18 months

Where has the time gone? Could she really be 1.5 years old? I guess so, a bit older actually she is 1.5 years + 1 week! WOW

Before having kids I always preferred the older toddlers to the babies but then when we had Lillian of course I thought the baby stage was wonderful but the older she gets and the more her personality develops the more fun it gets for both Jared and I. I wonder at what stage I will think ok the last stage was my favorite, because so far it just gets better (not to say there arent times of pre-mobility)---I am sure that time will come before if not by the teen years!

We have a lot of fun here doing nothing. Meaning, we can have fun just sitting there interacting with Lillian, she cracks us up and we cherish her impish grins, devious laughs, and huge smiles. As Jared says, she may look like him but she acts like me! So yes, there is a bit of, a BIG bit of independence and a bit of attitude mixed in. She also talks very well so it is easy to understand most of what she wants but should you not understand--watch out, she gets frustrated and lets you know it....hmm could this be my child?

Lets see she walks, runs (slowly with stumbling still if she gets too fast), she tries to jump but its more bobbing up and down. She can throw a ball but not too easily, she tends to have trouble releasing it. She is good at stairs both holding hands and not though that scares me still but she is getting to where she doesnt want help (imagine that).

She likes to color and does pretty well with teh different colored markers and pens with scribbling. She loves her books and will request them often, she lets you read them but if tired often slams them shut after 2 pages stating, 'all done'. She really loves to sit on teh floor and turn pages and commentate, she does this with my magazines as well and points out every baby, dog, and shoe she can find. Her favorite books are the farm peek a boo (thanks grandma Becky) and baby colors book). She can blow bubbles which she loves but she still likes to try and lick the soap and make faces.

She likes to feed herself, she is ok with teh utensils but mostly with forks she just stabs everything into oblivion without alot of actual food consumption. She is pretty good with the spoons but still often opts for her hands. She can drink from a straw but she still tries to tip cups up AND use the straw which you can imagine doesnt work well as she is constantly telling me its, 'all gone' when it is the least bit empty. She knows when she is going to poop and will tell us she has done so but she is NOT a fan of sitting on potty chair for real, only with her clothes on for about 10 seconds if mommy or daddy are on the big pottie. She is good at brushing her teeth and will do it 10 times a day if you let her.

We do alot of playing outside, she has a sand box and a plastic play house with a slide (which she prefers to climb up the slide and then go down rather than use the stairs), she uses the play house a bit now. The other day she decided she likes to carry sand in a cup to a bucket she leaves in play house to fill it with sand, then once it has sand in it she plays with it in the house--its very industrious and keeps her busy. We have a little sprinkler that is a flower pot and every once in a while a gopher pops up and sprays you with a water gun---she HATES the gopher as its right at shoulder level for her and gets her in the face. Water in general is not a big love of hers, she will splash in it, stand in it, but no real sitting down or laying down yet this summer and she doesnt like water in her face. I am trying to play more in the water with her as I dont want her being afraid of it.

The place where she really excels is TALKING, go figure. She is a big talker and catches on and repeats things very well. She comes up with new words so often it surprises both Jared and I as well as daycare. Like when she started saying, "I burp" after doing so---out of the blue or requesting 'cookie' loudly when daycare lady made them for afternoon snack (note she woke up the next morning requesting these as well, those must have been SOME cookies, hmm another sweet tooth in our family, go figure). Some of my other favorites she surprised us with are "I want down" and "Bye bye kids" the most recent and VERY surprising one was when Jared was with her upstairs and he was asking her where mommy was, he brought her down stairs and said find mommy, I think shes in teh kitchen adn Lillian replied, "where is she" clear as day, to both our shock, as if she has been saying sentences her whole life. She is starting to string 2-3 and occasionally 4 words together, like when she told me, "I wanna eat balls momma" (this surprised me, I twirled around to find she had finished her grapes and was pointing at the fridge wanting more--this was about a month ago) her Iwanna are an all one word type thing she says for most everything and she does an 'Idonwanna' as well with a head shake --just for added clarity apparently.

Lets see if I can get a semi-complete list of words that she routinely initiates on her own (she can copy tons more), some things she says but not routinely I havent put in yet.

1. apple
2. water
3. chip
4. pop
5. cookie
6. pretzel
7. cheerio
8. num num (any other food she wants)
9. eat
10. food
11. all done
12. all gone
13. thank you
14. please (sounds just like cheese and is SO cute)
15. hot
16. cold
17. pretty
18. good girl
19. go
20. stop
21. bye bye
22. hi
23. brush (as in teeth)
24. nah-night
25. love you (lowlo is how it comes out)
26. where
27. whatisit (all one word thing she says inquisitively of everything)
28. choo choo (train)
29. truck
30. beep beep (car)
31. wagon
32. ball
33. bubbles
34. book
35. bike
36. doggie
37. kittie
38. baby
39. no
40. wanna
41. dont wanna
42. coat
43. shoes
44. hair
45. eye
46. nose
47. mouth
48. ear
49. mommy
50. daddy
51. Haley
52. Katie (2 girls at daycare she LOVES)
53. sachi
54. nala (her favorite of our two dogs)

Perfect Day

Memorial Day (also our anniversary weekend) was just a perfect family time. During the weekend we got a number of items accomplished around the house which is always good since we are forever in the middle of a project. Saturday one of the projects was to build a bon fire pit in the back yard, just a small one, so it was off to home depot. We managed to build a small fire ring at the back of our cement patio slab ie old garage's driveway.

Saturday Jared and I went to the movies and saw iron man which we both really liked. Afterward it was very nice to be able to light a fire at night and we had aunt Anita and grandma Tanya who had just finished babysitting stay over, we had pizza, a small bonfire and we roasted marshmallows and made smores-yummo! I felt like a kid again. Lillian was not sure what the fire was all about and didnt like being close enough to it to feel the warmth (thankfully), she kept saying, "ot, ot" and "owwiee" after I told her it was very hot, it would burn her and give her an owie.

For memorial day we went down to the parade in the morning, a very small parade but the good part of that is it didnt get old for Lillian, she got a stuffed animal and luckily no candy. After a morning nap we walked to scidmore park and had a picnic, then we got to see all the animals and feed them which Lillian liked but I got a bit scared when a goat got a little too vigorous with trying to obtain my feeding cone. We learned Lillian can definately say bird (they have a small animal barn as well) and she knows the difference between that and a big bird which for her are called ducks---not matter if its a geese or peacock.

After walking back we were hot and tired but we decided to go off to ice cream shop. Later in the evening we relaxed, made some steaks on the grill and Lillian went to bed early, worn out from all her events of the day. Jared and I decided to light a fire again, it is amazing how relaxing we find it to just sit out in the yard and watch the fire (or for Jared to play with the fire). I may have to get a mask as the smoke gets to me but overall very enjoyable. We hope it will be fun in July when we Jason & Tammi and hopefully Dave & Lisa's crews over.

All in all I would rate the long weekend a 10!

Here, as always are some pictures of Lillian enjoying herself. Notice on the swing you can already see how tired she is, she was also not feeling 100% that day due to some teething issues. She REALLY enjoyed the ice cream though and didnt seem to mind being tired.

Lillian's World

I filled this post in with a bunch of 'firsts' then was going to fill in the details later and never did, now I will fill in what I can remmeber.

abc's: We started singing the abc song while we brushed our teeth, then we noticed Lillian trying to sing along with the rhythm. Then when she decided that she loved to brush her teeth she would tell us she wanted to do so by reaching for the bathroom counter and saying a, b, b, b, b, e, b and smiling, she sang right in the correct rhythm too. Later on we would sing the ABC's all the time for her and she would say l, lalala(moving her tongue all around) P it was regrettably not caught on video.

first time sliding: we took her to get ice cream and they have a litttle kiddie center at ritters with a slide so Jared got on and held her and slid down, he said her little belly tightened up and while going down the look on her face was not the best but once down she smiled and ran around to the stairs again and again.



frustration yelling: there was about a little less than a month where she was not talking really well enough to describe what she wanted so she would 'scream' at us, I am VERY glad that was a short stage.



first butt spanking: we have a neighbor boy who is 4 and darts for the road every chance he gets and he is never reprimanded, I have seen the child almost get hit more times than I can count--it scares me to death. So, I decided that was one thing that a smack on the butt was worth. Lillian was about 14 months old when I was trying to teach her 'the line' which at our house is the sidewalk. She continued to run across towards the road so after telling her 'no' and talking to her I smacked her butt (I doubt she could even feel it with the diaper and how easy I did it) well instead of it hurting her feelings and having the desired effect she continued to stare me down and do it again, we did this 4 times and each time she looked more resolute in her decision. Finally, mommy won and since then she doesnt dart for the road, I figured great, I look like I am out here beating my toddler but oh well she wont get hit by a car. Of course I felt horrible spanking her since I am not a huge fan of it, ironically I did it before Jared did and he is very pro-spanking---he was miffed and let me know that 'spanking' was supposed to be his milestone!


keys bye bye: early on Lillian loved going bye-bye and she learned that if she heard the keys that meant someone was going somewhere--whether or not she was invited she would yell BYE BYE the minute she heard them move, often it was jsut Jared putting his keys away but she would still yell it and then be disapointed when we didnt go outside.

Easter

Good friday we put her in a cute little dress for daycare and they got little easter treat bags and cupcakes at daycare. Sharon also had a little easter egg hunt for them but we picked up Lillian a bit early on account of the blizzard bearing down on us.

Saturday night we had aunt Anita and grandma Tanya over for some easter egg decorating. Lillian thought it was great fun to paint the eggs AND her mouth. Luckily all the dye is of course safe and came right off.

We had a low key easter; we were all tired out so we had dinner for just the three of us. I bought candy and made an easter basket with the thought of a nice picture opportunity and Jared and I being able to enjoy some of our favorite candy (notice nowhere in there was I planning on her getting candy).

Since the weather was so horrid (6-8inches new snow) I put jelly beans in some of the plastic eggs and put them all around the living room for her to find. She had fun doing that, she didnt want to let go of the eggs once she found them but once we showed her there were more she was willing to relinquish the eggs in hand and dash off to the newly spotted ones. Once she was all done finding the eggs there was a big pile of them in the living room, Jared started opening them and emptying the jelly beans into a pile. This is where it gets interesting. Lillian was interested in the beans, believing they were toys I think so she grabbed two big fistfulls, she was continually trying to get more into her little hands so she would reach out to grab two more and drop three, reach out to get a pile more picking up 4 and dropping two...you get the idea. It was all very cute. Then she looked at us and shoved them into her mouth, as many as she could---which was ALOT. We are pretty amused at this point and Jared convinces me she should be fine so we let her eat them. She starts trying to chew but her mouth is so full she cant really do more than move them around a bit, then all the candy colored sugary saliva starts running out her mouth, down her chin, onto her pajama's, all the while she is clearly delighted and trying to shove more beans into her mouth! We let her have her two fistfulls then we called it good and quickly hid all the other candy.

By the time the egg hunt was over it was getting fairly late and there was no time for a nap before church, not that the sugar sassy child was going to think of taking a nap anyway. So we got ready and dressed Lillian in her adorable dress from grandma Becky and grandpa Jared. She was a big hit at the church daycare and one ladies was telling us how she was her favorite (we always love hearing that). There were so many kids I dont know how they corralled them all, they called in some of the older kids who's parents were working to help. There was a nice service, standing room only. Finally, on the way home she gave up the fight and rested after her exciting day.

A day in the life of Lillian

Lillian seems to be at a stage where everything is so amazing to her, she is starting to really be able to communicate well and is learning how to interact with her environment and get results. She is learning how things work and can follow commands. This is a really cool time. Every day I am amazed by something new and I want to jot a few down so I never forget. I wish I was better with the video camera.

One thing we were both amazed by is we were in the spare bedroom and there was a tub of moisturizer that belongs in my bathroom drawer (they cant have latches so I keep safe things in there but she can reach if she stands on her tippie toes and fishes her hand around in there), I had earlier opened the bathroom drawer and found a dirty balled up sock of Jared's in there---I guess she decided to swap (she loves getting into dirty clothes and carrying around random items). So we were all three in the spare bedroom and I said, "Lillian this is mommy's will you put it back in the drawer" she picked it up, left the room walked down hall and into the bathroom, then I heard the drawer open and the tub made a loud noise as it fell to the bottom of the drawer. I was amazed, Jared and I looked at each other with our mouths open. She is so smart, she 'gets' so much of what we say, more than we even realize--obviously. Since then I have repeated this in similar scenarios and she can pick things up, throw them away, put them back etc, its amazing to me. She has even picked up dishes she was playing with or that she 'found' and took them to the trash can, threw them in and said "ah don". Now I look in the trash before it gets tied up!

What a devilish grin, eh?

She is also barking like a dog these days. If you say, "Lillian what does a doggie say" she will say "uff uff". However, if you say what does a cow, cat, or any other animal say you will get the same answer. Recently Jared has started playing the animal sounds game with her on the way home from daycare/work he will tell her cows say moo and then she will proceed to bark louder and more adamantly each time, as if she is saying, "NO! uff uff DAD!!" It is all very cute.

She loves feeding the dogs as well (dogs love it, mommy hates it)

Babies are big on her radar right now. She loves pictures of babies and looking at other kids. She will flip through a magazine and point out every picture of every child that is under say 5-6 and call them a baby, if she comes across a baby large enough she will point out there eyes, ears, nose etc to you as well (though she still calls all of them eyes 99% of the time).

Some of her favorite things (besides dogs):

Fruit: she's absolutely in love with grapes right now and will eat a TON of them

Hot Tea (anything in a coffee cup): she always wants whats in our cups so I made the mistake of letting her try it thinking she would hate it, wrong, now she cries wanting it or Daddy's coffee

Her Sally the spinning alphabet spider which she bangs away on in the car

Driving around town with her window down so she can see

Saying "ha" (hi) and waving to random people in meijer

telling you "bye-bye" and blowing kisses even if she is just leaving the room

saying "all done" when she doesnt want any more to eat and dumping the bowl just so she can say all done

smacking her own head with whatever random object she has in her hand and saying "oww" and laughing and making you laugh

bumping head to head with Daddy and laughing hysterically (mommy doesnt participate in this game)

laying in her crib when she should be napping (as she is right now) and saying all sorts of random babblings with real words and barking intertwined

watching the kids get on the school bus at daycare and waving like mad while blowing them kisses (evidentially the other kids on the school bus are now waving at her as well)

Her favorite thing to carry around the house is clothing, preferrably a sock or something with a zipper, if she has 'found it' then it's even better. Her favorite hobby is getting into anything she is not supposed to. She LOVES to try and walk in her daddy's shoes, she will stand with her shoes on in both of his shoes and try to walk, when it wont work she will take one of her feet out and 'walk' around the house with her foot in one of his shoes, sliding it bit by bit.

Guilty as charged

We also have another computer goo-ru on the way, as you will see below she gets a real kick out of 'helping' dad. He has taken the cord off a keyboard and he will place it in front of his and she uses that while he reaches around her and uses the real one. You would think she would just bang on the keyboard but she actually prances her fingers all around it pushing buttons (mimicing typing) and if you let her she will put her other hand on the mouse and move it all around. Oh boy!

This was a few months ago when Jared first tried this, now she loves headphones!

She is very into climbing right now, she will climb anything, a toy left on the floor that she can step in, a toybox, potty chair, even the groceries! We went shopping and were bringing in the food and she decided to 'climb' the canned goods.

Her favorite places to play are closets, particularly my closet since it is nice and big, it has a window and there are lots of baskets of socks, underwear etc that she can push around, throw all clothes out of, sit in, pull all shoes out of the rack and just generally make it look like a tornado hit the closet.

Going outside, especially for a walk, is probably her #1 favorite thing to do right now. If she even sees me go towards the back door (where stroller is kept) she will start getting all excited and says "wak, wak wak!" She loves the walks and never seems to tire of them (nor do the dogs). One day she was sick with an ear infection and recovering from the stomach flu while simutaneously teething two molars (fun fun fun), I also was recovering from stomach flu and she was so crabby, she saw the coat that we always wear on walks (big and warm since its still cold out here) and she went absolutely bonkers with her wak wak wak pleas so I decided maybe she would go to sleep and we would go. We got all ready which is an ordeal in and of itself, went out on the porch and it was RAINING. Well not going at that point was less appealing than the rain so I covered her in a blanket (in addition to hat, gloves, coat) and put the rain guard down and we walked in the rain for over an hour because as I had hoped she went right to sleep. Jared called while we were out to check on his sick girls and wondered if I had lost my mind. She enjoyed it and it did stop raining, eventually.

Well, thats about all for this edition of Lillian's World.