Broccolily

It seems like we're getting into that age where learning, or at least language, really picks up. Just a few weeks ago Lily started putting two words together, and a couple of days ago she put together three words to say "yummy apple juice". She seems to be gaining knowledge of numbers, but doesn't quite have the hang yet. For a couple of weeks she was calling any number of things "two", and if you asked again it might become "munn", more commonly known as one. A couple of days ago she picked up three, which comes out as "fee" or sometimes "fwee". And now when we ask how many of something good to eat like pretzels ("petsie") the answer is the biggest number she knows.

Her new vocabulary has also led to a couple of interesting and funny situations. She refers to broccoli as "Broccolily". Thank God she actually eats it in addition to talking about it. The other day she was saying goodbye to Aunt Sonya (aka "Lolo") on Skype and when Aunt Sonya said "love you", Lily replied "I tooted", which she had. At least she know's what's going on... And we were mystified at first last weekend while we were out for a walk in the sun when she kept saying "dirt eye" when there was nothing obviously wrong with her eye. "Dirt eye" turned out to mean "the sun is in my eyes", I guess because she interprets many not-quite-right things to be dirt.

While her behavior is still challenging quite often, it does seem to be getting better. When we went to story time this morning she didn't hit or pinch or bite, she just pushed. I'll take it. We also have been easing back on time outs since they didn't really seem to be having much of an effect. Instead we're just physically stopping her from doing whatever it is and warning her that if she keeps doing it there will be whatever consequence seems to hold weight at the moment. Unfortunately most of the time threatening to go home is not a very useful consequence, since she seems to prefer being at home anyway and will often ask for it "Lily hoooome". All in all we're all just being a bit more relaxed about behavior, not worrying as much when she does bad things.

Here's a cute video for you ABBA fans out there (aka Biegansky family)