21 months

 New things:

Getting sick.  Again … We had a 2^nd round of flu this year.  Poor Lil.  She was a mess.  It came out of nowhere and she was so scared, tired, and confused.  She would get sick, cry, and fall right back to sleep.  (Unfortunately, it then passed around the whole house but I think we are all finally on the happy side of healthy.)

Climbing up.  In the past few weeks she has finally reached the point where she is tall enough to climb up on the kitchen chairs and the couch all by herself.  She’s been able to slide off by herself for a bit but now she’ll hop up, hang out for a bit, and then hop down all on her own.

Coloring. She really loves coloring. She’s starting to learn the color names.  She can’t always put the correct color with it’s correct name ... sometimes every crayon is blue, or green, or pink but she knows all the right words. She goes through phases of which color she likes the most.  It is often purple.  Poor Danny has a whole pile of purple pictures that she has colored for him that I need to get in the mail.  She likes to say that everything is blue or green (which she can often only tell apart because Thomas the train is blue and Percy is green.)

Library & Reading.  Lillie LOVES books.  This is not new nor is going to the library.  She reads all the time and started going to the library weekly over a year ago.  The “new” is that now you say “Lillie, today is Wednesday. What is going to happen today?” and she will say “Go library!”  She bases her days of the week around library day.  She loves it.  When reading books with her she will finish the end of the line in her favorite books.  She even quotes almost whole sentences randomly during the day.  She reads Courduroy a lot and talks about “Cordy’s button” and then she’ll say “Lisa, no thank you, answered.” It’s amazing.   

Address.  A month ago I was driving home with Lil and Megs after a quick weekend trip to Albany.  We had been in the car for about 4 hours and Lil was just starting to be done when we hit the road just before our street (lucky timing for us).  As we drove down the street I started saying “Hey Lil, do you know where we are?”  I described what was along the road.  Then I told her the name of our street as we turned onto it.  It was just a lark.  I brought it up a few times as we drove home.  Now she knows and can tell you her name, her town, her street, and who else lives on our street.  She knows it to the point that we said we were “driving home” Saturday night. We asked her where we were going and she replied with our street name.  

Singing. She likes to do the motions to Itsy Bitsy Spider & The Wheels on the Bus.  We will sing part of the song and she will fill in some of the words.  It used to just be the last word of each line but in the last week or so she’s been filling in more and more of the words.

New Words: She’s gaining so many words every week, … really every day.  Over the last 2 months the –en sound has arrived.  She dropped the –it substitution and is saying words like button and mitten correctly. She has been randomly repeating words from her stories that she reads (hears) and I’m not’ just talking about basic words … no … fabulous (more like fab –a – lous), desperate, and Wednesday.

She is just on the verge of sentences.  She will say all the “meaty” words but sometimes miss the smaller words like “the” and “of”.  The other night George asked if she wanted a popsicle and her response was “Daddy get it out, freezer, please.”  Both George and I had our jaws drop to the floor. 

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, muffin, Hazen, open, mitten, button.

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 sometimes reverts to the sign.

Teeth: She’s up to at least 16.  All 4 of her canines finally broke through.  She was quite fussy and cranky for a while and wasn’t eating well.  Then the teeth broke through and it was like a whole new kid.  Now she is eating like crazy and much less fussy.  

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.  She’s continuing to practice using the spoon and showing good improvement.

Drinking: Drinks milk with her meals and has a straw cup of water out all day for when she is thirsty.  Every now and then we attempt a lidless cup of water with meals.  She’s getting better and not spilling quite as much ... still a work in progress.