First sentence

Lily's been talking up a storm these days. She can tell me when she's hungry, when she wants water, and that something's yucky. She can repeat almost every word we say to hear although some of them are still gibberish. Plus, she's starting to speak little sentences. Her first one was this weekend - "I want another cracker". When I asked if she wanted a cracker, she says "yes please". SO cute!

Chatterbox

Lily hasn't been super quick to develop language skills but she's coming along. It's SO cute to listen to her yammer away while she's eating or playing with her toys. Her word repertoire to date includes:

• Dog (has been saying this forever! It was probably her first real word)
• Momma
• Dadda
• Apple
• Puppy
• Baby
• Bubble
• Ipad (not sure how I feel about this)
• Happy
• Happy hour (what kind of child am I raising here?!)
• Brett (pronounced "Bet")
• Auntie
• Up
• All done

There's probably a few more that I'm missing but this is what I can remember right now. I can't wait until she's talking more often but I'm sure that I will live to regret that statement!

Caving in

After resisting the urge to let Lily watch TV for the past 18 months, we caved in a few months ago and now let her watch movies on the Ipad. She loves watching the first 10 minutes of Kung Fu Panda and is fascinated by the penguins in Happy Feet. I have mixed feelings about this decision - I know that TV isn't great for her brain development but it sure is nice to have a few minutes of peace and quiet while I'm trying to get ready for work in the morning. We still greatly limit the viewing of movies/TV to less than 30 mins and only allow her to watch a couple of times per week but I still feel a bit guilty about it all.

Lily as of late

She blows her own nose with Kleenex

She finds matching socks from her sock drawer

She can put on her own snow boots, toque, and mitts

She can unload all the silverware from the dishwasher (and even sorts them into categories ahead of time)

She's obsessed with the dog - feeding her, chasing her, harassing her...

She loves playing outside and regularly points to her jacket to indicate that she wants to go play. I love that she loves being outside!

But how do you figure out who's won?

Dealing with a non-verbal but highly opinionated 20 month old is like playing a never-ending game of Charades...

Mmmm, corn is delicious!

Finally!

At sixteen months and three weeks, I think that it is now officially safe to say that Lily is finally sleeping through the night (well, except for last night when she woke up at 4am but whatever!). She now regularly sleeps 10 hours straight and will usually go back to sleep for another 1-3 hrs after she wakes up for a snack at 5:30am. Do I wish that she'd sleep for longer in the morning? Of course I do, but hey, we'll get there one day.