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!