Lily is learning and doing so much as she approaches her second birthday. She is able to identify and label all uppercase letters thanks to the letters that we play with in the tub. She is thrilled with herself. She can also count to 10 (most of the time), but her favorite counting activity is to recognize when there are two of something (two cups, two bottles of lotion) and then announce two. Today she even counted by twos (2, 4, 6) but we know this was just a fluke. She's also talking so much more and can be (as my grandfather used to say about his grandchildren) a little chatterbox. She does have a few words that I will call "toddler speak" and we've yet to figure out what she means. "Boodie es" she tells us means food. She usually says this when she wants something else to eat and we open the pantry door. We can't pinpoint what food she is referring to, but she doesn't give up and continues to ask everyday. Maybe one day the mystery will be solved.
Lily loves running and playing chase and every night after dinner she announces, "mommy running, daddy running, Lily running" and so we all race around the kitchen and living room squealing with delight. We really need to capture this on video. Whenever a friend comes to play Lily touches her friend on the shoulder and says "run" hoping that she can start a game of chase. Most of the time she's successful but her friends tire of the game long before she does.
We are laying the ground work for potty training. I bought her a book called A Potty For Me, by Karen Katz that she loves. We read it multiple times a day--her idea, not mine. I bought her a potty a few months ago just to get her used to the idea. When we first got it, she would sit her dolls in it, but she wouldn't sit, then eventually she would sit on it but only if she were fully clothed. Then we managed to get her to sit with her diaper on and now she will sit with no diaper. But, I could never get her to sit still long enough to actually do anything in the potty. Cue the fun bathtub letters that she's so fond of. I got them out and told her she could play with them if she sat on her potty. She decided that this is a great way to spend her time and now she asks to sit on the potty with her letters. This week she's used the potty two times! We look inside and clap and then she flushes the toilet after I empy her little potty. I'm not sure when I will officially begin training but this is a start. Truthfully, I think when she's ready it will be easy, but like all of her developmental milestones you can't force her to do anything before she's ready.
During our long Memorial Day weekend we took a trip to the North Carolina Zoo. Lily talked the whole way there about seeing animals. The zoo is divided into two sections: North America and Africa. We chose to visit Africa because we thought she'd enjoy those animals more. Lily was very excited to see the gorillas and chimpanzees and stayed and watched them for a long time. The chimps kept her attention because they were hanging out near the crowd of onlookers so we had a great view of their antics. We even saw a baby chimp playing with her mom. We also saw the lions, elephants, giraffes, antelope, geese, and ostriches. After about 2 hours at the zoo we knew it was time to head home for lunch and naptime. We learned that we will need to do a better job of preparing her to leave the zoo next time because once we got to the parking lot she started crying asking for "animoos" and she cried most of the way home.
We completed our first semester of music class this week. We will take a summer session in August and hopefully will follow with a fall semester class too. Lily has blossomed over the course of the semester. She's moved from just observing in class to active participation. She doesn't always sing in class but she will do the movements and play the instruments. At home, she sings and dances with great enthusiasm. If I start a song she can fill in the words and motions. Lily has also begun to look for household items to use as instruments such as playing cookie tins with a wooden spoon for drums.
Well, that's our wrap up for the month of May. I know this was a long post but I hope you enjoyed reading it.
