19 months

New things:

Doing “jobs”.  She has decided that it is her job to feed Delta so every night we have to be careful when we say “dinner”.  As soon as Lillie hears the word dinner she says “Delta” and runs for the dog bowl.  She’s also taken to doing “laundry”.  When we change her her clothes go into a pile on the floor and then when we’re done with her bath or changing her into pjs we usually pick them up and carry them to the hamper.  Recently she has taken to scooping up the clothes while we are straightening whatever we are doing.  By the time we turn around to get the clothes she has already dropped them off in the laundry basket.  My goodness what a good helper she is.

Getting sick.  We’ve been blessed with the fact that Lillie really hasn’t been sick much at all.  She had some issues with a blocked tear duct her 1^st month or so and has had some sniffles (esp when new teeth come in) but in her 1^st year and a half she never got sick.  A few weeks ago she had a little stomach bug and she was not a happy camper.  She would get sick and cry.  It’s so hard watching her be so upset and not being able to really explain to her what is going on.  Then of course she would get hungry but she wasn’t keeping anything down so we had her on a slow paced liquid diet.  She kept asking for snacks and begging for food and we had to distract her with books and curling up under blankies.  We did discover Pedialyte pops and she really enjoyed those.  She hadn’t had popsicles before so those were new and fun.

TV and movies. Lil has never been very interested in the TV (except for sporting events).  In the past month we discovered Sprout OnDemand and the fact that they have Thomas and Friends available.  She has enjoyed watching a quick 15 minute snipit in the evening before dinner every now and then.  She also discovered Happy Feet and she is addicted.  She loves penguins (aka – mangas) and she loves to dance to music so a movie a dancing penguin with lots of singing was just what the doctor ordered … literally.  We had turned it on for a little bit and she liked it but we didn’t finish it right away.  Then she got sick and watched the movie on repeat for many days (it was the only way to get her to sit still and relax when she was sick). 

New Words: She’s gaining so many words every week, … really every day.  She’s big on telling stories about what happened that day and retelling the stories she read with people.  It’s completely astounding to me that just a few months ago she could only say mama and dada.  It all changes so quickly.  The big thing this month is words that end with –en or –in.  She’s learned a lot of them but can’t pronounce the –en sound so everything ends with an –et sound like in jacket or bucket.  muffin, Hazen, open, mitten, button (or in Lillie’s world: muffit, Hazit, opit, mittet, buttit).

Old words: Nana, Gramma, Pop Pop, Maga, Carcar, Up up, Yep, Bum, Mama, Dada, Delta Rocka, rocka, Wagah, Watah (like a true New Englander), Crack-ah, Ginga, Mook (nice combo of milk and moo), Hi, Hi chair, Ba-ba, Riss, Liam (started as Miam), Jen, Twain, Happy, Mickey, Minnie, Fiss (fish), Cookie, Nay, Floor, Rachel, Paul, Dan, no Dinner, broccoli, better, kiss, Bampa/ grampa, Bear, Manny, Cup, Pickies (pictures), phone, Thomas, Percy, choo choo, track, Bug (and Buggie … her nicknames), Goofy (sounds more like Goopy), Snoopy, Brown (Charlie Brown), Woody (Woodstock), glasses, pillow, blankie, coat, jacket, monkey, zoo, open, sorry, please, thank you, better, good (gut), hot, cool, clean, bath, bib, table, home, me, you, I and it, “I Lillie, you Mommy”, on, in, under, over, behind, up, down.

Old Phrases: eat it, read it, close it, hang it, cook it, turn it, hat on, sit couch, get it, open it (sounds more like Opie … think it’s a combo of open and please), take it, zip it, have it, pull it, push it, drink it, bonky owwie … kiss it.

Signs: She still uses signs but not quite as much now that she is using her words more.  Please is still mostly signed though.  She can say it but often reverts to the sign.

Teeth: Still just 12 that she brushes like a big girl.  She loves to sit on the counter and turn on the faucet for everyone to rinse their brushes when we brush our teeth.  

Sleeping:  She takes 1 nap a day and sleeping through the night Manga and Ginger are still the friends of choice but she’s been fine when we give her other friends instead.

Eating: She eats about half of her food with her fingers and half with her fork.  Using a spoon is still messier but she has been working on using the spoon on her own this month.  She’s doing pretty well.  We may attempt eating things other than dry cereal with a spoon soon.

Drinking: The bottles have been packed up and put away … literally.  They have been banished to the basement with all the other baby/ milk related stuff until they are called back into the rotation for Baby Pacenka #2 (should he/she be in the cards for us).  We weren’t sold on ditching the bottles.  We knew we needed too but she wasn’t really drinking milk well from any other cup so we hated the idea of cutting out the bottle entirely.  

Then things just fell into place. I guess it’s true what they say about things happening when they are meant to.  1^st – She got a new straw cup from the Jansen’s.  It’s set up a little differently than the cups she already has and for whatever reason she didn’t mind using it and managed to drink a considerable amount out of it at dinner 1 night.  (more than 2 or 3 sips = yay!) 2^nd - Lil got sick a day or 2 later and we couldn’t give her milk at all for a couple of days so we figured we’d just not bother reintroducing the bottle.