20 Months

In the past month, this little lady's speech has exploded. She says so many words now. And she acts like such a toddler as opposed to a baby. She's becoming more and more capable and fun.

Lil loves to snack. She'll eat at meals, but she always seems to be starving between meals. Her faves are cheese, bananas and veggie sticks (the potato chip-like snack, not actual veggies, of course).

Lil continues to love climbing, leaning and exploring. It's a small miracle that she hasn't dove off a playground structure head-first.

Lily is getting a lot more playful too. She loves to play pretend with her baby dolls, or cook in her play kitchen. She likes to dress-up or do puzzles. She and June have a blast making forts, jumping on the bed. Yesterday, she and June entertained themselves with a game where June would turn on her bedroom light and tell Lily to leave it on. Then she'd walk away, Lily would turn off the light immediately, and June would put on a big show of being upset and annoyed (she wasn't really). Lil would laugh hysterically and they'd start the whole process over. It's so fun to watch Lily learn how to play and to understand that she's engaging someone else in a game.

Lily is getting really good at walking down stairs. I still encourage crawling down a lot, but she really wants to walk upright. The downside is that our inside stairs don't have a railing. So there's nothing to hold on to, but she is practicing and getting pretty good. She can even carry a small object while holding on.

In the mornings, June waits on the sidewalk at school while I get Lil out of the car. Then they hold hands and walk to the door together. June is trying really hard to pick Lily up high enough to ring the doorbell. So far, she can't. But it's cute to see them try it together.

Overall, Lily seems happier and more relaxed then she did for a while. But it's obvious when she's going through a big developmental leap or a growth spurt. Her sleep (and ours) really suffers and she's obviously bothered by all of the inner turmoil. It's frustrating, but at least we've seemed to pinpoint the cause.

Lil is getting to a point where she wants to be very independent. She wants to put her own hair clips in, pull up her own pants, click the carseat buckle herself. Some things she can do pretty easily, and I want to encourage it, but it's so frustrating to sit and wait and wait and wait for her to either do it or realize she can't and finally ask for help. 

In the past few weeks, Lil has started saying more and more words. I feel like every day she's saying something new. She loves singing to herself. She also says berries and apples. And she's saying her friend Eleanor's name ("E-nor"). She will sign "please" with some prompting, but we're working on it being a regular thing. And then, out of the blue this past weekend, she said her name. Mike caught her playing with her reflection in the mirror. He asked her what she was doing, and she pointed at herself and said "Lily."