Dear Lili,
You are in a very cute little phase right now where you LOVE necklaces. Each morning you wake up you yell, “NECK! NECK!” until we offer you a few junk necklaces we have around the house to choose from. Then you say, “On? On?” after you choose one and we are out the door. Kid – I like your style.
xo
Dear Lili,
I can officially say at 17 months we have reached the exciting stage of TANTRUMS. YAY! Yay for us.
It started on Monday. Just like that. Out of nowhere while preparing you for your normal tub which your ALWAYS LOVE – love to throw tub toys in – love to kick and splash – you totally, totally, totally melted down. You kicked and bloody murder screamed your guts out. Your face was beet red. Your eyes were streaming tears and were darting from left to right like a crazy person. You wrenched your body in uncomfortable twists and turns trying to get out of our grasp. Basically a total nightmare.
Because I am conceited and think I am the center of the universe when it comes to knowing everything about parenting (ask Dad) I assumed it was because Dad came home from work and we had a quick transition – aka – me throwing you into his arms and leaving the room. Not that I don’t think Dad does a good job. And not that I didn’t think you didn’t ‘know who this guy was’. It’s just that I happened to notice during the past week (and your babysitter too) that you have been a little Mommy clingy lately. Lets just say – this is not your usual style.
The good news is – you taught me the best lesson tonight which was – apologize to Dad and stop crawling up his butt about parenting. Why? Because tonight when I went to put you in a tub flying solo – Dad still at work – you totally did the exact same thing to me. In fact worse.
My tantrum version – lucky me – involved the same screaming, beet red face, falling on floor of bathroom, banging your head, gasping, tears streaming out of nowhere from the other night…but was also complete with a 15 minute finale involving you nearly falling off your changing table in twisting body protest. After I finally wrangled a diaper on you I put the still screaming you on the floor in only a diaper to attempt to put your pajamas on – and then you proceeded to kick me in the face several times until you escaped out of my arms and threw yourself facedown on the rug literally kicking and punching your fists. This went on for 15 minutes.
Because I am tired and haven’t read the tantrum chapter yet – I just said to you calmly, “Lilian. I’m sorry you are angry. I think you are very tired after a long day and it’s almost time for night night.” to which you half paused and literally then once again flung your body to the ground and continued without missing a beat.
The good news is you survived the tantrum. And so did I. The even better news – you provided me with a great reminder that this is an important phase in life and not necessarily about the Mother or Father’s roles in this case.
I hear you now screaming from your crib. This time happily as you chant, “Mama Dada Mama Dada Mama Dada”. Got that right.
Dear Lili,
The pretend play you are doing as of late is SO CUTE. I think it is extra cute that you are a tiny girl because I like to watch you do little girl like things. For example we bought you one of those tiny pink baby doll strollers and you like to push it around everywhere carrying your little baby. Yesterday it was rainy and miserable outside and you spent a lot of time taking your mini straw purse I bought you from the drug store, putting it on your arm, violently shoving your baby in the stroller with a blanket on her face and saying, “Bye!” and then shoving off up and down the hallway on your merry way. You also kept putting the little straw purse on the back of the stroller like I carry my purse which was hilarious.
And when it was time to put your pjs on after a bath you took the empty cream tube and gently turned it over and put some on your baby and rubbed her skin.
Now if I can get you to clean the house we will be all set.
Dear Lili,
This week you learned the true meaning of FAMILY! After reading a sad blog post of my description of losing your beloved favorite stuffed animal penguin toy my cousin Megan and your second cousin Caitlin sent you the EXACT same one as a replacement! As a total surprise. I couldn’t believe it!
Now that is some true family love there. Yay! Lucky us.
xo
Dear Lili,
Let me play catch up here on your digital baby book and record some things you do as of late:
SITTING: You love sitting on little stools, benches, your bean bag, tiny chairs, etc. You tend to look at the item you are about to sit on turn back around and back your butt into it slowly and then sit down cautiously on the item and give a wide grin because you are proud. It is very cute.
MORE TALKING: You’ve now added (and forgive me for repeats) gracias, fresa, hummus, applesauce, Jack (playmate), Nana (my Mom – you came up with it on your own), Papa (my dad), Ala (your Aunt Aly), Bust (my parents dog Buster) and today the babysitter said you said ‘no mas agua’, breakfast – when I go in your room in the morning I always say good morning and then ‘do you want some breakfast?’and you always nod furiously and say ‘yes, breakfast’
BAGS: You love to carry bags around with handles and put things in them, you like to carry around my purses and take things in and out of them. I found a mini straw purse at the drug store for $1.99 and it is so cute to watch you carry it around on your little arm.
HUGS: You now give hugs which as you might imagine as your parents feel SO GOOD. You hug your babies and you love stuffed animals. Someone warned me to halt the growth of stuffed animal collections otherwise the house will be taken over by them. I am trying.
DIAPER CHANGED/GETTING DRESSED: You hate it. Totally scream and kick and twist and freak out. You don’t like to be confined for a second and get so angry when it is time to have a diaper changed or get dressed. It would take an entire circus of clowns to distract you from the process.
TUB: You think it is ‘hilarious’to dip your face into the tub water for a quick second. Like gut busting hilarious. Even the moment you are about to do it you start a full facial grin and I always say ‘close your mouth! close your mouth!’but you never do and end up getting water in your nose and mouth. Oh well.
VIDEOS: You love at 8:30AM on the dot every morning to cuddle with Dad and watch videos on his iphone. Many of the videos are old school Sesame Street episodes that he got off of You Tube. You sit in the crook of his arm and cuddle a soft stuffed animal under a blanket and it is so cute to see. Sometimes a mid-morning snack is involved.
CLIMBING STEPS: You LOVE climbing steps and push my hand away when I try to hold on to you. You hang on the railing like a big girl and go one by one but still are a little dangerous so we have to keep an eye on you. In fact you do many things on your own where you push our hand away. Only the beginning of your growing independence I guess!
FOODS: You still hate cheese, most veggies, you totally totally hate all types of meat and believe me when I tell you we have tried EVERYTHING! You love spinach though and have taken a new liking to pasta with red sauce – thank god. You like watermelon and most fruits – blackberries are a new favorite. Blueberries. You LOVE cereal. And sadly was introduced to lollipops recently so I got some sugar free ones from the healthfood store which I give you on occasion in desperation when I need you to sit quietly for more than 5 minutes in order to get something done!
We love you. Thank you for bringing such joy into our lives.
Dear Lili,
Today you said your first cuss word. I don’t know if this is a milestone or not but I’m not exactly proud of teaching you to say it. You said it loud and clear as day and like a parrot repeated it right after me when I was frustrated by something. Lets just say it starts with an F and sounds like DUCK.
Ooops.
xo
For about three weeks now we’ve hinted around at the big elephant in the room – Lilian’s mini white potty. I felt the best approach for her personality was to casually introduce the item into our life without showing much interest leaving her to explore. Lilian is extremely stubborn and if there is any hint of someone forcing something she totally and quickly rebels. This should make for some fun teen years.
I should admit I know nothing about potty training. I read a bit about what signs to look out for as to when to begin but we’ve been just more or less going with the flow. Pardon the pun. Our pediatrician believes you should let kids crap and pee around the house without a diaper until they don’t like the feeling and turn to potty training. I’m going to go ahead and say no thanks on that one. I’m happy if that works for others but not at this camp.
Over the past few weeks there has been a lot of pee and potty talk thrown about the house. Random and somewhat hilarious enthusiastic announcements between E and I such as ‘I am going to go PEE PEE on the POTTY now’with Lilian looking at us like um…stop being such freaks and/or you are so totally lame. Every time we are in the bathroom I ask her if she wants to go (fully clothed – just trying to get used to the idea) and she says ‘NO!’but once I physically place her on there she loves it and refuses to get off. There is lots of pointing ‘this is Mama’s big potty’and ‘this is your potty’. I also have been having her throw her dirty diaper in there before tub time or flushing the big toilet saying bye bye to pee pee which if you didn’t know already is TOTALLY HILARIOUS. Fifty five people reading this are sure to send me emails telling me I’ve done about fifty five things wrong with this entire process but it seems to work for us. Why?
BECAUSE SHE TOTALLY PEED ON HER OWN TONIGHT! IN THE POTTY! I can’t believe my blog posts have come to this but folks? They have.
Eliot is off on his mancation hiking and camping in the woods in Utah. I’m pretty sure he won’t be doing much pee pee in the potty there but when he returns I will be sure to tell him all about it. In detail.
Hi Lils,
You are talking up a storm! And so many of these words are clear as day and not the baby sounding version that you have used for the last few months which is also cute and adorable I must say. I’ll list them off even though many are repeats from former posts:
This week’s new words:
Hummus. Baby. Rock. Red. Bye bye. Una Mas. Jugo. Knee. Uh-oh. Ow. Milk. and some strange sounding word for water that sounds like ‘Marger’
This. (You point to everything all the time non-stop that you want to hold, touch, see, etc. saying ‘this this this!’) Hello. Apple. Yellow. Red. Book. Fish. Duck. Cow. Nose. Eyes. Socks. Shoes. (you tend to call socks shoes) More. Agua. Mama. Da. Hi. Up. No. Yes. (with furious head nodding) Pillow. Dog. Cat. Meow Meow. Moo. Ball. Wow. Shoes. Sit. Off. On. Open (uppen)
More than one word:
I want… (tonight you were trying to get something from my purse saying I want over and over again)
Want this…
I want this…(might be your longest string of words so far)
More this…
No this…
Mas (whatever)…
I’m totally getting you a T-shirt that says THIS
And just a side note…it’s totally freaky to hear you say ‘I want’it makes me pause each and every time like what? you? how could you – tiny little thing – not only want something but express it??!
