16 months

We are quickly approaching a year and a half--how did that happen? The first year went by fast but the second is going by even quicker.

Lily is a little animal lately. She has so many opinions and wants every single thing a certain way. She just told daddy last night that babies, mommies and daddies don't need to go to sleep. But puppies do and she gave daddy her puppy to put to bed instead of her.

At her 1-year checkup we told her doctor that she really only knew 2 words that she used a lot and we were sure she knew the meaning of. He said babies her age usually knew about 3-5 words and probably somewhere around 18 months-2 years she'd have a real word explosion. We can see now that this explosion is starting to happen. She understands basically everything we say. She responds appropriately to just about everything that's said to her. Sometimes she says "NO!" but she definitely knows what we're saying and that she doesn't want to do it. "Mine" has also crept into her vocabulary. She can't really say "bunny" or "Charlie" yet, so she just calls him "mine". She says this to basically everything else that she wants too, food, remotes, shoes, etc.

She's also becoming pickier about food (thanks Daddy!). If she has something in her mouth that she doesn't like she spits it out--like sticking her tongue out and spitting until it comes out. This happens several times during a meal. She's decided that she doesn't really like red meat any more, or really meat in general. Sometimes she'll eat a few bites of a kosher hot dog but she doesn't even really care for that. She would eat an entire watermelon and baskets of raspberries if you let her though. She has already figured out that food in season tastes so much better, at the height of their season those are her two current favorites. And always cheese. She usually does a pretty good job of grocery shopping with me at Whole Foods because they have a lot of cheese samples, we try at least one of each.

She's also testing out her vocal chords. She can't make all the sounds yet but she tries so hard to repeat what we're saying. It's so cute to see her trying so hard and she's so proud of herself when she gets it. A lot of words sound the same right now because she doesn't have all the consonant sounds down yet. So "baa" might mean "ball", "bath", "bird" and any other number of things.

We also have some of Lily's favorite books that we read frequently (usually daily) where we do certain actions during the book. Like she has a "first words" book that has a picture of an item with the word underneath it (ball, shoes, hat, face, hands, etc). She'll sit and go through the book on her own now and say the words she knows, or the signs if she can't say the word and she'll even do the action on her own. So in this book, for all the body parts, you have to touch the book with that body part, so you smash your face in the book for "face", slap your hands on the book for "hands" and put your feet in the book for "feet". She does all this on her own (if she doesn't just skip to the feet page because that's her favorite part).

She has a bit of an obsession with her feet. I think she gets that a little bit from her mommy, my toes are a bit more dexterous than most and I've been known to pick things up with my toes. But Lily as taken it to a whole new level. She's always doing something with her feet, she's always washing them with paper towels and holding onto her blanket with her feet. It's quite funny. And of course she prefers to be barefoot.

She's also learning how to count. She likes to walk up the stairs on her own just holding onto mommy or daddy's hand. When we do this we count each step (just 1-5 and then start over). She'll now say "two" and "five" with us (and before we even say it).

We went on another trip on a plane this month. I swore I wasn't going to fly again alone with her until we were forced by FAA regulations to buy her a seat (at 2 years old) but I did it anyway. Somehow I convince myself that it won't be that bad. We just flew to Redding, which isn't that long of a flight but on our way there we had a brief stop in Arcata (turning a 2 hour flight into 3 hours). On that flight we actually got a nice flight attendant that asked the woman seated next to us if she'd move to another seat so we could have more room (since there were a couple extra seats). That made the flight a lot more bearable. Lily had her own space to squirm, throw toys, etc. She looked like such a big girl in the seat buckled in.

She wasn't so sure about the seat belt keeping her in place but unlatching it 800 times was fun.

On the way back we weren't so lucky (even though there were extra seats). Lily of course did not want to sleep. She also did not want to sit still. At least it was a direct flight on the way back though. And she had a fun time with her Grandma and Papa, all her Aunts, Uncle Dusty, and her cousin Bella. She was a little clingy on this trip and didn't really want anyone except Aunt Kellie to pick her up. I think she might have been a little uneasy since her daddy wasn't there and she wasn't sure why. She was QUITE happy when she saw him at the airport and sprinted down the sidewalk to greet him. She does love her cousin Bella though. They are at the stage when they only want to play with whatever the other one has and they get very jealous if one of them is getting more attention, gets the snacks first, etc. But they also want to hold hands and give each other kisses; it's very sweet.

A few milestones:
Wearing a size 6 or 6.5 shoe.
Still wearing 18 month or 24 month clothes and 2T shirts.
Wearing a size 5 diaper.
Knows a lot of body parts: eyes, nose, mouth, teeth, ears, head, hair, cheeks, belly button, hands feet, toes and probably a couple more
Starting to play games like Simon says. She'll play along with me if I say "put your hands up!" then "put your hands down!".
Words: up, hi, baby, ball, bird, bath, hat, hot, mine, mama, dada, papa, octopus (opt-o), two, five, down, boom, shoes, bye.
Still knows a lot of signs and signs a lot. Baby and bye are the only words that she can say and sign.
Knows a lot of animal sounds: dog, cat, cow, sheep, fish, monkey, duck, snake.
Two new teeth, she got two new molars, one on each side, so she has 3 of 4 1st year molars.
She will try and repeat anything you say to her.
Favorite toy: a stroller from Bauby, you could definitely say that she's obsessed with it. We have to hide it sometimes.
Favorite books: One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish; Where is baby's belly button and First Words.

Riding in the grocery cart car at Ralph's.

She must carry one of her bags to daycare each morning.

Refusing the admit the diaper bag was too big for her to carry.

In a park in downtown LA walking to the Central library.

Reading books at the library. She loves books!

She's getting so good at eating with a fork. She still switches between using her right and left hand.

Snack time on the plane. This was right before she ripped the napkin into a million little pieces sending cheese everywhere.



Waiting for our bag to come off the plane. Lily knows the drill.

She can swim just like Aunt Kellie.


This is an old picture, but it was just too funny. Grandpa had the lawnmower out and Lily thought it was like her push toy, so she told Grandpa to go get it and they pushed their toys together down the street.