Another Parenting Milestone

Before and After. Or After and Before. Whatever, you get the idea. I joined the ranks of parents who stay up after midnite on Christmas Eve to assemble my child's big Christmas present, a play kitchen. It was very satisfying. I had White Christmas on TV while I worked, and I drank hot chocolate. I even overcame the obstacle of finding out there were pieces missing! It still came out great and Lily loves it.

New Snowsuit!

Here's Lily in her new snowsuit the weekend before Christmas when we walked over to the nursery by our house to get a tree. It was snowing and beautiful out so we brought her with us and she got to try out her new snowsuit and snowboots.

The other pic is a closeup of her gingerbread-cookie-crumb face right before we left. You can really see the color of her eyes in it, they've changed from blue to a hazel.

Today: Four Poops and Mommy Go Pee-Pee

So here's silly girl playing peek-a-boo with the mirror.

About today. It's dry season here, what with the cold and the radiator heat on all the time. So two of my knuckles are bleeding from washing my hands so much today. Not spurting or gushing, just cracked skin and really sore, even with lotion on. The best stuff John and I have found for trying to keep our hands from being totally ravaged is Neutrogena's Hand Lotion. But I have to use it constantly because I'm always washing my hands, especially on a day like today, with FOUR POOPS! That's rather a lot, I think.

Okay, then the sentence thing. So far Lily only says a few words besides "Mom," "Dad," and her favorite, "DOG." Often during her naps she'll sit up and say "dog" and then go back to sleep. The other night I went to check on her after we'd put her to bed for the night, and she said "Dad." In her sleep. How cute is that? Sometimes she says "my dog" or "my dad" or "hi dad," and then there's words we've heard once but she didn't repeat them. Like "cracker." And the other day in the car she said "Mikey," her uncle's name. He'll be psyched to hear this. Of course, what he wants her to say is "Uncle Mikey is cool." That's gonna take longer. But she's babbling A LOT now and so I guess I'm tuning in to her more.

This evening I took her upstairs with me and told her "Mommy has to go potty," and went into the bathroom. She followed me in and while I was sitting there on the pot, I could swear she said "Mommy go pee-pee." Is that possible? Could she really string that together at this point? She's 18 months old tomorrow. We don't really use the word "pee-pee," we just say "pee." But she could have added the extra "pee" on her own, I suppose. She says "dog-dog" all the time.

Part of me thinks it's really funny that I'm all ga-ga over potty talk. But it really is exciting. John and I keep having dreams lately that Lily suddenly starts talking in complete sentences. It's really fun to be at this stage where she is starting to communicate back with us. I mean, you basically talk to your baby from day one as if they understand everything you're saying even before they can talk at all, and it's like talking to the dog. But now that's changing, she's following simple directions, like "take this to Mommy," and when we say "We're going upstairs now," she goes to the stairs. That's one stage, where you realize your child is truly understanding your words. But it's such a huge step to hear her then start using words herself for us to understand her.

When you ask her for a kiss now, she doesn't quite understand, but she does get it enough to put her cheek next to your face so you can give her a kiss. Like "You may kiss me now." Hee hee.

Lily Gets a Perm!

Not really! Like I would do that. Right after I give her a tattoo. It's just the funniest nap hair she's ever had. Doesn't she look devilish in the top pic? She gets all sweaty when she sleeps and her hair goes wonky curly.

Okay, so I have to confess to some Mommy neurosis. Lily is now starting to feed herself, which is very exciting, but also very stressful for me. I don't know why it makes me so crazy, the mess. She's getting better with the spoon, but I know she has to be a spaz for a while until she gets proficient, so meanwhile she gets more food on her face, clothing, the floor, me, and the high chair than in her mouth. And she'll play with it and dump the food jar or tub over if I don't watch her closely. I guess that's where I draw the line, is dumping the food out. I'll let her explore, but when she picks up the food container, it makes me crazy because she's always turning it sideways or upside down to explore it. And I'm like "No! No dumping!" And If I try to hold the container down on the high chair tray so she can get her spoon in and out without the thing sliding all over the tray, she gets cranky and moves it all the way to the edge of the tray and then spoons it from there to her mouth, which of course makes a bigger mess because most of it never makes it to her mouth. I guess she's trying to be independent, but it's frustrating my efforts to get food into her! Argh. I feel like I'm being really neurotic about this, but I don't know how to just let it go. I mean, I can't just let her do whatever she wants all the time when she's eating. I have to set some limits. So then I'm constantly trying to find a balance between letting her explore and learn and even have fun, and setting limits about what she is allowed to do with the food. And it's exhausting! I have a headache right now and I know it started a couple hours ago when I was trying to feed her. John is much more laid back about the messiness, but then he's a guy and they don't really see mess anyway. Mess blinders, they have. Now I'm talking like Yoda. I need to just go take a break and make some art.

I Can Climb on Chairs

And a-one, and a-two and a-three, abracadabra I'm sitting in the chair! Actually she's about to stand up, which we are trying to discourage. She fell off this chair backwards splat on the hardwood floor and that hurt. But amazingly, no bump!