Half Birthday!

Yesterday, July 28, Lilly turned 1 1/2 years old!

Today we went to her pediatrician for her check-up and she is 24 lbs (58th percentile), 32" long (61st percentile) and her head circumference is 18.5" (64th percentile).  We are happy to report that she is 100% healthy! She was okay at the doctor's until the doctor had to check her out. There were some tears streaming down her face, but not too many. The big tears and crying came when we got her Hepatitis A and Pnuemococcal vaccinations, but that only lasted a second since she was rewarded with ...STICKERS!

Lilly has recently gotten into stickers. She used to enjoy putting them on pieces of paper, as her Grandma Dana showed her how to do. However, yesterday she was super giddy when the Hallmark sales lady put a Hallmark Gold Crown sticker on her shirt. Last night Max and Brian were rewarded by Lilly with Disney stickers placed very carefully on their shirts.

Lately she's been eating like a horse and drinking tons of milk. The only bad thing is that she prefers her milk warmed and in a bottle. Everything else she'll take in a cup, but that milk HAS TO BE in a bottle. It's a habit we're going to have to break very soon.

Another bad habit that we had a little bit of breakthrough with is sleeping with us. For exactly a year now, Lilly has been sleeping in our bed. She loves it, we love it, but it's not a good thing. On the eve of her half-birthday (two nights ago), as I was changing her diaper and getting her ready for bed in the nursery, she pointed to her crib and indicated that she wanted to go in it. So in she went and she fell asleep in there!! SCORE! She woke up in the middle of the night and Brian brought her straight to our bed, where she promptly fell back to sleep. ALMOST THERE! In August we're changing her crib into a toddler bed, so we'll really tackle sleeping in her own room next month.

She's picking up words all the time so we have to remind ourselves to watch our language. Lilly is so very sweet and loving. She loves giving kisses, receiving them and she's a hugger. She's also learned to eskimo kiss and adores giving those kisses out.

Lilly has another tooth coming in, the one between her left bottom molar and the four bottom front teeth. When she grins you can see a little bit of white poking through. Yai is insisting that Lilly gets a haircut (or that I use barrettes only - instead of her unicorn ponytail/fountain of water of bangs bc she looks like a "dek learnk quai" which translates literally to "child raising a cow", meaning "country bumpkin"). So tomorrow morning we're going to the salon. It'll be Lilly's 2nd professional haircut (bc Yai's "snip snips" don't count).

At the pool she is the QUEEN. She rules the baby pool and loves to walk around in it and play with her toys. Should she fall into the water, she's pretty good about holding her breath/blowing bubbles, and finds her way back to the surface. In the big kid pool she enjoys standing and playing on the first two steps of the stairs on her own. She also enjoys jumping into the pool and will do a finger countdown to her jump.

Jumping is her new thing. It took her a while to master it, but she's pretty good. The trampoline at gymanstics provides lots of enjoyment. She can run now! Although I think that wearing flip flops and sandals have taken its toll on her little toes. We're still not hard-core potty training, but she's waking up with dry diapers and going straight to the potty. It's a start!

She's still a little artist and has really gotten into sidewalk chalk. Unfotunately she has brought her love of drawing on the ground into the house. Today I scrubbed crayon off our hardwood floors.

Although I'm obviously with Lilly everyday, last week when I woke up, I looked at her and she looked older, taller, a big girl! She's definitely a toddler now!