Mess Maker

Dear Lila,

Your new favorite game is dumping all of your toys on the floor and rolling around in them. I guess it's kind of the equivalent to some adults' fantasy of throwing piles of cash on the floor and rolling around in them!

Love,
Mom

Who Needs A Bed?

Dear Lila,

You have a nice bed. It's big and comfy but I guess it's not big or comfy enough because every night, you insist on sleeping on the floor. You have a foam mat next to your bed but no, you don't even like to sleep on that. You prefer to sleep on the hardwood floor right next to your safety gate. Our nightly bedtime routine goes like this:

-I read a few books to you and GuhGaw

-We give GuhGaw goodnight and hugs and kisses and he goes to his room and gets into bed

-I put on your sleep sack, turn off your light, help you into bed, talk and sing to you for a little bit, say good night and get up to leave your room

-You sit up in bed and say "No! You here" to ask me to stay with you

-When I don't, you say, "Floor," get out of bed, waddle over to your gate and lay down on the floor

-I close your gate, say good night to you again and go downstairs

If I lead you back to bed while you're still awake, you just get up and lay down on the floor again as soon as I leave the room, so now I just wait until you fall asleep and have Daddy carry you to bed when he gets home from work. You've been doing this ever since we switched you to a toddler bed three months ago. For awhile, I laid out a nap mat next to the gate so that you at least fell asleep on the mat but after a couple weeks, you started pushing the mat out of the way and laying on the plain hardwood floor. *scratches my head in befuddlement* Oh well. I guess it's good for your back?

You like to sleep on the floor during nap time, too!

Love,

Mom

Princess Massacre

Dear Lila,

While I was cooking dinner tonight, you were sitting on the floor and playing with your Disney princess figurines. You lined them all up, grabbed a toy car . . . and then plowed them all down. You even went, "Aaaaaagh!" to mimic screaming. Um, should I be worried? :-P

Love,
Mom

You're Two Years Old!

Dear Lila,

Sometimes, you climb into my lap, lay back so that I have to cradle you and say, "Baby." It's your way of telling me that you want me to rock you like a little baby. And even though you are getting way too heavy to be rocked like that, I always oblige because you will always be my little baby girl. Of course, if we're going to get technical about it, you are no longer my little baby girl (*sniff*) because you are 2 years old now!

I absolutely love everything about you. You are growing into such an incredible person and I am so proud to be your mom. You are so happy and giggly. You are very sweet and affectionate and always giving me hugs and kisses. You are so curious and observant of the world around you and constantly point things out to me (a plane flying overhead, a squirrel climbing up a tree, a puppy across the street) when we are out. You are caring and compassionate--if GuhGaw or I get hurt, you run over, rub our injury and comfort us by saying, "K k k k k [it's okay, it's okay, it's okay]." You love to read. You can be shy and quiet but are starting to come out of your shell and be more social with other people. You love to sing and dance; your favorite songs right now are "Shake It Up" by Taylor Swift, "All About That Bass" by Meghan Trainor and "Do You Want To Build A Snowman?" and "Let It Go" from the Frozen soundtrack. Your face lights up and you enthusiastically sing along and do your adorable bouncy dance every time you hear these songs.

And you are a serious child anomaly because you LOVE vegetables. Carrots, broccoli, squash--it's all good! At Thanksgiving dinner this year, you didn't eat much chicken or stuffing or potatoes but had *three* helpings of green beans and ate your brother's green beans when he didn't touch them. You actually rejected a piece of apple pie in favor of more green beans. We had noodles with sauteed spinach for lunch yesterday and when I tried to feed you the noodles, you shook your head and pointed at the spinach. And at dinner tonight, you ate eight stalks of broccoli! Amazing!

Another thing I love is that you are a total mama's girl. Forget about being "Daddy's little girl"--you are all about Mommy, often pushing Daddy, your nanny and other people away and insisting that I be the one who feed you, read to you or tuck you in at night (sometimes, you even insist that I be the one who take away your dirty dishes or throw your garbage out and it's like, really??). Obviously, it breaks Daddy's heart when you won't even let him sit with the two of us at the dinner table (that's way harsh, Tai) but I love how attached you are to me. I am your number one girl and you are mine :)

Happy birthday, Lilabear! I love you so much!

Love,
Mom

TV Addict

Dear Lila,

Your vocabulary has exploded this month! Your repertoire of words now includes: cup, glove, car, duck, dog, mine, Airee (Ariel, the little mermaid), yep, okay, kiss, gate, happy, sad, mad, phone, the numbers 1-10, dark, ow, ew, sar (sorry), bear, Elmo, food, snack, fan fan (Chinese for rice), peen peen (Chinese for diaper), bat, frog, Buh Guh (Bubble Guppies), pop (lollipop), stop, backpack, couch, cake, fish, grape, bird, wa wa (water), bo (boat), boon (balloon) and--whenever you see Santa--ho ho ho!

Oh, and one of your absolute favorite words is "TV." I don't let you watch much of it and you often ask me to turn it on by looking up at me with your big brown eyes, smiling your irresistible smile and nodding while you say in a high-pitched voice, "TV? Yeah? TV?" You always look so cute and sweet that it's hard to say no! And if I do turn on the television and you're in another room, you come running while cheering, "Yay! TV! Yay! TV!" Haha!

Love,
Mom

Soccer Star

Dear Lila,

Happy early birthday! We celebrated your upcoming 0-2 with a Bubble Guppies-themed party at Soccer Friends today and you had so much fun! It was your first time playing soccer and you did such a great job listening to the soccer coaches and following their instructions. And I loved seeing how much you enjoyed kicking the balls around and into the goal. You were a natural! 

Love,

Mom

Lila Funnies

Dear Lila,

Funny things you did this week:

-After you pooped in your diaper, you pinched your nose and said, "Chow chow" (Chinese for smelly).

-When GuhGaw was misbehaving, you took it upon yourself to scold him, wagging your finger at him and repeatedly saying, "Yi yi! Yi yi!"

-You were trying to pull off your sock but it was stuck since your foot was bent. You pulled so hard that your whole body started to quiver and you yelped, "Help!" (first time you said "help").

-You were playing in the dining room and I went into the foyer to get something. When you realized I wasn't in the dining room with you anymore, you thought I'd gone upstairs and jetted to the stairs shouting, "Wait wait wait wait wait!" (first time you said "wait"). When I called out to you from the foyer, you turned around, saw me and smiled a big cheesy smile that was like, "Oh, haha! I thought you were upstairs!"

-You liked the vegetable and pasta soup I made for dinner last night so much that when you were almost done eating it, you picked up the bowl, stuck your whole face in it and noisily slurped up the rest of the soup.

-You were playing in Connor's room while I was giving your brother a shower last night. When we came into the room, you had put Connor's stuffed lion on the changing pad, pulled out a dozen baby wipes from the box and "cleaned" the lion's butt with them.

Ha!

Love,
Mom