Lucy’s been up to a lot of growing, giggling, and general cuteness over the past several months. We keep telling her to stop drinking all the cute juice, but she just won’t listen. I think she has a membership at Costco and buys the stuff in bulk. Read on for recent developments in Lucy’s…development:
* Lucy pees in the potty pretty much every night before her bath. You go, girl! The first time was Sept 1, after being set on the potty two or three times previously. Now it is just part of the bathtime routine. We’re holding off on the potty-training process until after Belly Baby is born, but it is nice to know that Lucy’s has some positive associations with this device. Lucy currently enjoys sitting on the potty, fully clothed, reading a catalog and saying “pssss.”
* We’d always wondered when Lucy would have her first day where _she didn’t cry at all._ This momentous event occurred on Sunday, Oct 14 — with “derek and Linda”:/news/2006/first-date/ babysitting in the morning, then when we arrived back at night. This was our first overnight away from Lucy. Of course, we’ve had lots of crying since then, but it’s nice to know she can go a whole 24 hours without a tear!
* Lucy is quite self-propelled these days, which is very good news for Mama and her burgeoning belly. It is wonderful to have Lucy walk down the stairs (holding onto Mama’s hand, of course) and to the car without having to pick her up — especially useful when carrying other things! October 30 marked the first day that Lucy walked all the way home with Mama from “Solitary Oak”:http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=41.978611,-87.717215&spn=0.001521,0.001837&t=h&z=19&om=1 on the Northeastern Illinois University campus (about a quarter mile).
* Later that same day (October 30), she ate yogurt off a spoon that she held on her own for the first time. Of course, since then she has sworn off “yogurt”:/news/2007/yogurt-adventure/ (which she used to love) entirely, and soup is just too messy for her to spoon up by herself, so she’s back to spoon-fed for awhile.
* Lucy has become quite a tidy eater, at least in some ways. Lately, when we spill a drop of soup or a crumb on her high-chair tray, she points emphatically to it and says, “hop? hop?” (meaning “help”) until we wipe it up for her. When Lucy first started this, it was extra-cute to watch Jon stand up and start hopping on one foot in response to this command! :) We’ve been trying to teach Lucy to lick off her fingers, in hopes that we can save her from some of our own obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
* Of course, mealtime isn’t always so orderly, especially since Lucy has figured out how to remove the top part of her high chair tray. She loves to grab it, twirl it around over her head, and sometimes play peek-a-boo behind it. (See video.) Definitely entertaining, but sometimes a bit distracting in the actual *food consumption* department. When she really gets going, she hurls it to the floor as if she is BabyZilla.
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* When she *is* sitting in her chair and eating, Lucy enjoys herself quite a bit, frequently intoning “mmmm!” about whatever tasty morsel she is presented with. She has also taken to dipping her food into any kind of dip she can find — crackers into soup, chicken drummettes (we love Trader Joe’s!) into ketchup, pretzels into peanut butter. The dips can get a bit messy for Lucy to have complete control over, but she seems happy to pipe “dip? dip? dip?” in a very high voice until we comply with her request.
* And, unfortunately, the throwing doesn’t stop with the tray top — often food gets thrown, too. We have recently implemented some strategies to amend this situation — a tray-less “time out” (pushing Lucy away from the table in her high chair) for one minute when food gets thrown. Also, to cut down on the toddler-mobile-dining situation (which has occurred a bit more recently), we’ve put our foot down: at mealtimes, food may only be consumed while in the high chair. Lucy balks a bit at this new regime, but seems to accept her fate, and (we hope) enjoys the freedom of having the choice to eat or not eat.
* Not only can Lucy walk, but she can also run, spin (as “seen previously”:/news/2007/dizzy/), and walk backwards. The walking backwards is perhaps the funniest — you can actually watch her hatch the idea, check behind her, and then slowing inch backwards, cackling along the way. Here’s a very brief clip, but the best video we have of this:
* Lucy just does more cute things every day. Sometime in early November (the week of 11/12?), we noticed Lucy pretending to feed her pig, Piggy Lou, water and food. She also thinks it’s a riot when we tuck Piggy Lou into our grown-up bed with her head on the pillow. At bath time, Lucy suddenly enjoys putting her foot into a toy cup in the bathtub and raising it up out of the water, laughing merrily. (See photo.)
* Lucy seems to be inventing words. Her word for “coat” is “nah! nah!,” which we think derives from the sound a goat makes, having confused _coat_ and _goat_. Most of her other terms are more traditional variations, such as “boot-ay” for boots and “han” for “hat.” Perhaps our favorite one recently is Lucy’s word for socks: “ya-ya.” We have no idea where this came from, but it is clear and very endearing. Lucy also has just begun to transform parts of her vocabulary from baby mush (leaving out several consonants) to clearly articulated gems, most notably “brush” and “walk.” She likes to enunciate those words, loud, clear, and slow. I guess we’ve all gotta start somewhere!
Too cute! Mo thinks sitting on the potty is a great thing to do also, but he has yet to pee in it. He would much rather pee on the floor before getting in the bath!
I love the cleanliness factor. Kaia never cared a bit, but Mo is like Lucy. He loves to wipe up the mess himself with a rag, and truly enjoys putting dirty dishes into the sink. But when he is “ah gone” and signs all done in the high chair, it means: come get my dish in the next 45 seconds or I will hurl it and the utensils to the floor.
This is a wonderful post, and will be fun for you to look back on in another year.
They grow up so fast. I am impressed at your date keeping! Madelyn has mostly potty trained herself and last week declaired that she was wearing panties to school. She did and lasted all day in them. So this monday we are going to make the full switch to panties (diapers at night as we let her have a cup of water next to her toddler bed and she drinks a lot at night and thus pees a lot, although this is getting less and less as she is getting me up at 3 to help her go potty).
I think it is so interesting how each kid develops their vocabulary. We really notice this with all of Madelyn’s friends at school. Some are so clear, some with made up words, some no words and some are a mix. Madelyn is VERY clear and I have no idea where she learns the words. Today she came up to me and said, “I am gorgous (sp?)”. But my favorite is when she toots and looks at you with a ooppss face and says, “I farted”. I can’t help but laugh every time!!
Tonight we watched lucy a few times and then she started walking around the house backwards saying, “I lucy, I lucy” and laughing.
Thanks for sharing. :-)
My loves,
It is so wonderful to read about (what some would call) the routine events that fill our lives with a growing child. Lucia always lightens our day, but you making the effort to share these events takes it to a far higher level. We appreciate all the work and time that you put into the documentation. I’m curious now to see if Lucia’s little sister will benefit from the same level of attention and photo documentation? We certainly hope so, so keep up the effort because it brings joy to all who stop by here on a busy day. I send you my love…