Mama Mia

listen closely

Would you eat this on a boat with a goat?

When Lillian won't try a new food or won't each something on her plate, we go into Sam I am mode and start reciting words to Green Eggs and Ham. It works pretty well and will usually result in her at least taking a tiny bite of the food. Mind you, we don't make her clean her plate, just to try each thing on her plate.


It was bound to happen that she would turn the tables on me. And she did the other day at lunch. She requested a bologna and cheese sandwich, so I made her one. She then took all the bologna off (she likes to disassemble her sandwiches this way.) She then tried to give the bologna to me. I told her to just put it on the table (I had already touched it once to make the sandwich and REALLY did not want to touch it again!). Lillian then started on the Sam I Am lingo. I tried pretending to take a bite but she knew I was faking. I then told her that I tried bologna before and did not like it. She just kept saying, "Dr. Seuss creature, take a bite. You might like it."

She finally stopped when I told her I did not eat meat and got up and threw the bologna away. I just hope she does not start using that excuse to get out of trying new foods. She did try popcorn shrimp last night and LOVED it. Well she loved the homemade tartar sauce (evidenced by her eating it by the spoonfuls) and the shrimp. She started popping the shrimp out of the coating, eating the shrimp and leaving the coating behind. I thought that was funny because when I would eat popcorn shrimp, I really did not want the shrimp, just the coating.

We all survived

the daddy and daughter weekend at Granny's house! Apparently Lillian was on excellent behavior at Granny's house and only asked for mommy when she bumped her head on the first night. Lillian enjoyed petting Kiko, Granny's cat (actually was my cat first) and trying to feed snacks to the other cat, Twist. Twist was not interested in coming in the house while Lillian was there. When Granny was explaining the Twist was just shy and didn't know who Lillian was, Lillian said, "I'm Lillian. Tell her I'm Lillian."

The first night putting her to bed, she told Joe, "You go talk to the cat Daddy. I want Granny in here." She had fun with Granny giving her constant tours of the house and picking apples from the apple tree in Granny's yard.

Daddy and Granny decided to take Lillian to the beach Saturday morning. Knowing how all our other beach excursions have gone, Joe figured they would drive the 30 minutes to the beach, Lillian would walk around for 15 minutes and then she would be ready to go. So no swimsuit (which I packed) went with them. Well Lillian loved the beach as you can tell by these pictures:

Joe had to go to one of the beach shops to buy towels (they had no toddler swimsuits there!) Sunday morning they headed back to the beach, this time armed with a swimsuit, towels, a sand bucket and shovels.

She was NOT ready to leave Sunday afternoon and ran around the house hiding from Joe. She did not seem all that thrilled to see me when they got home but she did let me hold her for a long time and put her head on my shoulder. I was able to paint her bathroom cabinets, go the the spa, see a movie with a friend and drink a lot of wine!

Off to Granny's

This afternoon, Joe and Lillian left for a weekend at Granny's house. Joe and I have left Lillian overnight with Granny at our house before but this is the first time I will be left alone in almost 2.5 years!

When Joe first came up with this idea, I was excited but as it had gotten closer, the more nervous I became. This morning we stopped at the car dealership to have them check the air pressure in the tires and Lillian needed to use the potty. As she was sitting on the potty, she leaned over to me and said, "I love you so much. I so glad you came to me." I started crying right there!

On a lighter note, while waiting for the car, we read a book, "A Goose in on the Loose." One of the pages reads: The goose went to the zoo. During the first reading of this book (there were four), when we got to that page, Lillian said the word "zoo" all by herself (I had not said it yet.) I later pointed to the words and asked her what it was, and she said "zoo." Is it possible that she can already spell? We do have a couple books with the word zoo in them so I guess she has just memorized what the word looks like.

BEWARE GRANNY - SHE IS BRINGING HER CANDYLAND GAME WITH HER!

Here is Lillian getting ready for her trip:

Roses - from morning until the night

story will be coming soon!

Taboo Topic of the Day

I'm not sure how this subject encompassed our entire morning or why Lillian has issues with it

At breakfast this morning, as daddy was leaving for work:
L - "Daddy, am I growing?"
D - "Yes; you are; you are growing so big!"
L - "I don't want to grow."

To the lady giving mommy her test to renew her driver's license:
Lady - "How old are you?"
Mommy - "She is almost 2 and a half."
Lady - "You're growing up."
L (in a loud, very stern voice) - "No I am not growing!"

In the car on the way to the art museum:
L- "I don't want to grow. I not growing when I go to the zoo. I just be Lillian. I go by myself with no mommy and no daddy. Just myself."

Mommy & Daddy need to learn sign language

Tonight at dinner:
Lillian - "I'm eating my dinner before I get dessert."
mommy & daddy have not mentioned anything about dessert

Later on after mommy and daddy were done eating and Lillian was still picking at her plate:
Daddy talking to no one in particular - "Do you want a P-O-P-S-I-C-L-E?"

Mommy - "No, it's too late"

Lillian - "I want one"

Mommy - "You want what?"

Lillian - "A popsicle"

Daddy & Mommy - "Do you know what word daddy was spelling? What does P-O-P-S-I-C-L-E? spell?"

Lillian after a few moments of thinking - "Popsicle"

So Lillian got a popsicle. We are not sure if she actually knows what daddy was spelling or just knows that if she is going to get dessert, it is usually a popsicle. Either way it looks like those books on baby sign language we have might need to be cracked open so mommy and daddy can talk without Lillian knowing what we are saying!

Lillian having a picnic with some of her friends. She told me they wanted to have "pineapple and payas for food." It took me a few seconds to realize she was requesting papayas!

Swimming

Finally a video of Lillian swimming on vacation:

Driving Miss Lillian

As previously stated, Lillian is very aware of her surroudnings and loves to be in the car. She likes to eat her snacks in the car and make statements/bark orders at her driver(s).

• "Turn up" - driver please turn up the volume so I can jam to The Wiggles (Which she will be seeing LIVE IN CONCERT in August. We have seats right on the floor!) She even knows whcih button is for the volume and if she sees your hand go near the knob, she will say, "No no, just put your hand down now."
• "Are there any silly drivers here?" - we try not to say the words stupid or dumb so we have replaced them with silly. The other week there we were in a road construction area and lots of cars were doing silly things. I told her that and that we were going to go a different way to avoid them. So every time we get near that area, she is on the lookout for silly drivers.
• "Beep your horn at them" -if I happen to mention there are silly drivers, she wants me to beep the horn at them.
• "There are a lot of cars coming" - when she sees cars coming towards us
• "Do we have our lights on?" - it was raining this morning while we were in the car and I guess she saw the lights from the other cars.
• "Just hit that stick" - to turn the windshield wipers on. She gets very concerned when there are raindrops on the car and I have not turned the wipers on yet. She seems to think that for even ONE raindrop the wipers must go on.
• "Are we going to stop?" - when she sees a red light.
• "Those cars are down. We are up." - this morning as we went through an overpass.
• "Are we turning left/right?" - when I say we are going to make a left/right turn.
• "Oh, where we find a parking spot?" - when I am looking for a parking spot in downtown that I do not have to pay for!
  

Because we can

take embarrassing photos of Lillian using the potty all by herself:

A Hurricane in Marbles

Today, our local children's museum, Marbles, held the opening of the Marbles Olympics and had Rod Brindamour there signing autographs for the kids. Joe really wanted to get Brindamour's autograph so we put on Lillian's Hurricane cheerleader outfit, gathered all our Hurricane junk and headed to the museum.

Lillian and I are usually there during the week so to see the crowd today was a bit much. As soon as we got in, we saw Stormy. Lillian was a bit hesitant at first so Joe had to hold her but then she warmed up and gave Stormy a hug:


After that Joe went and took his place in line while I followed Lillian around the play area. Joe called me when he was near the front of the line and asked me to bring Lillian over so it would look for legitimate (apparently the autographs were supposed to be just for the kids.) Lillian was not very happy that I tore her away from the glue in the craft area but we went.




There were a couple of cheerleaders that saw her and wanted to have a picture with her. Lillian was not into that and promptly fell onto the floor. Then one of the cheerleaders tried to grab her to pull her into them and Lillian started to cry. She does not like strange people (or even people she knows sometimes) trying to make her do something she does not want to. Eventually Joe held her and these are the two pictures we got:



We then took her upstairs for the Olympic displays and she quickly found her Olympic spirit on the gymnastics floor - does anyone else see a rhythm Olympic gymnast in the near future?

Why is my daughter the only one naked?

This is the question I get from Joe when I show him the pictures from our playgroup yesterday. Why - because she is Lillian, that's why.

Lillian got her dress wet playing at the water table and she DOES NOT LIKE wet clothes on her so the dress came off. Next she poured water on her panties so the panties had to come off. She was having a good time, I did not bother putting clothes on her. When it was time to go, she was so filthy with sand and watermelon juice, I just put a clean pair of panties on her and strapped her in the car.

Hopefully we will not have to ask this question when she is 13 and we go to pick her up from a party!

Meet Pinky the Poodle

Here is Lillian's backpack for using the big big potty in public. She has named him Pinky. She likes to cuddle with Pinky in the car and constantly tells him, "I love you little puppy puppy." She will wear it as a backpack form the car into a store but once inside a store, she is all, "Mommy you hold Pinky now."

She seems to use Pinky only to carry her snacks in and eat them in the car. So I have traded the big backpack (thank you Irma) for my sling backpack AND a pink poddle backpack.

hugging the red T*arget ball with Pinky

Waking up with her cup of coffee and Pinky

Outsmarted by a two year old

Part of our nightly bedtime routine ends with whipped cream. Let me explain:

Joe and I put Lillian to bed together. Right before we put her in the crib, we would do a family hug. One night she was not into it, so I said that I wanted a Lillian sandwich. Joe and I would hold lay Lillian down in our arms, we were the bread and Lillian was the sandwich stuffing. We would ask her what type of Lillian sandwich she wanted and then proceed to make it on her (she requested lots of peanut butter and jelly with all sorts of toppings like pickles, tomatoes, cheese, applesauce, etc.).

That lasted for a few weeks and then when that did not work anymore, we switched to Joe and I squirting whipped cream on her. Lillian got into that and would pretend to shake her own can of whipped cream and spray it on us. One night a few weeks ago, she was still playing this game in her crib and I said that we were out of whipped cream. Lillian looked at us and said, "I went to the store and just bought some." Joe and I just laughed knowing that this was just the start of her outsmarting us!

Little Miss Independent

We have been sitting Miss Lillian on the potty when she gets up in the morning. On Sunday, she went ALL BY HERSELF. No help pulling down her pajama shorts (she usually runs around with no panties in the morning), no help getting on the step stool, no help putting her potty seat on the toilet, no help sitting on the potty, no help wiping, no help getting down, no help flushing and no help pulling up her pajama shorts.

Joe had gotten her up that day and when he said it was time to potty, she told she would do it all by herself. She has done it a few more times since then but she seems to have some trouble with pulling her panties down.

And Lillian is finally using the big big potty (the regular potty) when we are out in public. I got tired of carrying around the travel folding potty seat so when she used the big potty on vacation, I used it as a bargaining chip. She liked a backpack she saw at a bookstore so I told her if she started using the big big potty, she could get a backpack. She did it for a week and she picked out her backpack last night and I ordered for her. The past two days , I have been able to leave the house with the small sling backpack that I love! Now if only bribery worked that easy for the pacifier!

Gone

is the diaper genie! Lillian now only uses diapers at night so there is really no sense keeping that thing in her room any longer!

Here is Lillian celebrating with some of mommy's high heels. I think she walks better in them then me!

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