fair of the airport. Once she feels comfortable with something- she just goes for it. For example we went to the beach on the 4th of July and once she got her hands wet, all she wanted to do was run full force straight into the ocean. I was more than happy to hold her in the water, but it was ice cold! Speaking of that, she loves baths and the pool. Even when she goes underwater at the pool, she just gets back up and keeps playing. It makes me happy that she is not easily deterred like other kids, but I worry that she’ll get into much more trouble than is necessary since she doesn’t seem to sense much danger.

We have a long list of words coming from Lily now. Mommy, daddy, hi, bye bye, might night, more, bite, doggie, kitty, meow, baby, out/up, and, of course, NO. It is exciting to be able to communicate more and (sometimes) understand better what she wants, She also knows how to say and point to eyes, nose, mouth, and belly button/tummy. Even when she’s not saying anything in particular, she babbles a lot. She’ll say “one, two” and wait for us to say “three” or tickle her or something. She dances when she hears music and is starting to song along with some of her toys that she’s had for a while. Lily loves her new little cousin Colin- especially pointing to/poking his eyes.

She definitely knows what she wants and I try to respond to her quickly- as a result she is good about asking for things without whining. We have lots of fun together and I’m so glad that she is entrusted to our care :).

Fourth of July Fun

 

Just hanging around

 

Playing with cousin Colin and Grandma

16 months

I wrote in my journal

I’ve been neglectful in my writing about Lily, so this entry should be a long one! Lillian is such a funny, happy toddler. She really has her own personality and is a very determined little girl. She is adventurous and daring and fearless. She is no longer just walking, but loves running everywhere- and when she does, her little bum shakes back and forth :). She loves taking my/our things and hiding them in the most awesome places- such as the trash cans…We are really going to have to monitor ourselves because Lily is a little copycat. She wants to play with everything we touch and she has started to get more comfortable with things like watching T.V. with us. It is kind of scary to see how our habits now can have such a major effect on her future. I am really focusing on cutting down on T.V during the day so she doesn’t get used to it.

LIl is very interested in figuring out how things work and doing things by herself. She is always trying to put lids on things or is pressing buttons to see what happens. She loves new things and sometimes says “wow” when introduced to something new :). She still isn’t saying too much, but what she does say is pretty cute. She will say “hi-eee” and “bye-eee” at the appropriate times, followed by some sort of wave. Clark got her to say “baby,” but I’m pretty sure she has no clue what it means. We just try to reinforce anything that looks like progress :). Lil LOVES to spin on the computer chair or to put toys on the chair and spin it. Any time this happens Lily says “weeeeee”- which is so cute! The interesting thing is that she started doing it on her own- it just naturally comes out. She also says “dada,” “na” for banana, and “mah” for more, though  only our trained ears would understand.

We spend lots of time ta the park and Lil goes all over the place and loves the slide and swings. Speaking of roaming around, Lil refuses to sit still these days. She’s not quite old enough for nursery at church yet, but we usually go in there almost every Sunday. It’ll take her a minute or two to let go of my skirt, but she seems to do pretty good in there. She loves to run around, whish is why Sunday school and relief society are impossible with her these days. At least she hasn’t started screaming in church yet!

I just gave Lil her first mini haircut. She didn’t need much, but there were a few bits in her eyes and a couple that were a little too long in the back and looked like they would turn into a mullet very soon. Luckily that was all she needed because she didn’t hold very still :)

Learning at an early age how to assemble IKEA furniture

Flashing that grin

Easter fun

Memorial day trip to Portola Redwoods state park

13 months

At Lily’s 1 year checkup she weighed 18 lbs and 14 oz and is 31 1/2 inches long. Poor thing had to get 5 shots :( but she was such a trooper. Lillian is becoming such a little person now. She is so interactive and inquisitive. It is really fun to watch her go through all of these changes. She’ll play with a soppn and plate like she sees us doing. She’ll open a DVD case and try to get it in the dvd player somehow. She can open the player but hasn’t figured out how o put it in yet. It’s just amazing what she picks up just from watching us every day. I have started her on a bedtime routine that is working great! We change her and read to her and sing and cuddle for a few minutes and then I turn out the light and put her in her crib. I’ll stay in the room but I just rock in the chair and don’t interact with her any further. She’ll cry for a couple of minutes and then just sit there for a few more minutes and then she’ll lay down and go to sleep. It has been really awesome. She is also sleeping without her swaddler, which is wonderful. We have been going to the park a lot now that Lily is walking, which we really enjoy. It is good for her to be outside and exploring and I quite enjoy it myself :). Lily is just a joy to have around and I love her to bits! Oh- she has started to dance! When she plays her music she’ll move her head from side to side ( like she’s saying NO). It’s so cute! And just the other day she added in bending her legs at the same time :). So much fun!

First Birthday

I can’t believe Lillian is 1 year old! We celebrated her birthday yesterday. We had her friend Atlas over and she got to devour a little cake. She was mostly interested in the frosting, though. This last month has brought lots of changes. Her personality is so much more of an actual person’s. She is SO inquisitive. She is able to figure lots of things out and that is really exciting. The great part of her being so inquisitive is that she needs to pull EVERYTHING out of its place…fortunately I get to clean it up :). She has figured out that if you push buttons, exciting things will happen. She’ll set up all of her noise making toys together and push all of their buttons and have them all going at the same time. She’ll turn the T.V. off when we’re watching it. She is absolutely obsessed with the computer! Lily wants nothing more than to touch any part of the computer and play with the keyboard. She’ll find her dad’s laptop and just happily press the keys. Not exactly what we want her to play with, but it’s cute to watch her imitate us. One funny thing she is doing at the moment is when I change her diaper, she’ll try to reach down and grab and fling her dirty diaper away from us! I have to be quick to remove it or else I’ll have some major cleaning up to do :). She’s no longer interested in eating baby food- she wants our stuff. It still needs to be cut up, but that’s what she wants! I try to keep it as healthy and unprocessed as possible- mainly fruits and vegies and meat. She’ll eat anything but mangoes, ketchup, and beef. Luckily she’s not too picky! The big news is that Lillian started walking! It was this past Wednesday the 23rd. She’s been standing for a while and all of a sudden she decided she was going to walk everywhere. It is exciting to watch. I can’t believe how grown she’s getting! This stage is definitely hard at places like Church.  We end up spending 3rd hour in the cultural hall with all of the other 1 year olds who wouldn’t sit still and be quiet but who are also too young for nursery. It’s not been so bad though. Tomorrow we’re going in for her 1 year check up. I think she’ll be about 20 lbs, but I’ll let you know. I can’t believe I have a toddler!

    

11 Months

I wrote in my journal:

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve given an update. Christmas was so much fun! Lily definitely had fun opening gifts. The only problem was that she was so distracted by the first piece of paper she ripped off that she forgot about the actual present :). It was nice to spend Christmas as a family and not have to stress about traveling anywhere. Lily is now around 18 lbs. I can’t believe she’s already 11 months old! She still isn’t walking yet. She is very sturdy with her standing, so I think it will be a quick transition when she finally has some interest in walking. She said her first word last week (we think), which was “daddy.” She seems to imitate what we say and the vocal inflections.  She doesn’t say “there she is” clearly after we play peek-a-boo, but it sounds the same and she uses the same amount of syllables…so we take it as imitating us:). Her personality is coming definitely coming out. She is tenacious and willful and mischievous and charming and happy and inquisitive and adventurous. She knows what she wants and how to get it! Her latest trick is to open the diaper pail and take out all of the dirty diapers- yuck! She has started to test out cause and effect and to try different things. She puts her pluggy in our mouth, puts things in cups, and opens and closes things. I think she’s trying to figure out what goes together and how things work. She has 4 full teeth with 2 breaking through at the moment. She is becoming more like a little person and less like a baby every day. So much fun! She is lots of work but also the most wonderful part of life right now!