Chitter Chatter

Today for some reason Lily was on this non-stop talking kick! Worse than her usual talkativeness. I was starting to feel like I couldn't remember what quiet sounded like. She was describing everything she was doing in minute detail. While she set the table for breakfast this morning she talked about how she was putting a knife at my place, and a knife at her place, and a knife at Dad's place. And so on for the napkins and cups... Then she said: "Mom, look! - I put your knife right here at your place, and my knife right here at my plate, and Dad's knife right here at his plate!" (with such sweet and cute enthusiasm, and you had to give her props for helping to set the table..), but then it was: "Dad, look! I put Mom's knife right here at Mom's plate, and my knife right here at my plate, and your knife right here at your plate!" "Grandma!..."

I was making a birthday card for my Grandmother, and she wanted to help so I set her to making one of her own. Mike was home today and she had to describe - to each of us separately, though we were two feet away - each stroke and sticker placement and what went behind it...including how she started to trace around some letters, but got bored so she decided to use these stickers, "...and so I put this yellow flower sticker right here, and this pink flower sticker right here..." ...all down the row! It was stating the obvious overload. 

And if she ran out of real things to talk about at any point she might just start making up a nonsense rhyming song. She's been really into rhyming lately.

The worst thing about her constant chatter today was the endless questions. She wasn't just talking, she was in my face expecting me to listen and answer - all day long! We drove down to San Diego to do something for Mike's business, and it was such a relief when she fell asleep in the car! On the way home the questions started up again. When you answered one "da-da da da" she then asked "why da-da da da?" I feel like a terrible mother to admit this, but when we were almost home I honestly thought my brain might explode from the effort of trying to pay attention and just wanting to shut off! But, I was trying to keep my patience, and it was easier to just answer each question than to try to avoid it! Lily is a persistent child. And - if you don't respond to every detail of her question she will ask it again (in detail, on repeat) until she gets all the information. So anyway, after a multitude of other questions... Lily was asking me if my sister and I had ever camped out in the yard...
- I didn't think so, but I told her my friends and I used to have sleepovers out on trampolines...

A little snippet of the conversation that ensued:

LILY "When you and your friends slept out on the trampoline did you have sleeping bags, and marshmallows, and flash lights, and lanterns?

ME "No...We had sleeping bags, and maybe flashlights, but probably not marshmallows because we didn't have a fire."

LILY "Well, you could light a fire."

ME "But we didn't have any fire pits."

LILY "You could dig a fire pit."

ME "My friend's parents wouldn't let us dig a fire pit."

LILY "What were your friends parents names?"

ME "Well...I don't remember all my friend's parent's names, but I do remember my friend Kelli's mom and dad were Jackie and Alan."

LILY "And Malen and Fralen?"

ME "No."

LILY "Were your sister's friend's parent's names Malen and Fralen?"

ME "No-."

LILY "Then who were Malen and Fralen?"

At that point Mike and I just busted out laughing, and Lily joined in while we pulled up to the house and got out. There's nothing in the world like a good laugh! All my impatience just dissolved - at least until the questions started mounting again...

But seriously, I am so grateful for the sweet vivid personality of my cute little girl! Especially when I think about her little arms around my neck as she was getting into bed. "It's Mommy and Lily hugging and kissing time!" Such a love!

Sunday photos and donuts falling from trees

We stopped by a park to take some photos on the way home from church on Sunday. I haven't taken many of me pregnant this time, and it's been a while since I could get Lily to cooperate for a few photos - especially when we are home and there are so many other things she could run off to - so I thought while we were all dressed up we should seize the moment and try it out at the park.

Lily was more interested in running off and making faces, and managed to get mud all over her stockings, but we did get a few cute shots.

And she's off...

She's fast.

Back again!

A little angel...

Off and running again!

 And back to me...This is me at 25 weeks along (3 and a half months to go).

Love Lily's face in this one :)

And these goofy smiles too!

A funny thing happened while we were taking photos under a tree. A mini chocolate donette dropped from the sky, as if it were a falling pine cone. I recognized it and laughed because we had just been talking about how much we were craving donuts in the car, and mulling over maybe making some since we didn't have any at home. Lily and I ran over to inspect it to make sure that's what it was. A group of kids from up the hill were obviously the ones responsible. I thought it was a funny coincidence because of our conversation and how it looked like it fell from the tree, but Mike was mad that someone was throwing donuts at his family. He picked it up and hurled it back at them. I thought it was funny that we would both have such different reactions. I guess I could see his point that if the donut had hit Lily in the face - I wouldn't think it was so funny. It probably could actually have hurt her being thrown from that distance. And it is kind of rude to throw donuts at people. I guess I just figured they were kids and had a hard time taking it seriously. Mike's protector instincts were up and if he had actually seen the kids throw it there would no doubt have been a confrontation. Just curious -- How do you think you and your spouse would react to that situation?

Lily these days

(Lily's drawing of my pregnant self with Lily in my lap)

We got Lily an easel with a chalkboard she can draw on from IKEA. She loves to play school. The other morning she drew this diagram on her chalkboard and called to me:

"So, Mom - Come see where the waters come from!"

Pointing with her chalk to different circles connected with squiggles she explained:

"So this swimming pool connects to the North Pool where Santa Claus is from, and this connects up to the rain, and this connects to the pool of the Ancients! ...And that's where the water comes from."

The water diagram

All with a very no nonsense I know what I'm talking about attitude. Lily definitely listens when I explain stuff to her (even if I think she isn't paying attention) and puts it together to make sense of it in her own way. I think I'd explained pipes and the water system to her the day before. Where she got "Ancients" from though, I don't know... My little intellectual.

Lily can be quite the character, she has her own cute sense of humor, and the funniest fake giggle. She loves to joke around and tease her Dad and other kids, but sometimes the fun can turn from laughs into cries like that! It's a fine line. Lily is constantly singing and rhyming these days. Most of the time with made up words, but she gets the concept of rhyme. Yucky, mucky, pucky, stucky... Baby, maybe, heybie, craybie... I started rhyming with her to help her learn more actual rhyming words the other day and the game went one for quite some time! But I love the offhand way she tries to rattle of nonsense words sometimes like she's conveying some casual truth. Her hand motions and expression are priceless.

Lily loves to make forts and hide. She was loving hiding behind the Christmas tree when we first put it up, until the ornament in the outlet business banned her from playing back there. (Thankfully the tree is finally down! We were almost halfway through January this year, but Mike put everything away a week or so ago.) Lily has two or three regular hiding spots. Sometimes she asks for help spreading blankets over them when she wants them to be a little more tent-like.

This is my creation (above)- Lily loved it and asks me to build it again almost every day. It was her boat, she caught a lot of strange fish off the side, like the pizza fish, and made me burritos with tissue tortillas.

She plays by herself really well at times, but other times she can be super clingy! I literally have to detach her from the back of my shirt - though that is pretty much only in public places where people she doesn't know are trying to talk to her. But quite often these days she refuses to cross the room to get something without Mike or I accompanying her. Sometimes she'll do it if I promise to watch - which means don't take my eyes off her - while she goes to get her cup out of the fridge or grab something. She's scared. I really don't get it or know what to do about it. Nothing worse than some cousinly rough housing has ever happened to her in this house. We are really protective about the movies and shows we allow her to see. She's not always scared, just if she's thinking about being scared, and sometimes I know it's strategic just because she doesn't want to do something or wants our attention. I really don't know what to do about it, though. I've been trying to teach her more independence - even before we were expecting a baby just because she's growing up and I wanted her to be ready for the baby possibility. Since she was little I've tried to explain things that are real and pretend and she seems to understand pretty well, but I think - like I did when I was a kid - she has a pretty vivid imagination. Mike says not to worry too much about it because being scared is just part of being a kid. I guess so. I remember leaping off my bed for years to leave my room when I was in there alone and the thought of a bony skeleton hand reaching out from under it got into my head. And swinging from the banisters down the half flight of stairs outside our bathroom door in one leap after flushing to escape the toilet monster a friend and I invented... and I was almost a teenager. I am still not into horror movies or scary stories because I have to read or think about other good things to get them out of my head. I'd just rather not have them in there to begin with. But this post is not about me - it's about my cute girl :)

When Lily wakes up in the morning she calls out for us from her bed so she doesn't have to come down the stairs all alone. "Maaaaaa-aaaaahmeeeeeee!"  But mostly "Daaaaaaaddeeeeeeeee!" He tells me not to go so she'll learn to just come down, but he gives in and goes to get her quicker than I do.

She still needs naps, but isn't so keen to take them. She wants me to 'keep her company' on the trundle, and still loves for me to sing to her. She tries to make deals with me to sing so many songs, and if she isn't tired afterward she can go back downstairs and not sleep...but she always falls asleep before I stop singing. She's always trying to makes deals these days.

When Lily goes to bed at night she will put her arms around her Dad's neck and not let go. "There's no key and no password!" She cries - to let him no there is no way she is letting him go! ...But most of the time he just enjoys being trapped by his little girl for a while. When I say "Guess what - I love you!" She rolls her eyes and says: "You always say that!" Sometimes these days she can be quite rude about refusing hugs and kisses and calling us mean and stuff, so we enjoy the sweet times while we can!

Still wanting to play the baby!

I thought she was too big for this thing when she climbed on top of it here - Lily at 16 mos 

She is growing up much too fast. I keep having to remind myself she isn't even 4, but she sometimes acts so much older. Some friends of ours were over the other day and heard her using her real voice rather than the baby one she puts on a lot of the time around other people, and they were amazed by how much older she sounded. She was giving me a little teenage-esque attitude.

Lily loves to make 'soup' for people, play birthday, tea party or picnic, dance, swing, do projects, read books with us, watch shows, eat snacks or candy, go to 'resternauts,' the zoo, and the movies...

Not able to keep the seat down at the theater

Her favorite color is pink. She likes to pick up her clothes and dress 'rainbow style' which means different colored pants, shirt, and socks - so nothing matches.

Posing as she tries on a hat at the mall

She uses the word 'fashiony' instead of fashionable, and says 'breakstast' instead of breakfast, but has a pretty incredible vocabulary and understanding of words for her age. She can write her name, and sometimes shows interest in letters or playing school long enough for me to get her to trace alphabet pages. She is finally showing more interest in her tag books since she got some new ones at Christmas.

With her two cousins at preschool

They love to play balance beam wherever they can

She loves to play with her cousins and neighborhood friends and has recently been complaining that I need to make more play dates for her - which I do! Anyone who wants to set up a regular weekly get together with our kids let me know! It's too bad Lily and her sister will be so far apart.

Well, the new baby is kicking like crazy and I've been sitting in this chair long enough. I wish I could think of all the cute things Lily says, and does, and likes right now - to record as much as I can, but this will have to do for now. It's quite an adventure being a parent, but my (mostly) sweet girl makes it very much worth all the work and the worry. I hope I'm doing a good job at being her mom!

Counting down

Well, we are over halfway there as we expect the arrival of numero dos, a.k.a Baby Sierra. Lily doesn't like the name and is determined to just call her "Baby". At first she wanted to name the baby Lily "...so we can match!" I am feeling very pregnant. It was so weird, it almost seemed like overnight that my belly popped out and looked pregnant and it feels like it is growing exponentially since. I am having a hard time imagining how huge it is going to be by the end! It's already a strain turning from one side to the other in bed at night. I am doing pretty good over all. I have been lucky not to get much morning sickness, but I have had some days of pretty severe back pain, and just general tiredness that left me not wanting to do very much. I have a pretty long list of things I want to get done or cleaned, and I just have to be careful not to overdue it and attempt too much in one day - or sit at this computer for too long. My fold up desk chair is not the most comfortable, and too much time in it does not help my back. But I feel very lucky to feel as good as I do knowing some friends who've had really rough pregnancies!

Lily is so cute about giving my belly hugs and kisses for the baby. At first she would just be giving me hugs and kisses and then bump into my belly and remember to give the baby some too. Now it is noticeably bigger - you can watch her eyes noticing my belly first, and I get my hugs and kisses afterwards. We've been trying to prepare Lily for the new baby and she's such a sweetheart talking about it. I love to hear her ideas of what she will say to the baby and what the baby will like. Today she leaned over to hug and kiss my belly and said in the cutest voice, "Hi, Baby! I'm your big sister, and I love you very much!" I hope she is as loving to her new little sister once she's outside the belly! I ordered a bunch of kids books about new babies from the library and we started reading them the other day. I sort of hope some of them don't make her more worried than she would have otherwise been! I was thinking I should probably screen them before I start reading as I was already halfway through a book about a jealous big sister bunny, coincidentally named 'Lilly' who kept repeating "Disgusting!" with a capital "D" after her parents raved and lavished attention on their new baby. So far she seems just as excited. I am always amazed at her attention span for books that are very instructional that I would expect her to find boring. The other night Mike read her just one page from a rather long one answering questions about new babies, and the next day she was all excited and determined to read the rest of it. But she could read the whole huge stack of books we check out in one sitting as long as we had the patience for it!

I am so nervous about being a mother of 2, and about how Lily is going to be when the baby is actually here...but I am excited too! I'm so glad she gets to be a sister, and have a sister! I can't wait to see the two of them together, and to meet my other little girl. I hope Lily will know we love her as much as ever and not be jealous of the attention the baby gets... I think those library books are making me more nervous than they are her!

Lily's Beauty Parlor

We got Lily a cute pink bathrobe for Christmas and she was so cute posing to model it off after her bath the other day. Some of the other poses looked more like karate moves and other silliness where you usually couldn't see her face, but I love this cute sweet one!

I gave her a haircut later and thought she looked so cute with her hair pinned up all crazy - so I took some photos.

Lily on a big stool with her bathrobe cover

Lily is pretty good for a haircut as long as she can watch one of her favorite shows. 

She loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates these days.

The finished cut.

A happy TV addict.

Lily would watch TV all day if we let her. Of course we don't, and I've noticed she can be kind of a grouch when she gets too much. We made a goal recently to not let her see more than an hour a day, and not even that if we can help it. It makes her focus all the more when she does watch it - which is kind of convenient when I need her to sit still or stay in one place for some reason.

I am seriously overdue for a post all about Miss Lily and her comments and quirks these days. That will take me more time than I am ready to spend just right now. She's such a good, funny, sweet kid. She drives us crazy often enough too, but she makes up for it. I wouldn't trade her for anything in the world!