21 months

I can hardly believe that Lily is nearing 2 so quickly. It seems like she's growing up so fast now. Every day we see more and more of her personality. She has so many opinions now about everything. Fortunately she can still be 'tricked' into diaper changes or getting dressed even though she doesn't really want to do it. It just takes a little bit of distraction.

She is talking up a storm. When we're driving in the car, she constantly talking. She likes to point things out to me that she sees out the window (especially buses, but also trucks, and birds and the clouds). She's always watching for things. In fact, if she's getting upset about being in the car, I can distract her by asking her to look for buses and tell me when she sees them. She's also very good with her spacial memory while we're driving, when we're getting close to the library (even before we can see it), she tells me "library" and "library books". The library is one of her favorite places to go, so she's always excited when we get close. And every time we turn onto our street she says, "bunny, hi" and "house" (because she wants to say "hi" to the bunny. I can't even keep track of how many words she knows. It must be in the hundreds. She's always surprising me with a word she knows that she'll just spout off out of no where. And there are a lot of words I don't understand. Sometimes this is very frustrating to her because she's trying so hard to tell me something and I can't figure out what it is. A lot of what she says is still much easier to understand in context (and especially if she points to it when she says it).

She can count to 10. She loves to count things like each stair as we walk up them (although she hasn't really gotten down saying one number per stair or how to point to each item and count them). And right now she's going through a stage of skipping 7 and 8 after being able to count correctly a couple weeks ago. She's learning the alphabet too. Right now she can only say "A, B, C, D" and then a few random letters here and there that she repeats with us. But she is very interested in the alphabet and seeing letters and numbers in print. She got extremely excited when we were in the store a few days ago and she noticed all the prices along the shelves. She loved seeing all those numbers. As typical parents, we think everything she does is so advanced and spectacular.

She is starting to memorize her favorite books. She has a book about ocean animals that lists three facts about an animals and it has flaps that you lift up to finish the fact. She has memorized what's under all of the flaps in the book (12 in all). If I read the beginning of the phrase, she can finish all of them ("I have a long NOSE. I swim in the WAVES. I eat small FISH."). She goes through the whole book. She is completely obsessed with books. She loves to read. We read constantly throughout the day. She get's upset and demands "read it! read it!" several times during the day if I take too long and she picks up my hand and puts it on the book if I ignore her for too long. We go to at least one story time at the library each week. She has a harder time paying attention when there are so many other kids around but she loves kids and loves wandering the library picking out books. She keeps books in her bed now too. She goes to sleep at night reading books to herself after Daddy or I read her a few books and she'll stay in her bed in the morning before calling for us for a while reading books and entertaining herself. Which is quite nice. She also sits in front of Charlie's cage and reads him books, which is very sweet. She get's mad if he goes to the back of his cage and isn't paying close enough attention.

She adores her rabbit. She's quite obsessed with taking his water bottle off his cage. She tries to give him a drink out of it but she doesn't know how it works and that by taking it off his cage he can no longer drink. She also loves to give him snacks and treats. When I'm making dinner she loves taking him vegetable scraps and if she finds a stray Cheerio on the ground she always wants to give it to him. She's so loving and she's going to make a great big sister.

Her 1st haircut. Now with bangs!

Like mother, like daughter.

Lily touched a big, black snake at the Ranger Station. She wasn't afraid of it at all.

At the Peabody Museum looking at the dinosaur fossils.

Climbing on a bench at the Peabody with some of her new buddies. Avery is on her hands and knees. If you talk to Lily, she'll probably bring up Avery. She's 2 months younger than Lily and Lily is quite infatuated with her right now and talks about her a lot.

Lily "reading" one of her favorite books (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?)