18 months

As of yesterday, our little Lucy girl is 18 months old. I have to say, I have been dreading this milestone. This one, for some reason, is the one that makes her seem far too grown up for my taste. It's the one where we can pretty much stop counting age her age in months. It's a year and a half now. Then two years, and then three, and then forty-five. *sob* It's the one where we stop being with her for all of church, and where she goes off with the big kids. There keeps being less and less baby in our little baby Lucy, and I would like to file a formal complaint with someone about how fast this all goes. That said, she is turning in to such a cool kid that I guess I can't begrudge her a little growing up.

So here are a few things that fill Lucy's time now that she's 18 months old:

Reading:
The girl LOVES to read. She can spend an entire hour just flipping through her books, flinging them behind her after she's done, and grabbing another from the basket. Her current favorites are The Bunny Book by Richard Scarry, and a Courduroy counting book that makes me think longingly of never again laying my eyes on the written word. Especially after reciting it to her for the 23rd straight time.

Talking:
Lucy is a little talking machine. She says well over 100 words, and has started using two word phrases. (see me, read me, love you, bunny book, etc) She even busted out with "I love Pa Pa" the other night for her favorite person, Grandpa. And this next thing should probably go in the reading section, but whatever...she also suddenly and inexplicably knows about half of the letters in the alphabet. I have no idea how, since we've spent exactly zero time teaching it to her. I can tell you this-it is all making her seem far too grown-up, so we will be immediately enforcing some sort extensive brain-melting tv time. No PBS for her. Maybe a nice beauty pageant reality show? Something on VH1? There must be something to stunt all of this learning.

Fit Throwing:
Lucy is definitely developing a toddler temperment. Her ability to exercise any sort of patience, for anything, is pretty much non-existent. While I'm sure they won't always be, right now the fits she throws are pretty hilarious, and it's really hard for me not to laugh out loud everytime she balls up her little fists and gets all red.

Eating:
Lucy still pretty much loves eating everything. Every morning she asks for "elmo", which after a few frustrating mornings, I discovered was "oatmeal". She loves "cawdoe" (avacado), peas, soup, cheese, cheerios, and most of all, "tookies" (cookies). Lately, she's not as big of a fan of yogurt, probably due mostly to the fact that I just bought a ton of the stuff.

Walking:
Lucy loves to walk around the house, Frankenstein-style, with hers arms stiff and straight in front of her. (her right arm tends to be drawn closer to her ear, which makes it sort of seem like she should be bellowing out a healthy "Hile Hitler"). The walking seems to be mostly for entertainment purposes at this point, since if she *really* wants to get somewhere, she's still all about the crawling.

Oh, and as for stats (as if you haven't yet overdosed on trivial information about our kid), here is where she was at her appointment this afternoon:
Weight: 20 pounds, 6 ounces, and FINALLY on the charts at the 4th percentile!
Height: 32 inches, which is at a HUGE 62nd percentile!

ho ho!

Lucy knows just what Santa says, and she was pretty excited to meet him in person today. This Santa was *much* better than the blue-shirted one from last year. A blue shirt? I'm still so puzzled. This Santa was donning only red, white and black, as it should be.



(is it wrong of me to kind of want one of those fabulous screaming-her-head-off pictures with Santa instead?)

Busy, busy.

We've been busy around here, Lucy included. Here's a little video clip of what has (finally) been occupying her time...

Go Lucy!!!

Trip up the canyon

I've got a million things to post (okay, more like three). But for now, here are some pictures of our little hike up the canyon, which we took right before winter hit. I love how creepy the forest looks this time of year.

(I don't know why, but I just love this one).

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was great this year, and even Lucy seemed to have a good time (aside from my stubborn attempts to try and get her to keep her little cap on). She was a bee, and put up with the costume as well as I could have expected. I'm starting to see the wisdom of all those big, shapeless fleece costumes they have in the stores for toddlers.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure Lucy still had no idea what was going on, but she said bee, bzzz, trick and treat all on cue, and managed to pick out some good candy for herself out of the bowls while trick or treating. Good job Lucy! I'm sure next year you'll *really* get it, and you'll get yourself deep in to a sugar coma with the rest of the kids!

(there was definitely a little of this)

(but lots more of this)

blah, blah, pictures, pictures.

What is that thing bloggers do? Wordless Wednesday? Well that is what I'm going to be doing today, since I want to get some pictures up, and yet I have absolutely nothing to say. So there you have it. Wordless Wednesday.

Funny faces

Well. I think we should put the previous unpleasantness behind us with some pictures. Let us never speak of it again.

Insert dry heave here.

There are times, as a mom, when I feel like I'm doing a pretty great job. Like earlier today, when I sat Lucy down to a lunch of homemade whole-wheat pita bread, fresh from the garden tomatoes, and organic mozzerella cheese. Those moments make me feel pretty darn good.

But then I have moments like I did a few minutes ago, when I look up from the computer and LUCY IS EATING HER OWN POOP. POOP, people. Straight from the diaper. There are no words. I have no words.

Lucy, however, summed it up quite nicely with an emphatic yet understated "GOES". (gross, to those of you who don't speak Lucy).

Yes. Goes, indeed.

The Nursery

So I realized that I had promised pictures of Lucy's nursery right after we finished it. So I'm running a little (twelve months) behind. And also, I haven't really finished it. I have big plans for all sorts of other stuff to make it feel a little more filled in. But I'm guessing this is as close as it's going to get, since soon she's sure to be begging for tacky Bratz dolls and Dora the Explorer and Elmo everywhere. And at that point, instead of getting warm happy feelings from this room, I may actually get the dry heaves a little. So I'm loving it while I can.

This is the view when you come in.


Lucy's usual position at the bookshelf.


Above Lucy's crib.


Sterling's mom got us the cute little flower rug.


The print on the left is by Jen Corace, one of my favorite artists in the world. This is a children's print, so it's just cute, but mostly, her art is cute with a little bit of creepy. Which is basically my favorite combo. Love her. Speaking of which, I wouldn't mind terribly if someone wanted to go ahead and purchase this newly released bit of loveliness for me.

The print above the changing table is by this etsy artist.

Lucy turned 15 months old a few days ago, but I was waiting for her dr.'s appointment to do a stats update. So here you go:

Weight: 18.1 pounds! She keeps gaining about 2 pounds every 3 months, so it's conceivable that she could bust the big 2-0 at her 18 month appointment. (p.s., can't BELIEVE that her next appointment is 18 months. Sob).

Height: a huge mystery. The nurse was new, and measured it at exactly what it was at 12 months. Impossible, judging by the fact that her pants are all about 4 inches too short.

Transportation: still crawling, but she has started getting really good at standing alone. I think she could probably do it without falling, ever, but after about a minute, she realizes what she's doing and collapses to the ground in a fit of nervous giggles.

Things I love about Lucy at 15 months: It would be most accurate to just say "everything", but since that's not terribly helpful in terms of chronicling Lucy's development, how about we start with this:

-Hugs. Lucy hugs are freaking amazing right now. They're the kind of full body, squeeze with all her might sort of hugs that would force even the biggest baby-hater to pull a Grinch and grow a heart. I get them like 10 times a day, and they still make me a little weepy.

-Learning. She is learning like crazy. She says so many words now (we stopped counting at 40), and it's so fun how much she understands. After months of stabbing in the dark at what she really wanted, it's incredible now to have her tell us. And when we ask her if she wants something, and she does, she lets out an excited "YEAH", and bounces up and down on her little bum, like she's just as excited about all of this communication as we are.

-Quirkiness. She's turning in to her own little person, and that person is turning out to be hilarious. From her funny little dance moves, to her bizarre facial expressions, to her uncontrollable excitement about really random stuff, she is so much more entertaining than I ever expected.

Anyway, 15 months is just awesome. If someone could share a method of keeping her this age for a little longer (freeze-drying?), I would be most appreciative.

Perfect day

My goodness, what a fabulous, relaxing birthday I've had. I went running with Lucy in the morning. After that we went and visited my mom at her first grade classroom (it's her birthday too- happy birthday mom!) Then we came home and shared a sandwich from Kneaders. Turkey on ciabatta-mmm. Then we made some birthday brownies, Sterling came home for lunch, Lucy went down for a nap (two hours!), and I vegged on the couch nearly the whole time (I did rouse myself to go and grab a brownie. Way to go me).

After Lucy's nap, I grabbed blankets, books, brownies and the camera, and she and I ventured out in to our increasingly jungley backyard for a couple of hours. It was the perfect temperature, there were birds everywhere, hardly any bugs, and I think we both could have stayed out there all day. We nearly did, until Lucy wandered right through a enormous pile of poop. Thank you, neighbor dog. It was still so great though-pretty much the perfect day. And I still have tonight! After Lucy goes to bed, it's all about the couch, pizza, hanging with The Boy. And naturally, more brownies. (and lest you think my birthday celebrations will only last one day, Sterling is taking me on a fabulous date Saturday night while my parents watch Lucy. Thanks mom and dad!)






(I can't believe a picture taken while my camera balanced on a stuffed animal actually worked. It's a birthday miracle!)

Recap

I'm unsure as to how another entire month has gone by without a post. My main excuse is just general busy-ness, with a good healthy dose of lazy thrown in there. But, at long last, here is a recap of what Lucy has been doing with her last few weeks of summer:

Taking baths in the sink (and on an unrelated note, eating lots of tomatoes. The kid loves herself some tomatoes).


Playing with her pretty princess beads.


Taking trips up the canyon...


...and trips to the petting zoo.


Going to the park...


...and finally discovering how awesome the swings are.


Teething...


...and teething some more.


Trying to figure out how to whistle.


Pointing at EVERYTHING.


And just being generally cute. So ridiculously cute.