13 month's young!

WOW! That’s all I can say about the number of changes in Lilliana within the last month. There are so many things that Clay and I have been teaching her and it seems like all of a sudden a light bulb went off. I mean, we started teaching her some sign language around month 6 and within the last month she has just taken off. We have started eating lots of new foods, consisting of fruit snacks, pasta, blueberry bread, and lots of other things she can use to self-feed. She is really big into this, and trying to be such an independent little lady.

Of course, she started walking and is also talking up a storm. I feel like she is extremely loud when she talks and jibber jabbers but according to my mom I was the same way. People used to tell her “for such a little girl, she sure does have a set of lungs!” I feel the same way about Lilly, but I guess she get’s it honest. ☺

We are working more and more on her taking whole milk by her sippy cup and that is also going well. I placed her in church nursery the other day so that Clay and I could both enjoy a nice day at church without having to keep control of a toddler and when I went to check on her between services they had all the kids in one of those little tables that the seats are built into and she was just sitting with all her little friends enjoying some goldfish and drinking her milk like a big girl. It was a quite a realization for me about how grown up she is getting. I just can’t believe she is essentially a toddler! It just blows my mind all the time how quickly the last 13 month’s have flown by. I don’t understand why when I was pregnant with her it felt like time stood still but since she entered this world it has just been a whirlwind. Maybe the next time we decide to have a baby it will go by quicker since I will have her to keep me company. (Oh and never, fear, that thought is very far from our minds at this point.) I am really enjoying Lilliana and watching her grow-up. Unless the good Lord has other plans for us, we plan to wait a while longer. ☺

Here is a list of the signs that Lilliana currently knows and uses frequently …
More
Please
Milk
Touch-down (of course this was taught by her Daddy and is not official ASL)
All-done
Cup
Up

These are the one’s we are working diligently on …
Thank-you
Book
Jesus
Momma
Dadda

Here is a list of things Lilliana says …
Momma
Dadda
Aggie (AKA Maggie – our yorkie)
Bye-bye
Up
(Of course there are a lot of things that come out of her mouth that I have yet to discern!) I guess it will just take some time, because it always seems like mothers are able to understand most anything that comes out of their children’s mouths.

She also loves to blow kisses and even did so for the waiter at Huey’s the other day. She waves bye-bye at everyone and loves to kiss and hug. I love it when she kisses all the babies and animals in her books when I read to her. Typically, I can’t get through one of her books without lots of kisses for the characters on the pages. Her love for Maggie has also grown tremendously in the past month. She loves to give her kisses and hugs and of course Maggie enjoys this herself. We usually have to stop Maggie because I think she would lick her all over if we would allow it!

She LOVES to sing “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” and will follow along with the motions herself and her other favorite top vying for the top spot is “5 Little Ducks”. She always likes to chime in on the part that says, “… Mother duck says, quack, quack, quack, quack …” and she does this precious (sometimes sick sounding) duck noise and moves her hands to look like a duck’s beak quacking. We have also been working on animal noises and some of the one’s she can repeat to me, and sometimes get on her own the first try are … a cow, mooooo; a dog, ruff ruff; a duck, quack, quack; and a tiger, roarrrr. She also loves to point out her nose, eyes, mouth, ears and hair if you ask her to. I am so proud of her and of course I think she is such a smart little stinker but doesn’t everyone think their kid is smart? I just hope that I am teaching her what she needs to know especially since she isn’t around other kids at daycare of MDO at this point. It is a lot of pressure to know that you are molding a child into what they are going to become. I just don’t want to mess this up!! Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. ☺

Overall, it has been a great month, we have continued to be sick free this month and we are so thankful for that. We love her more and more each day and feel so blessed that God has allowed us to be her parents.





Oh yeah, she still doesn't have ANY teeth. Lot's of drooling going on over here and fingers are constantly in her mouth so who knows. I will talk with my Pediatrician at her 15 month appointment if they aren't in by then. We will just see what he has to say.