More new skills...

Lily has learned that pages in books turn from the right over to the left. She will grab the right side of her doll book and pull the pages across until she hits the page with the "frizzy" hair. Then those fingers go right back onto the face of the doll so she can play with her hair.

She has also become quite the Cheerios champion! The first couple of times trying them were a little, well, trying. She would manage to shove most of her tiny fist into her mouth but then could not open up her fingers to get at the little "o" clenched inside. Sometimes, in her effort to make sure it was available to her, she ended up with it stuck to the outside of her hand while she wiggled her little fingers in her mouth. Now, she pinches each piece with her fingers before aiming towards her mouth. She has even tried banana chunks-those are a bit slippery, though, and require a lot of concentration.

Hopefully her airplane skills are growing-we are off to Scottsdale next week for a conference (for my new job.) Thankfully, my mom will be coming along as Lily's personal plaything for the weekend. With my husband's work schedule, bringing Lily with me was MUCH less of a hassle than leaving her here. I think that it also reiterates to my boss how important time with my daughter is to me...I already have my priorities set.

Too fast

It seems like I need to write everyday to keep up with all of the new things Lily is accomplishing! The biggest new skills are storytelling and swimming. Lily is quite the storyteller! She will babble on and on for almost 45 minutes straight when we are in the car or sitting on the couch together. Her voice inflection will slide up and down, mimicking her eyebrow movement. Whatever her story is about, it always has a scary part "oooo" and some exciting shrieks and a funny part "ha!" She will often cock her head to one side while she talks as if she is trying to get me to understand how important her story is. No need to worry-I absorb every word like oxygen. I have several of her stories on video so I can revisit them for years.

Last week, Lily and I went to Florida to visit her Nanny and Pop Pop (and great Granny, great aunt...etc.) and we discovered that Lily is quite the water baby. Her first experience with water deeper than her bathtub was the Gulf of Mexico-quite a jump! She absolutely loved it! As I was holding her up, she kept bending her knees and lowering her center of gravity so that I would put her bottom on the ground so she could touch the water. She even caught a small wave right in the face (mommy was a bit slow on that one) and recovered without even a whimper! In the pool at the condo, she would kick her feet as I pulled her through the water on her belly. She was quite a hit with the over 65 crowd-which seemed to be just about everyone. Her coordinated swim bottoms, hat and sunglasses contributed to her stylish charm. What can I say, she is quite the fashion plate!

At home, she has started to realize that when I stand behind her looking in the mirror, that I am not actually in the mirror. She cranes her neck around to find me behind her and flashes me a huge Lily-grin before checking to make sure that she can still find me in the mirror, too. Then she checks back behind her again...we could do this for hours!

Her new favorite book is one about dolls with fabric patches on each page-different textures for different dolls. Every time I pull the book out on the floor in front of us, she plays with the pages until she gets to the one with "frizzy" hair. It feels like they put the scrubby side of a dish sponge in it...she puts both hands on the hair and scratches her fingers deep into the page. She has a tendency to eat the faces of the dolls, so you can imagine the state of the book! I'm glad it is a heavy board book...paper pages would be DONE by now!