Fun with shredded paper at school

"I prefer the roller coaster"

Whoa. Really, someone could have warned me about about this age. Don't get me wrong - we are still having a lot of fun with Lily, but all I can say right now is "whoa". To say Lily is a handful would be putting it mildly. She has become opinionated about everything. What she wants to do, when she wants to do it, and how she wants to do it are Lily's top priorities, and anything that does not conform to her expectations is simply unacceptable.

Carl has started calling out stats (too much time spent at the hospital maybe?) when Lily reacts in various ways. The most popular right now is "We've got loss of tone". What Carl is referring to is Lily's loss of muscle tone. When she is unhappy with some minor thing - maybe her food is not ready fast enough, maybe the lid won't go on a container just right, maybe I can't hold her when I'm making dinner, (the list goes on and on) - she falls to the ground like a wet noodle. Undoubtedly, the frustration is real for her, but the drama is purely for our benefit. I will say, she is typically easily consoled with some added attention, but it can make for a very exhausting day for us.

Honestly, I think right now we are just experiencing some growing pains. Lily is able to assert herself in ways that she formally could not which results in us having to set limits we formally did not have to enforce. For example, Lily can now open all doors in the house (besides the front door). This weekend, she was determined that she was going to open the basement door, go down the stairs and spend some time in the cold basement. Sorry, no, no, and...no. Carl and I had to quickly come up with a solution to this problem, so we swapped door handles with another door in the house so that the basement door now has a lock on it. Lily was frustrated at first, but now she seems to have accepted that the basement door no longer works properly. I'm not sure what we are going to do when she figures out locks, but hopefully, she will be able to go up and down the stairs on her own by then.

The other part of the problem is that while we have enjoyed the winter, lately we have had really yucky weather (freezing rain on top of snow) that makes it impossible, or at least not fun, to go out. Today was one such day. We are so ready to be able to go on family walks, take Terra to the dog park, have play dates at the park and do generally anything outdoors besides running from a building to the car as quickly as possible. Spring, where are you?

I don't want to leave the impression that Lily is a pure terror and that it is all work and no play here because that is certainly not the case. She's just required us to work a little harder lately is all. But, there are soo many things that make this stage well worth it. Here are few of the highlights in my day...

• When Lily gets my glasses for me first thing in the morning
• When she throws the ball to Terra and tries to give Terra her bone
• When she touches my nose so that I'll say "Pee-ew" and she laughs and laughs
• When she says "bye-bye da da" when Carl takes Terra on a walk
• When she says new words (this weekend she said good girl, monkey, chick, truck, roar (for a lion), and mouth)
• Her enormous hugs
• When she hides behind the curtains to play peekaboo
• When she runs down the hall when I'm running her bath water so that I'll chase her and tickle her
• When she strokes my hair as she's drifting off to sleep

There's really so many things that I couldn't possibly name them all here, and they are all priceless. So, we'll get through this phase and all new challenges in parenting that await us with the knowledge that we are incredibly lucky just to be parents.

My Fair Lily

Typically there is one in every classroom. That one child that bites, hits, pushes, pinches, etc. And now it seems apparent: Lily is that one. Undoubtedly, she is the "Alpha" among her classmates. We encountered this problem early on, but it seemed to die down a bit. Now the incidents are back full force. She has been biting, scratching, etc. and now it is not love bites, or even accidents. These are intentional acts of aggression. She has also found her corresponding "Omega" in the classroom and tends to dish out the lion's share of her aggression on him. Poor little guy.

Usually we see increased Accident and Incident Reports in the Transitional Twos Room. It is commonly the young twos who act out because they are starting to assert their independence but do not have the language yet to express what they want or how they feel. Lily's acting out is just starting a bit early. Luckily, we seem to be doing very well in the area of language development, so maybe starting this phase early will mean that we end it early as well. One can hope anyway.

And one lesson learned from all of this? All the frilly clothing in the world cannot change the nature of the true rough-and-tumble girl. That's my Lily.

Barnyard Banter

Lily has been working on her animal impersonations lately. As you can see in the video, she does "baa" for sheep, "neigh" for horse, "woof woof" for dog, and my personal favorite, "meow" for cat. When she's in the mood, she will also say "moo" for cow. She quite literally learns a new word or two every day. Her current word list includes: dada, mama, baby, juice, up, no, dog, ball, sheep, shoes, apple (soo cute), (ba)nana, frog, duck, hi, bye-bye, book, eyes, nose, thank you, belly button (still very hard to understand this one), and kitty cat (also hard to understand). She has been reported to say "bear"and "puppet" by her teachers (and she says their names, Mona and Linda), and Carl and Ingrid heard her say "blueberries" once, but I have not personally heard these words yet.

Lily's nonverbal communication has been rapidly increasing as well. When she's hungry, she will go to her high chair. If she wants something in particular, she will go to the refrigerator, and when I open the door, she will point to what she wants. She also shakes her head when she does not want something. These are all welcome developments and makes communicating with her infinitely easier.

In other news, Lily had her 15-month doctor's appointment today. Her stats are: 24 lbs. 11 oz. (75th percentile) and 31 inches (50th percentile). So, she is definitely progressing nicely. She had three shots today and was a bit of a bear tonight, but that is certainly to be expected (I'm sure I would be too).

We had a very nice visit with Aunt Ingrid this weekend, and everyone (including Terra) misses her already. I have decided that the ratio of children to adults should be 1:3; this would really make things so much easier!

Snow Day - Take 2

You call that a snowball, daddy? That's funny!

To make a snowball, you have to really get into it.

Terra gets in on the action with some frolicking in the snow.

Yesterday we had another snow day, and this time daddy was off too. Hooray for a stolen family fun day! We welcome Old Man Winter with open arms anytime.

My Love

What I did on my snow day...

Reading to Terra

Playing ball with Terra

Ready to brave the elements

Lil' Helper Lily

Lily has become quite the little helper lately. She tries to brush her hair, put on her socks, put on her/our shoes, and as you can see above, she has even started to partake in some manual labor. (Start 'em off early, right?) Her expressions - like the one in the picture - crack me up and make her seem older than (nearly) 15 months.

This morning we woke up to Lily pointing to Carl's nose and my nose and saying her version of the word "nose". She also surprised me yesterday by saying "nana" when I started peeling a banana. Lily has been saying a good number of words for a while now, but now it is clear that she has started associating the correct meaning to some words. Crazy! We will have several out-of-town visitors in the next month or so, and I can't wait for everyone to see her. I feel like she has changed so much since the holidays.

In other news, Carl continues to have pretty severe back pain. I'm not quite sure how he survived the last rotation, but anyone who knows Carl would not be surprised that he has not missed a minute of work, even though on most mornings he can't even bend over far enough to put on his socks. Sitting hurts the most, but being on his feet for 12 hours straight does not help the situation. When studying for his last exam, he literally had to lay flat while holding his books above his head. His dedication astounds me sometimes. Carl has been taking a lot of pain medication in addition to some oral steroids, but it is becoming apparent that this is not going to cut it. We may be looking at back surgery some time next month - we'll see. I will keep everyone posted.

Seeing stars

So, I return home from an awesome performance of Wicked tonight to find an e-mail sent by Tori, innocently titled "The List". And what does it reveal? This wickedly awesome picture of her and Billy Bob together. Seriously, after having advised Janet Jackson on some solid fashion choices (no wardrobe malfunctions while Tori was on duty), now she's hanging with B. Bob. Billy may not have been included on the "wall of Bobs" from college, but in my opinion, Thorton beats Dylan any day:)

Lil' Bookie

Lily loves her little book nook. Thanks to Aunt Suzanne, Uncle Tim and cousins Mary and Katie
for the Lily-sized chair.

Tell it again

These days it seems that all Lily wants to do while we are at home is read. She has shown a mild interest in books for some time, but in the past week, it has become her obsession and is almost all she wants to do. Of course, we are happy about this development. But Lily being Lily, there are definitely some rules to her story hours.

Her seat of preference while looking at books is on mommy's lap which needs to be positioned right next to the bookshelf. This is a bit of a sore spot for daddy who had to remind Lily tonight that he was a double major in college, with one of his majors being English Literature. As impressive as that may be to a one-year-old, she was not swayed from her mother's lap. (As a side note, who double majors in English Literature and Biology anyway? There should be some kind of study about the eventual career paths of these anomalies, but that is another story entirely...)

Also, Lily is very particular about which books are good enough to actually sit and listen to. For the majority of books, she will allow maybe one or two pages to be read, but then she very decisively lets us know that she is no longer interested and will no longer tolerate proceeding along with this highly uncaptivating rubbish. There are others, however,that receive a heartpounding smile and gasps of anticipation at the mere glimpse of them. If you are interested in joining the Lillian Meyer Deetz Book Club (fame second only to Oprah's book club), then you may consider picking up a couple of the following:

• Goodnight Moon *Absolutely an essential read. And while you're at it, you should read it about a dozen times each night. That great green room never disappoints.
• Clifford's Peekaboo *We find him in all the familiar places every night - under blocks, with socks, under rugs, inside mugs...
• First words
• Touch and Feel Farm
• My Fuzzy Friends
• Moo, Baa, La La La
• Shiny Touchy Smelly Colors *By far, the most fun to read with her because daddy taught her to smell the scratch and sniff areas - so cute!! (Thanks to Tori for the book.)

Some honorable mentions include:

• The Going to Bed Book
• But Not the Hippopotamus
• Barnyard Dance
• Where is Baby's Belly Button?
• Daddy Kisses
• Mommy Hugs
• Belly Button Book

Some books that Lily does not like here or there or anywhere include:

• I Love You, Little One
• Blue Hat, Green Hat
• Sheep in a Jeep
• Sheep in a Shop (apparently the sheep aren't interesting regardless of their locale)
• Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed
• Five Little Monkeys Sitting in a Tree (ditto for the monkeys)

We are currently very limited in our selection because we have many more hardcover and paperback books than we have board books. However, the board books are the only ones that are easily manipulated by her little fingers and the only ones that can withstand her not-so-gentle handling. So, we have some more board books on the way from Amazon and Scholastic to add to our ever-expanding collection. Hopefully, some Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss titles will add some spice to our nights (how sad is that?)

In the near future, I will be changing my blog template to show Lily's current favorite children's books instead of my own favorites in this genre. Really, who cares which ones I like? The real test is whether or not a toddler will come back to the same book time and time again with equal zeal. Of course, since I'm the one buying the books, my own tastes will at least set the parameters for now. (The careful reader may have noticed my propensity for Sandra Boynton books which span all three of Lily's lists.) But, truly, it has been so much fun to watch as her likes and dislikes are revealed. We are loving this age!!

Future Nobel Laureate

Seriously, could she get any cuter?

Hard at work

From very early on Lily has liked to draw and write. Every night, Lily comes into my office, where I'm usually writing at my desk. On most nights, before we leave school/work, she sits on my lap and writes on post-it notes while I finish up whatever I need to do. She loves doing this; so I thought it was time for her to have her own work space at home. We're starting with the Color Wonder markers that only write on special paper in order to minimize messes until she understands the concept of drawing on paper and not on clothes, furniture, walls, floors, etc.

Yes sir, that's my baby!