One and a Half Years of Lily

Today is Lily's half birthday, or semi birthday, or anti birthday, or whatever you care to call it. I guess it's a good day to take a step back and think about what she's been up to lately and how it compares to the past. It's funny, "the past" used to mean pre-Lily to me, but now the past definitely includes Lily time too.

Lots of things are changing quickly for Lily, mostly her vocabulary and how she finds a new obsession every few days or weeks. Right now she has two obsessions - horses and dirt. I think horses will pass but dirt may be with us for a while. She found a love of horses about a week ago while we were in Vienna and there were horse-drawn carriages making their way through the streets of the old city. Whenever we'd hear hooves clicking down the street she'd say "horses, horses" (actually "husses husses") until she saw them. It eventually evolved into her saying it any time we went outside, and now she says it many times a day, and asks for the toy horses in her backpack ("dakdak"). As for dirt, first she started saying dustpan ("duhdauh"), then mama told her that the dustpan picked up dirt, then Lily started to point out dirt ("dit") on the floor that needed to be swept up. Now, she equates any cleaning activity or anything that's dirty with dirt, and actively talks about it. As an example, the hotel we were staying at last week had very friendly staff in the breakfast room who loved Lily. But since they cleaned the tables, she started pointing at them and saying "dit"... so these very nice ladies were known as dirt, and by the last day, we went to breakfast and before she saw any of them she was asking for "dit" as in "where are the dirt ladies"?

Lily is super friendly with strangers, smiling at everyone and saying "hi" and "tchuss" (German "bye"). We definitely hope she keeps up this trait, as well as continuing to say "yeah" to everything... she hasn't hit a "no" phase yet at all. There are still a couple of things we wish she'd cut out - biting (it's lessened, but she still does it when she's very frustrated) and pulling her hair and eating it. The last one just began a couple of weeks ago and while it's pretty gross we're ignoring it on the advice of a book since it's not dangerous and the theory is that it's a power grab ("you can tell me to not pull out my hair but I'm going to keep doing it because I can do whatever I want"). But we really can't complain, as she continues to be a great sleeper and eater. Knock on wood...

If I had to sum up Lily in this phase I would say she is high energy and emotional. She always wants to be on the go getting into something, and she can get pretty whiny if her every whim is not catered to. This is especially true in the car, where Nicole has to constantly give her attention in the back seat and lately has to keep her hand on Lily's leg to let her know she's paying attention. It's definitely hard for us to balance caving to her every desire versus dealing with a tantrum (they're starting) or whining, but I guess we'll continue to find our way on that one.