9 Months In, 9 Months Out

It's hard to believe Lucy has been with us for 18 months now and has enjoyed life outside the womb just as long as she enjoyed life inside. Here is Lucy's past month captured in pictures.

We'll start with my favorite thing Lucy does - kisses and hugs. She still thinks kissing involves teeth so hopefully she doesn't outgrow this as we're thinking this will help to keep the boys away. Here Lucy is hugging me...

And here Lucy is biting - I mean kissing - me...

Lucy really enjoys playing and even knows what "Let's go play!" means. She will crawl all over us but still prefers to get to her destinations via us. This makes for a lot of us crawling around carrying her as she grunts and nods her head to indicate where she would like to go next.Probably the biggest change in Lucy this past month is her increased attention span with books. She will allow us to read to her from a few choice favorites which include books with moving parts, sing-alongs or babies. Usually it goes like this - we sit down in front of the bookcase. Lucy then indicates that she wants to pick a book out by grunting and reaching her hands up. We pull out a book so that it sticks out a bit from the others and she then pulls the book the rest of the way out then sits down in our lap for us to read it to her. The reading could last anywhere from saying the title of the book aloud to reading the entire book, depending on it's level of moving parts, singing or babies. Then, repeat above process multiple times until mom or dad's legs fall asleep and it's time to get up. For the most part, we are sticking with cloth or cardboard books as she can turn more traditional books into shreds and pulp in seconds.

Lucy still only has the two bottom teeth but that hasn't seemed to slow her down when it comes time to eat. Her favorite foods continue to be bananas, cherries and sweet potatoes in that order. She would eat only fruit if she could and we think likes sweet potatoes because it has the word 'sweet' in it. She prefers to eat 'real' food and not baby food and if it comes off of mom or dad's plate she will eat it - fruit or even vegetables.

Despite what it looks like in the below picture, Lucy is still a mama's girl. If I'm in the room and not with her, she becomes obsessed with getting to me. It's nice to have such a loyal follower, but sometimes I do need to get some work done, and Will misses her. She does still light up with excitement when Will comes home from work and makes up for her extreme attachment to her mama by having her very first words be "Hi Dada" this past month. I put a little guilt on Will and told him that the reason she said Dada before Mama is because I taught her it. After I told him that, I heard Will the other day trying to teach her "Hi Mama" and had to laugh. Then I felt guilty and told Will that most babies say Dada first because developmentally the D is easier than an M. The guilt over Will was fun while it lasted though! And it is so cute to hear Lucy's little voice say "Hi Dada" while she waves excitedly at Will.

Lucy has become very good at communicating with us through grunts and head nods indicating yes or no. Here she is in the crib telling us "No, I do not want to be in here, get me out!"Lucy loves babies. She just lights up when she sees a baby and starts babbling away to them. We have several baby pictures up on our fridge of various family and friends' babies as well as a picture of Luke's hands and feet. She has us stop every time we pass the fridge so that she can wave hi, and babble at them. It tears Will and I up when we think about how adoring she would have been of her brother Luke. I think at this point we are starting to grieve anew for our son - this time missing him as a brother for Lucy. It brings the pain back fresh and new as we realize that Lucy will never know what it feels like to have an older brother to adore and look up to on earth. This coming month Luke will be celebrating his second birthday in heaven. As we approach this next milestone for Luke, please keep us in your prayers and check back on the blog for what we will do to celebrate his birthday. Isn't his little sister cute?