2 Years, 10 Months

Dear Lily,

I'm sorry it's been a few months since I've written a letter to you! It's gotten hard to find a time to sit down uninterrupted to write one of these out lately! I'm trying my hardest to catch up! I do take photos every month though! You've grown so far in the last 4 months since I've written to you! You are learning new things left and right!

A big theme in your life has been music. You are still making up songs all the time! You love to walk around the house making up lyrics as you go! It cracks us up every time! I'm so glad that you love music so much! You also love to listen to music, especially things with drums! And you love to play with your musical instruments, and the little toy keyboard. I hope you continue to love music as much as you do now! It's a big part of Mommy's life, and I hope the same for you.



Your play has gotten a lot more developed over the last few months. You love t play pretend with me. You'll go through stories with me, pretending to cook or go shopping. I recall one day playing with you, and you were pretending to make pancakes. You kept asking me what I wanted in on my pancakes. "You want strawberries on your pancakes Mommy? Here you go!! You want whipped cream Mommy? Here you go!! You want ketchup Mommy....no no no!" You have such a fun sense of imagination now!

Another thing you love to play with me is with your blocks. Our new thing together is to build a zoo or a farm out of blocks, then play with your animals in the structures we made. One day we made a theme park for the animals to play in, complete with a grand entrance to the park and a huge slide! "Excuse me Mr. Elephant, can I have your ticket please? Enjoy your day sir!!" We had a lot of fun that day taking turns being the ticket master, and making the animals go down the slide!

Another fun play that we have started this month is acting out stories. Right now we've just been sticking to "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "Three Little Pigs". You like to be Goldilocks and Baby Bear, and the Wolf. You still need help remembering your lines, but you have fun! I've been patiently waiting until you were an age where we could start doing this, so it's exciting for me! I can't wait to add some new stories to our repertoire!

Another thing I've been patiently waiting to do with you is writing out your own stories! We finally are starting to do that! You've written 2 stories so far while drawing. Your first was a short two page story about Charlie and Lola. It read "Charlie, Lola, and Marv, and Lotta are on the paper. Charlie and Lola have and orange car! They are taking a trip!" That was written a couple months ago. Last week we tried again to write a story. It started by you telling me this silly story about going to work on a spaceship, and learning Spanish from the people at work! I saw an opportunity there, and asked if we could draw some pictures and write down your story. We had a really fun time writing this one down! Here is your story: "One day Lily took her spaceship to work! She explored the planet! Lily found a marshmallow on the planet! She ate it! It was too yucky! She threw it in the trash can! Lily broke the marshmallow! Lily met a head on the planet. The head said 'Scoopoo!' Lily said 'CiCi!' Lily has a spoopoo!" By the end you were starting to loose interest with coloring, and the story got a little silly, but we had a lot of fun writing and coloring together! I hope we continue to make up stories together!

Drawing artwork for the story above:


From the story I just wrote about, you can see that you have been silly lately and are making up words! This has been a HUGE theme in your life lately!! You are often speaking weird words that you have made up, and tell me you are speaking Spanish! It's so funny to see you making this stuff up!

In addition to making up your own words, you've also been using a lot of baby talk lately. In fact you've been pretending to be a baby a lot lately. You seem to be having a hard time with growing up and becoming a big girl lately. I'm sure it has something to do with your sisters. You suddenly want to use bibs again, don't want to use the potty anymore, refuse to relinquish the binky, and have even asked to nurse a few times. You often will say "I'm not a big girl! I'm a baby!" It's sad to see you struggling with moving on from being a toddler to a preschooler. I'm struggling with it too! I wish you could always stay my baby, but at the same time, it's so exciting to see how much you are growing up and learning! When you are having a hard time with this, we try to give you extra cuddles, and remind you of all the fun things big girls get to do that babies don't get to do, like go to the park, eat lollipops, and go to little gym!

Speaking of Little gym, you've come so far in the last few months! You are now able to do your forward rolls completely by yourself, and donkey kicks, walk across the beam, spider crawl, and swing on the bar, all by yourself!! You've even done warm up by yourself before! We only have this summer left of parent child classes!! :( In the fall you are moving up to the gymnastic class, and we're going to be left behind the glass to watch you! I'm so sad that we are moving on from those parent child classes! I've had so much fun playing with you in the gym for the last 2 years!
I know you will also be sad to no longer see Miss. Lori every week! It will be fun though to see what you can do on your own!

You continue to assert your independence any way you can. You want to do things yourself or help with everything, especially getting dressed, brushing your teeth, and making your meals! You LOVE to help me make lunch! You like to spread the peanut butter or mayo on your sandwiches, and get the water for your bottle. You also love to help me bake! The other week you had a fun time helping me make Daddy's birthday cake! You've also been really interested in listening to recipes. You often as me to tell you the recipe to make certain things! We go through simple things like making a PB&J sandwich, or a cheese burger, to cookies and cakes! You really like talking through the steps to make lots of things!

Unfortunately things aren't all good at this age. You've been testing our limits a lot lately. You do things like jump in the couch, scream at the top of your lungs, and walk circles around your sister, pretending to step on them. I admit, sometime it is hard to stay calm when you are testing us. We've started singing a calm down song with you though when you get frustrated, which has been helping sometimes. You are always quick to suggest I sing it when I need to calm down too!


The most exciting thing in your cognitive development over the last few months is you're beginning to recognize letters!! You can recognize L, B, O, and T most times, and have also been able to point out a few other letter correctly!! You also have been working on sounding out words to figure out what the first letter of the word is! We'll her you say "Ba, ba, ba...ball! Ball starts with B!!" You're favorite is to sound out Lily though. Every time you see and L you exclaim "L, L starts with Lily!! That's my name!"

You seem to have a love hate relationship with our sisters right now. I expect this to last for a while! They are at the stage now when they are starting to reach for and play with your toys, which you really don't like! It's been hard getting you to share toys with them. Usually you are really good though and will pick out a new toy for your sisters if you want to take away the toy they have. You also continue to be really good at helping me with them. You love having little jobs to do. And you love to tell be "I'm and good big sister helper! I get the bottles, and diapers and toys!" You do adore your sisters, even if they play with your toys sometimes. You love giving them hugs, and kisses, and get just as excited as I do when they roll over or get up to their knees! You are a great big sister Lily!


Right now we are in the middle of what we are calling our summer of adventures. We've made a plan to go on some sort of adventure each weekend this summer. Last summer was had with me being pregnant with twins, so we didn't get to do as much as we would have liked with you, so we are trying to make it up to you this summer. So far we've taken you to the zoo for the first time, a Renaissance faire for the first time, the aquarium, and to your first real movie ("How to Train Your Dragon") and also to see Shrek 4 on a special date with Mommy! We're also going to the Berkshires next week with Nannie, and then to Vermont for the 4th of July! And we're hoping to go to the beach sometime, and Boston, and who knows where else! We love getting you out to new places! And you are having a fun time seeing and trying new things!

We are so so so proud of how much you have grown and learned over the past few months Lily! You are becoming such an independent little lady! You almost aren't a toddler anymore, you are almost a preschooler! It makes me so sad how fast time has flown, and how quickly you grew up. Before I know it you are going to be going to school! Please slow down! I'm not ready for you to be growing up this fast! I love you so much Lily!

Love,

Mommy


What I get when I ask you to smile for me now:

Tom boy at heart:


Helping in the garden:


2 years, 10 months photos: