Sweet Talking 23 Months

This would have to be the month where Lucy figured out social graces in the English language. Her expanding vocabulary has finally reached a level of etiquette that really warms her parents hearts. Topping the list of new phrases this month is "I love you." She says it after I buckle her in her car seat, she says "I love you too" after I tuck her in at night, and she even says it to her favorite dolls and stuffed animals. My favorite was when she said it to Will for the first time - or so he thought. He had just finished snuggling Lucy into her bed and told her "I love you." She replied back, "I love you...." (Will's heart started melting about here) until she finished it off with "Hops." Will: "You love Hops?" Lucy: "Yes!" Fortunately, she has told Will she loves him too numerous times since, so his broken heart is healing. Lucy also says "sorry" at the appropriate times, and even uses it in her imaginary play with her stuffed animals and dolls. After we sneeze she now tells us "BLESS YOU!" extremely loud and proud which makes us want to sneeze again just to hear it. When asking for something from Will or I she will make her request and then add, "okay?" at the end of it which definitely softens the multiple demands she makes on us throughout the day. And when we ask her a question, she will seriously reply, "um, thinking..." And thinking she has been. She can now count to 10 without missing a number, and can name basic colors. She will also tell you that her favorite color is orange. She even will go so far as to say that when she is older, she would like an orange bra! This totally caught me off guard and speechless. Even better is that she keeps bringing it up. Where she got this idea, I really don't know. Not thinking, I told her that when she is as old as her Aunt Jane, she can have an orange bra. Please don't hate me Aunt Jane, but now when she repeatedly refers to the orange bra, she also refers to Aunt Jane! In retrospect, I should have left Aunt Jane completely out of it. She has also become very animated in her speech and uses a lot of hand gestures, finger pointing and pushes her lips out while she talks loudly in very excited tones. She loves telling me about how her and Will went to the car wash the other day. "Car wash, mama. LOUD! Dada paid money. People push button on. LOUD!! Loud, mama. Curtains washed car, mama. Car dry and clean, mama! LOUD!" Lucy has been impatiently awaiting spring, along with the rest of us. I have been reading her books about the seasons and have explained to her that Emma will be born in the spring, and that Lucy's birthday is also in the spring. Lucy spotted the porch swing in the garage throughout the winter, and when she asked if we could swing on it, we would reply "in the spring." Well, the first day of Spring arrived and we asked if she wanted to go the playground to celebrate Spring. She answered, "No, mama. Emma coming today. Dada hang porch swing." Needless to say, Emma has still not arrived yet and our balmy spring temperatures have been replaced with more ice and snow. When Lucy saw the snow that fell after the first day of spring, she looked out the window, shook her finger and yelled, "NO SNOW! Spring, where are you?" Will did hang the porch swing though!

Lucy experienced the great seasonal winter flu this past month. It was horrid. She had a fever of 104, and was lethargic and sick for days. I caught it too, but fortunately not the high fever. Lucy has only had a fever once before in her life and never that high, so this was new to both of us and quite scary. We did a lot of cuddling, story reading and Elmo watching to pass the time. Here she is below, snuggling on me. When I would ask Lucy, "What can mama do for you?" She would weakly respond in two different ways, either "Love." or "Snuggles." Talk about a silver lining of my child having a high fever! She never cuddles like that and I ate it up. She of course wanted to snuggle both me AND Emma, so I apologize that the picture below is revealing some of my huge belly.When emotionally upset, Lucy will now tell me, "My eyes are crying, mama." And when she is doing something she knows she shouldn't be, she will shout and shake her finger "Don't move a muscle!" The best is when she is shouting and pointing at me.

Maybe all of her new found words she learned from reading the cereal box. Yup, she doesn't let me put it away until after she is done eating, as she wants to read the box!

Lucy is very proud of her new car seat we purchased this past month and is super excited to have company in the backseat of our car once Emma arrives. Here she is testing out her new ride. She told me today while driving in the car that "Emma ride in old car seat. Emma's turn to cry." Oh, so that's why there were all those crying fits in the car the past two years? It was the car seat? Good to know.Another exciting happening for Lucy this month was the replacement of her changing table with a new bookshelf for her toys and books that Will had promised to make her when she no longer wore diapers. Although we are not 100% accident free yet, she hasn't had a diaper on her bottom in almost two months so we thought it would be safe to say she won't from here on out. She is super proud of her new bookshelf, and loves to tell anyone visiting that she got it because she wears "No more DI-PEEEES!" Here she is below, in mid-spin.Yup, this little girl continues to keep us on our toes with her personality. One thing can be said for sure - she is a girl who knows what she wants and doesn't want. Sometimes this is great and sometimes this is a huge challenge. We are learning to just go with it though, and try our best to not interfere with the unique personality that continues to unfold before our eyes.I told Will the other night that I can still hardly believe that we get to have another one of these unique beings running around our house. I can't wait to find out what kind of personality Lucy's baby sister has and how she will fit into our family. I will leave you with this picture, which pretty much sums up the unexpected smiles that happen here lately with an almost two year old running around.