Our Lily is 18 months old. Everyday is a new day, everyday she learns something new, everyday is becoming harder and harder to catch up with her. Soon, at this rate, she will be smarter than us by the time she’s five!! Not only has she been reading since she was 10 months old, now she also knows all of her colors, her shapes (even “half circle” and “crescent”), her phonics, she can count from 1 to 20, and she is now a singer too!

Here’s another video of her reading a bit more clearly:

From the get-go, we’ve been singing to her a lot. I think somehow, this has ingrained in her the love for music and harmony. We’ve also noticed in the past couple of months that songs are connected to emotions for her. We were stunned when one day, Daddy decided to sing “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad” to her after not singing it to her since she was about 6 months old, and she started tearing up at a high note. We thought something was wrong, but she looked at her Daddy and asked for a hug and kiss, and asked him to sing the song again. So he did, and sure enough, at the certain high note, she teared up again and suddenly started full blown sobbing, asking him to finish the song. She clung onto him, giving him a huge hug, and gave him teary kisses. What a sweet girl. We were stunned that a song can bring such emotion out of her, and equally stunned that she remembered this song from her very early babyhood months.

We’ve recently found that certain songs will evoke out of her strong, emotional responses as well. For example, the way Sarah McLachlan sings “Silent Night” makes her teary-eyed, and she demands cuddles with Mommy while she listens to the song. When I sing “You are my sunshine” to her when it’s not bedtime (it is our routine bedtime song before I put her down to sleep), she tears up and sings along. She is quite the sensitive child. Such beautiful, emotional responses. We are stunned, and so proud.

Then, out of nowhere, she decides that she can sing the songs we’ve been singing with her. Word for word, in her own baby accent. It started with just the end words of the verses, and suddenly she just went for it and sang whole songs while we were singing them.

Here she is singing the “ABC” song in its entirety:

Here she is singing the Railroad song with her daddy:

We also went through a whirlwind of a Christmas holiday. Our house sold right before Christmas, and we spent the majority of December house hunting for a new home! In the midst of all of that, we almost forgot about Christmas! But, we were right on time to putting up our Christmas tree (about a week before Christmas):

The haul we got for Christmas was absolutely ridiculous. Most of this stuff belonged to Lily, of course. We couldn’t stop ourselves from getting her more and more and more and so much more. And apparently, neither could all her aunts and uncles and grandparents!

One of the coolest things Lily got this year for Christmas was her rocking horse!

This year, like last, my sister Sophie, who is Lily’s Auntie “Bopee,” visited for Christmas for two weeks. Lily had the pleasure (much to my sister’s grunting dismay) of waking her Auntie Bopee up every morning with a kiss and a lot of loud toddler talking:

For Christmas, we all went to Nana’s (my mother-in-law) house for Christmas Eve dinner and opening presents from the aunts and uncles. On Christmas Day, this was our first year hosting Christmas dinner!! It went so well, and we even cooked and prepared food. We may have a repeat of this next Christmas as well! I was nervous about it, but it went without a hitch! Lily loved having people over, and she was ecstatic to be a hostess. Unfortunately, amongst all the craziness, I forgot to take pictures for our Christmas day dinner, but here are some from Christmas Eve:

Lily with her great-granny, Lilias (who she was named after, and who she affectionately calls “Ganny”):

One of the things we did while Auntie Bopee was here (one involving ME going SKIING.. I know, crazy, right?) was go to Vancouver’s Chinatown. It’s one of our favorite places to visit because of its familiarity to our roots. Lily loved the Chinese and Japanese zen garden!

The holidays have come and gone, and now we are just wrapping up the first month of 2010, hopefully with some positive news about a new house to be moved into at the end of February! We have something in mind, but nothing is finalized yet, so we are hoping for the best. Lily has gone to every house hunting escapade with us, and has given her own version of a seal of approval (does it have STAIRS that she can climb up and down on?!) on several homes. Here’s us keeping our fingers crossed!!

In the meantime, our Lily continues to grow… and grow… and grow. She is sleeping 11-12 hours a night. She still has her regular naps every afternoon around 1pm. She eats voraciously and she gives hugs and kisses openly. One day I tried counting how many words she can say, and I lost count at about 9am after about 80 words. So who knows how many she can say. It seems like her growth is exponential. She follows directions really well. She sometimes has tantrums. She definitely has a mind of her own and can be very, very stubborn. She’s a little firecracker and a little bulldozer. She is ALWAYS, always on the move. However, our Lily shows us constantly that she is kind and compassionate to others’ needs. She shares wonderfully and she likes to include other people in what she does. She has opinions about what she wants to read and what she wants to play. She greets people openly when we’re out and about. She knows several words in Vietnamese and affectionately calls my parents “Ngoai” without an accent (except her baby accent, of course). She says her “please” when she wants something, and is learning to say “thank you” every time after she gets something. She is our little sweetheart. She is loving, and we’re amazed at what a warm spirit she is. However, she also definitely has a mind of her own. We’re amazed how much stubborn she can be when she wants something, and she seems to have a very clear sense of what is “right” and “wrong.” We have so many speculations about what she would be like as she gets older, but most of all, we are just so excited and ecstatic to be able to be part of her world and see her grow.

As some of our last posts suggested, we’ve been having sleep issues with Miss Lily Bean here. Since she was 5 weeks old, she started sleeping through the night, but as luck would have it, that didn’t always last. Until she became mobile, she was doing awesome, sleeping on her own, falling asleep on her own, and sleeping through the night. So, we had to rethink our strategy completely, and I think we now found what has worked for us.

Dave and I differed quite a bit regarding how we “sleep train” her. Being the loving, protective father that he is, he didn’t want to try any method that would mean she would cry. Me, being a little more firm, didn’t mind it so much, as I didn’t mind seeing her a little frustrated. I think it would teach her to be a little more secure and independent. So, after many, many, maaannyyy hours of long discussions with Dave, he finally agreed to a plan that included some crying, just to break her out of that “cuddle to sleep” mode that she was in with us. Sometimes, it would take me as much as two hours to get her to sleep, and other times, she’d wake up in the middle of the night and wouldn’t go back to sleep for about another two hours… all of which I would have to cuddle her and keep her company and convince her that indeed, it is not play time, it is sleep time. I was getting tired of this cycle.

First night we tried the plan where we would keep her in the crib “no matter what,” periodically coming in to comfort her and let her know we’re still around and not abandoning her. She did not do so well. She immediately started whining when we left the room, and when we didn’t come back right away (as we often did before), she upped the ante and started screaming blue murder. We came in after waiting it out a bit, comforted her, and then walked out again. She freaked out again, wondering why we weren’t picking her up immediately and rocking her to sleep. 45 minutes later of this, she was crying so hard and so intensely that she actually made herself throw up.

Dave was really angry with me. He didn’t want to do this plan anymore. I insisted that this is part of her learning, and that she’s just seeing how far she needs to go in order to get us to come to her rescue. I told him this wouldn’t happen again, and I made that promise. He said he wouldn’t do the plan with me, but that if I wanted to do it again, I would have to do it alone without his support.

So I mustered my courage up, and did it again two nights later. I did her whole bedtime routine — bath, reading, feeding, lights out — and then I cuddled her for a little bit in her rocking chair in her room, in the dark. I told her:

“My Lily, I love you… you’re going to go to bed now. Mommy’s going to lay you down in your bed so you can go to sleep. I will see you in the morning. You can do it. It’s bed time…”

I said this over and over again, about 3 or 4 times. By that time, she was relaxed and tired, but still awake. Then I got up, gave her the bunny/lovey, and popped a binky in her mouth, and laid her down, said goodnight, and walked out. She didn’t cry at first. Waited about 5 minutes, and then started crying. I waited about a minute, and then walked in to comfort her verbally, still leaving her in her crib. I put the binky back in her mouth, laid her down, said the same things I said to her while we were cuddling, and then walked out. She cried and cried and cried. However, she only did it for 20 minutes this second night. I stood outside her door, my heart completely ripped out of my chest and I was near tears. But just as I was ready to come back in again, suddenly the crying stopped. Completely. I went in to our bedroom to check out the video monitor, to see what she was doing. She had laid herself back down, and playing with her binky (not in her mouth). She started waving her leg back and forth, and within a minute or two, she was sound asleep.

She had put herself to sleep!! All on her own!!

There was no throwing up, no hysterical crying (didn’t get to that stage, fortunately). And it only took 20 minutes.

Next day, Dave put her down for both naps since I had to work. He said he put her down awake yet drowsy, and she didn’t cry for him. She was used to him doing that though. The bedtime routines were the issue, not the naps. So that night, I did the same thing again, and she cried for 10 minutes. Though out of those 10 minutes, only maybe 2 minutes were really hard crying. The rest were sort of whimper cries. I came in about 3 times, comforted her verbally and then walked out. I stood outside her door. The crying suddenly stopped, and she put herself to sleep.

Third night, there was no crying. She put herself to sleep within 10 minutes.

This was a week ago, exactly. Throughout the whole week, all her naps and her bedtimes looked like this. They went so smoothly. Sometimes, it’d take her a little over 10 minutes to fall asleep, but she never cries anymore. Sometimes she loses her binky and cries out for us to get it for her, but once we do, she’d lay back down and wouldn’t fuss when we walked out again.

She has been waking up less in the middle of the night. She is still regularly waking up at least once, but very sleepily so — never that wide-awake event anymore. And I would just put the binky back in her mouth, give her a kiss, lay her back down, without a word, and walk out the door. Within seconds, she’s back asleep. Sometimes even before I reach the door.

Over the week, I noticed that even when she does wake up in the middle of the night, very rarely does she even open her eyes. I would hear some whimpering and near-cries, and when I go check on her, her eyes are still closed, she’s still lying down, but she looks like she’s going to wake up. I would just pop the binky back in her mouth and walk out. She hardly even noticed I was even in the room.

The first few nights, since she was getting so much sleep at night, and sleeping through the night again, she was waking up earlier. She’d go down by 7:45p, and wake up at 6a or 6:30a. This was not cool. So when she did this, I would come in, and see her wide awake and laughing and giggling and having a ball, as if saying, “GOOD MORNING, MAMA!!!” I’d lay her down, tell her, “It’s not time to wake up yet, honey… go back to sleep.” And then I’d walk out. At first, she was very confused, but she did not cry out. She’d try to put herself back to sleep, and when she couldn’t, she’d just play in her crib, wait around until 7a for me to come get her. What a trooper!

Now, she’s sleeping until 7a again, sometimes even to 7:30a. So she’s getting near 12 hours of sleep per night, which is perfect. She has her two naps per day back, both adding up to about 3 hours altogether. She’s happy, well-rested, and cheery all day long, and she eats so well too.

It’s also cute that I see a change in the relationship between her and her bed. In the mornings, she’d crawl happily around her bed, and wouldn’t let me pick her up. It was like she was showing off how happy she is to be able to fall asleep on her own, and telling me, “Look, Mama, this is my bed! I have so much fun in here! I love it!” It’s a great feeling to see how proud she is of herself.

Throughout all this, I’ve been getting a LOT of encouragement and consultation and words of wisdom and kindness from Kendra, my new friend (and our photographer), as well as my sister-in-law, who does the same method with her kids. Now that we’re all getting enough sleep again, and we’re all happy again, and Dave isn’t mad and he’s proud of both of us again, and we’re all doing the same things again, it’s such a relief. I’m glad I stuck it through, and I knew our Lily Bean could do it. She wakes up to gives me hugs and kisses, and sometimes wouldn’t let me go. I know there is absolutely no resentment from her towards me, and I know she appreciates that I am teaching her confidence. Plus, this gives me and Dave some extra couple time with each other, after I put her down for bedtime. We’re so much more relaxed. I love it.

So, if you have any doubts that this works, just take my word for it. After confusing the heck out of our little girl with different methods and plans month after month, it only took less than 3 days for her to learn this. If she can do it, your baby can, too. And as an appreciation, she gives me MORE cuddles during her waking times than she used to before!

That first morning after she learned how to fall asleep on her own. Look how happy she is!

I love our baby girl.

Lily is growing so fast, I don’t even know where to begin to announce all the changes going on with her. But I shall try anyway.

We’re trying to teach her “all done” in sign language, since she’s darn loud!

And, as mentioned in an earlier post, here’s a video of Lily giving kisses.

I’ve been up since 2:30a, thanks to Miss Lily Bean. I’m exhausted. Time to get ready for work. Oi.

Well, our Lily Bean is 10 months old now. Time goes so fast, and I can’t believe that it seemed only like yesterday when I gave birth to her, when we brought her home from the hospital, when she had her days and nights mixed up. Oh, Lily girl, you’re growing too fast for us sometimes.

Some updates on how our baby girl is doing, before I forget and before the time catches up with me and she’s already 5 years old. Heh.

• Our Lily Bean can stand on her own now, more and more. She really surprises herself when she does it. She’ll let go of our hands, or of the object she was leaning on, and suddenly she’s standing up by herself. Then she’d look down, and see the ground, and her little legs start shaking nervously, and she lets out a little alarmed yelp, and looks for our hands again, to steady her again. TOTALLY cute.
• As mentioned before, she knows how to give kisses, and now hugs. She gives Mommy mostly kisses, and Daddy mostly hugs. She also knows what “soft” means. I’ve been teaching her by letting her feel “soft” things next to her face, so now whenever I ask her, “Is this soft, Lily?” she’ll take the object I’m asking about and put it close to her face and nuzzle against it, as if to test out if it’s soft.
• Over the last week or so, she’s been perfecting different positions to get in and out of. Most notably, recently, she’s learned how to go from sitting to crawling and back to sitting. That last part was a big one for her. She also knows how to play while kneeled down on her knees.
• No teeth yet. Wow, it’s taking a while! But my mom said I didn’t have teeth till I was about 10 months, and Sylvia said the same about Dave, so I guess it’s normal for her to get it late too?
• Big issue #1: sleep. We’ve been doing Dave’s plan for about two weeks now, and the first week or so was difficult. First, Dave was able to get her down faster and sooner and less painful, but Lily wasn’t associating that with me. We also had to get her to the living room to calm her down before she was able to relax enough to fall asleep in our arms. Then we’d transfer her to her crib. First week and a half or so, she was waking up several times a night due to this new bedtime routine. I have to admit, bedtime gave me a bit of anxiety because I never knew how long it would take, or how grumpy she would be, or how fidgety, or how much she’d fight it. Then, as if magically, over the last 3 or 4 days, she started going down for me easier. Granted, still in my arms, while I rocked her, but I stopped bringing her out to the living room, and she’s again associated her bedroom with the lights off as “sleep” instead of “AH I wanna fight it!”Big thing now, though, is trying to get her down wide awake so she can fall asleep on her own. We’re debating whether or not to try my plan out this upcoming long weekend, since Dave’s plan is gradually working. We’re putting her down more awake each other, and she’s less fussy and she’s fighting it less, so there may not be a need to go to my plan. She’s starting to sleep through the night again, with minimal wakings, and her wakings are generally very mild and she just needs a binky (as she did before). First week or so of Dave’s plan was a bit hellish, since she was waking up several times a night and sometimes wouldn’t fall asleep for an hour or more. However, it’s hard to say if this was due to Dave’s plan or due to something entirely different, since she’s such a sensitive little baby when it comes to sleep, anyway.

  So, we shall see, I suppose.

  
  This is how Lily was sleeping when I came in at 7a this morning.

  We also got a video monitor finally, and we love watching her while she’s in the crib. So cute.

  
• Big issue #2: eating. We’re doing Baby-Led Weaning for her meal times. Meaning, we offer her all sorts of wonderful, colorful, healthy foods, and she can decide during each meal what she wants to eat, how much of it, and learn on her own time how to get them into her mouth. She’s got the pincher grasp down pretty well (though not perfect yet), but she’s still just playing with her food for the most part. Sometimes some of the food makes it into her mouth, and today we had a bit of a breakthrough when her cousin Chelsea was over. Chelsea ate some of the cheerios on her tray, and Lily decided that she, also, wanted to eat some of the cheerios, so she fed herself. Woohoo! There was practically no feeding from us. It was all led by her.
  

  I’m really trying to keep my anxiety about meal times at bay. I don’t want her to associate meal times or food as a control issue to be had, so I want to just relax and let it go and let her do her thing. She’ll eat when she needs to, right? But sometimes, I just wish she’d eat MORE. Then I start thinking, “Wait a minute. I don’t eat a whole lot, and she’s a smaller baby too, so why am I expecting or wanting or hoping that she’d eat the same amount as other babies might? I certainly don’t eat the same amount as other adults do!” Not fair to our individual little firecracker to be compared to other babies.

  

  Having said that, I took her to her doc’s appointment for a check-up about two weeks ago. As of that time, she weighed 16 lbs 12 oz. Still in the 25th percentile. I described to our doc that sometimes Lily would get so upset that she’d vomit, and the doc is concerned that she may have acid reflux, which would explain why meal times have become so difficult, and why it has been giving her so much anxiety. More so than before. So we’re looking into that and seeing what we need to do if she indeed does have acid reflux.

• Our Lily loooves her books. We read to her constantly throughout the day, and of course she gets her scheduled, routine storytime reading before bed. She has “favorite” books that she likes us to read to her, and she knows how to “turn the page” when asked and knows how to “close the book” when we say “The End” at the end. It’s the cutest thing.
  
• Lily’s day is full of play, play, and more play. Recently, we found a long tube-like box that used to hold her play pen, and I emptied it all out and made it into a play-tube for her. She loooooves crawling through it. It’s the funnest thing in the world right now. Even Tink can’t help but join in from time to time!
  

In general, our little girl is a beautiful, healthy, happy (VERY HAPPY) little girl. We can’t be more pleased. We signed her up for a play-and-grow class at Gymboree. We go for about an hour or so every Saturday, where she gets to tumble around and climb and learn to walk and crawl and bounce in this giant baby-friendly room with her babies who are also learning to do the same things. She’s very interested in other babies. Reaches out to them, tries to talk to them, tries to follow them around (until she gets bored or gets distracted and does her own thing, of course).

And, of course, our Lily continues to love her bath every night before bed. I couldn’t help but take photos of the gratuitous rock star baby look too.

Mother’s Day was awesome. Dave took us out to one of our favorite (Thai) restaurants near home, and it was my first awesome possum Mother’s Day with the Lily Bean. She’s very loud in restaurants, but she loves it because she gets so much attention from everyone who turns to look at her and makes goo-goo ga-ga faces and sounds at her.

So it’s been a while since I’ve updated, but there have been a lot of things going on with Miss Lily. Ever since we lowered her bed completely down to the lowest level, she had trouble trying to stand up in her crib — that is, until about 12 days ago. It became hard to get her down for naps and bedtime because she insisted on rolling over and crawling around. Then, I managed to teach her how to fall asleep on her own while she was on her tummy, crawling around. SCORE! It worked so well — until, of course, she learned how to stand up on the crib. Then the new game began, and all my old hard work of bedtime routine and her falling asleep on her own was out the window.

Lately, after our usual bedtime routine (bath, pjs, story time, binky and bunny, lights out), as soon as I turn off the lights, she starts getting really squirmy, like she wanted to play. Her eyes would start closing (as she has successfully associated “lights out” with “sleepy time” but her body wanted to keep on going. As soon as I put her in her crib, she would roll over immediately and start standing up. First couple of nights, she just wanted an audience. She wanted to practice getting up, and then getting down safely, but she wanted to do it while one of us was in the room. She wanted one of us to watch her to make sure she was being safe and that we were there if she needed help. Literally.

It was cute — until almost 10p rolled around and she was still up, getting up and down and up and down, over and over again, practicing. She’d count her steps in the crib while she was cruising to make sure she wasn’t going to get hurt in case she let go of the rail of her crib. Several times she fell over backwards, flat on her back, but she’d get right up again to start all over.

So then I emailed the author of the No-Cry Sleep Solution to ask her what the heck to do now. She gave me a few suggestions, such as putting her in a sleep sack, and taking her out on a walk, and staying in the room with her and rub her back and legs and stuff to encourage to her stay down and fall asleep. Did all of that. Didn’t work. She was sweating in her sleep sack, and got too hot and uncomfortable. The walk worked once, but didn’t work again after that. Rubbing her back and her legs and arms and stroking her hair worked once, but didn’t after that because she was just glad to have me in there as her audience. As soon as I stopped rubbing her back, she’d get into crawling and start climbing up the side of her crib to standing again.

After about a week of this, I was going crazy. When she usually would be down between 7:45p and 8p, she was going down any time around 9 and 9:30 and 10. Dave doesn’t approve of any method that allows her to even whimper, let alone cry, so it’s been tough. Right now, we’re trying some of Dave’s methods (which, admittedly, I don’t agree with completely but they do have some excellent nurturing points) to see if it would help her fall asleep happier and easier and quicker, like it did before. The past two days we’ve been doing it his way. First night wasn’t too bad. He rocked her out in the living room after my bedtime routine with her until she was drowsy, and then he put her down in her crib. She woke up a few times when he put her down though, insisting to be picked up and rocked again. The second night was longer and harder. She kept insisting that she not only falls asleep in his arms, but that she must STAY asleep in his arms too. Every time he put her down, she’d shoot her eyes wide open and the whole process would start again. Finally, he just left her in there, completely exhausted, and I went in to check on her. She was so tired and crawling around in her bed that she ended up putting herself to sleep. That took about 1.5 hours. Tonight, we tried an earlier bedtime routine (start at 6:30 instead of 7), just to see if we needed that extra time to get her to sleep. Dave did the whoolleee routine with her, from start to finish (outside of the bath). She was down by 7p. A little fussy, but fast asleep by 7. That’s a good change! It also has to do with the fact that she didn’t get a late afternoon nap, and only had the one 2-hour morning nap. She was exhausted!

Since starting Dave’s methods, she’s also been waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes a few times a night, insisting to be cuddled back to sleep. This may be due to something else and not due to Dave’s method, though. She did that sometimes with me too. She was usually satisfied when I just went in there to give her her binky if she woke up in the middle of the night, but now that she’s been cuddled and rocked to sleep for a few nights straight, she thinks she deserves this during the middle of the night too. Now, I wouldn’t mind, except that sometimes, it would take her a VERY long time to get back to sleep, and if I put her down in her crib, WITH binky and music on, she’d start whining and yelping really loud, so I had to pick her back up again (because according to his plan, which we are both consistently doing together, we don’t allow for her crying at all, not even whimpering). This has gotten me very cranky and tired over the last few days.

We may need to try my method eventually, if this proves to be harder than it should. She used to be able to put herself to sleep, and now she presents us with new challenges because she’s more mobile. But I believe she should be able to be re-taught on how to put herself to sleep, happy and all. Dave believes that this will come in time and we don’t need to rush things. She hasn’t been getting enough sleep at night the past few nights. Hopefully this will change. Last night, she only had 8 hours of sleep!! Poor baby. We shall see what happens tonight. If Dave’s method works, we’ll stick with it. I’m all for no-cry sleep solutions!

Here’s an example of what she’s been up to. This little girl is all about perfecting her challenges. She’s awesome. Very determined, motivated little one.

As for feeding, we’ve been introducing more finger foods into her diet. She’s getting used to being fed lumpier, chunkier foods, but she’s not really getting the idea that she can actually feed HERSELF. She plays with food with her hands, but puts inedible objects into her mouth. This girl is backwards sometimes! Heh. Last weekend, I gave her some tofu chunks glazed with cheerio crumbs. She LOVED it. But, she didn’t feed any to herself. She put it all over her face and hands instead, and I ended up just picking some up with my fingers and putting them in her mouth. She finished a whole bunch! But didn’t feed one morsel to herself. Heh. Oh well, baby steps I suppose!

She loves eating carrot sticks. Sometimes she is able to bite chunks off, but doesn’t know what to do with them in her mouth, so she spits them back out. I steam them so that they’re soft enough for her to gnaw on. She loves the taste of the carrots, but doesn’t know how to “chew” them with her gums.

Today, she tried oranges for the first time! She looooooved them. I had cut them into little itty bitty chunks so that she can learn to chew, and she just looooooved it. However, she still doesn’t know how to “chew” properly and ends up trying to swallow too-big pieces all at once. Sometimes, she’d make herself throw up in order to prevent choking. We hate when that happens. So we just have to go slower with this little one. I think, for what it’s worth, it will get easier when she has some front teeth, even though she wouldn’t be using them to “chew”… She seems to want to inspect new foods with her front gums before allow it to enter the rest of her mouth, so I think she’d try to actually chew on finger foods with her front teeth when she gets some.

So, in order to discourage fake-choking and therefore vomiting, we’re taking the lumpy foods veerryyy slloowwwwlllyyyyyy.

In other news, Lily is also standing on her own. For a few seconds at a time, but each time a fraction of a second longer. Heh. She also knows how to call “Mama” and “Dad dad” and knows how to call “Nana” when her Nana Sylv comes by. She also knows how to drink from a sippy cup. Granted, the ones we’ve had for her have been too hard for her to hold on herself and tip over, so I got her a smaller one yesterday and she took to it like a charm! She drinks water out of there easy peasy now! Our Lily also knows how to “smile” for the camera, and gives kisses to Mommy on command. Most of the time her “kisses” just means she’s gonna tilt her head towards my face, but sometimes I get the lovely, awesome open-mouth kisses. Hehe. She willingly gives her toy lamb an open-mouthed kiss whenever I ask her to though. I’m trying to get these on video but it’s hard because she’s so mobile!

This is her smiling for the camera:

Another thing I’m trying to get on video is her READING! Yes, you heard right, our Lily Bean can barely talk, but she knows how to read. Well, at this stage, it’s more like memorization of familiar words. We’ve been having her watch the “Your Baby Can Read” DVDs at least twice a day, and we’re onto the 4th DVD now. We’ve also been playing word flash cards with her several times a day. The same words over and over again, and introducing a new set of words every month. We’re now teaching her 30 words. She’s learned to recognize the first 10 that she started with. These include the words clap, hi, wave, elephant, nose, mouth, eyes, and a couple others I don’t remember. She knows how to “read” them, or rather, memorize their shapes and the meanings and sounds to them. We tested it about a week ago, out of sheer fluke, and asked her to pick out the correct word out of two cards, and she did it consistently 7 times in a row. I’ve tried to get a video of her doing this, but each time she gets bored after a couple of word games because she’d rather be crawling or cruising or playing! So far, I’ve only been able to get a photo!

Here, she’s picking out the word “nose” when I asked her to pick out the card with the word “nose” on it.

And now, for some more randomly most awesome cute photos.

Playing with her cousin Kennedy, who is 3 months and 1 day younger than she is!

We’ve been taking Lily outside more, as the weather gets nicer and nicer. Hopefully this trend will continue!