Lila Journal
Falling asleep: Pretty much since birth, Lila has liked to hold on to the edge of a sleeve, or the bottom or neckline of my shirt, and feel it in one hand to go to sleep. She still does it. Now she sometimes wants to grab my shirt when she's upset in the car. "Please? Plllllllllease???" She doesn't hang on to any special stuffed animal or blankie - although within the last month or two she's wanted to have the blankie over her to sleep. She's fell asleep holding a dollie twice, three times maybe. Charlie usually gives her a bath around 7:00. Then I take over for nighttime. He brings her to me wrapped in a towel, singing "Rock a bye baby" and plops her in my arms. For some reason, at night she wants her pj's on right away and doesn't have the patience to wait for the diaper. Then we read 5 books (I have to put a limit on it or she'd keep it going for hours), put her music on, and attempt to settle down for bedtime. This attempt can take minutes or up to an hour, depending on how much she wants to avoid sleeping. She wants her blankie on, her gagee in, she'll toss and turn until she finds a comfortable position (I have to hold her until she's out for the night), and mess with my shirt. She may drink some to a whole cup of water-juice, usually holding the cup tight to her until she's asleep. For a couple of weeks, I put her to bed in my bed, same routine, and she wanted to hold her book and her cup to sleep. Not any small book and she doesn't want me to read it first. It's HER book. A big hardcover book of Maya Angelou's poem "Life Doesn't Frighten Me" that's about half her size. This is pretty impossible and she would eventually give up the book and settle in for sleeping.
I have newly discovered the farmer's market and bought strawberries last week. She devoured them! We couldn't get the small container away from her! She ate all of them in two sittings. She ate more at my Mom & Dad's over the weekend. I bought two containers today.
I feel like there's something new every day. She's putting more words together into sentences now and getting into more imaginative play. At the Emerald Valley lake, she and Charlie were playing and she was all about "the owl." "I touched the owl." And when they banged on a large rock with sticks, she started to pat it and say, "Sorry, owl. It's ok, owl." At Osborne, the Arctic Horned Owl was a kitty. The black bear was a monkey. She talked about a monkey later, pointing to ... something ... and looked at me like I was crazy when I couldn't figure out what she was talking about. I even tried picking up a pretend invisible monkey. I think she thought I had lost my marbles.
Charlie has started a new circle game. Now she not only likes to swing, but swing in circles. I don't know how she doesn't loose everything in her stomach.
She likes to pretend she's a puppy or kitty. Since seeing the grey wolf at Osborne, she's been howling like a wolf.
She adores her cousin, Sophie. Sophie's about 11 months older than Lila. (And we just found out that she has a baby brother or sister on the way! Due 12-9-08) Lila loves everything about Sophie. We went to Bill & Mary's last night and when Kendall (Charlie's brother Matt's wife), Mary Morgan, and Sophie got there, she RAN to see them. Zipped past me and Nana Mary like we were standing still. She wanted Sophie to do everything with her and was especially insistent that she splash the noodles in the pool with her. After dinner, they both got a bath from Nana, and while Bill and I bitched government and politics in the kitchen, suddenly two nakie toddlers came running and screaming from the bathroom. They ran circles over and over and over. It was hilarious! and they were having a blast. Lila actually fell asleep in the car on the way home. :) They need to live closer to us....
We had much less screaming this morning, too. It was sooo nice. I was in the shower already when she woke up. She was upset that I wasn't there, but calmed down once I finally got into the bedroom. We snuggled for a while. At one point, she starting lightly rubbing my cheek and face with her hand. One of the sweetest feeling in the world was that little hand on my cheek. I got her to repeat it a couple of times, then she did the same thing to her arm and I think was telling me she was washing. Whatever the motivation, it was super sweet. :)