Music to My Ears

Well I'm happy to report that I finally got a "Mommy" out of her. So it's now REALLY official - I'm someone's Mom. To be fair I wasn't in the room when she gave me my title. Gordon had gone in to wake her up and she said "Mommy" while on the changing table. I was close enough to hear it though - pretty awesome. I try not to dwell on the fact that I barely cracked the top five. Here are the people who came before me:
1. Daddy (also known as "Da" and "Dada" -she's got this one nailed from every perspective)
2. Barney (yes, I confirmed the suspected daycare link)
3. Papa
4. Grammy
I'm sure there will come a day when I will not want to hear her say Mommy for the upteenth time... but for now - I'll savor it every chance I get.

Lily's language is starting to take off now in a very general way. It's fascinating to see her make connections and build her vocabulary. It's also great to have a little window into what's going on in her head. Her recent additions:

Water - quickly rocketing to the "most used" spot. Lily seems to always want water - making me wonder if she's spent the beginning of her young life dehydrated or something. Just today she threw herself face first into the bath water hoping to get a drink. Gordon had her wrapped up in a towel afterwards and she looked at me sputtering a bit and said "wa wa". Don't even ask about the time we found her in the master bathroom trying to bail out the toilet with a soda can pilfered from the recycling bin.

Grammy, Papa - my parents babysat on Saturday night while G and I went to O Ya* to celebrate our third anniversary. Our reservations were really early so Lily got to spend a lot of awake time with her grandparents. The next day when I woke her up she looked at me and said "Grammy? Papa?" Very cute.

Weee - another new favorite, she pulls this out when she's doing anything involving motion that she perceives to be fun. Examples: riding in the stroller, swinging in the park, going down a slide, pushing a toy car around the house, etc.

Thank You - makes a mom proud I tell you! She's still working on "proper pronunciation", but Mimi (daycare) has been very proud of her progress here.

She's also working hard on: yogurt, music and flower. It's so fun to see her delighted expression when we get it.

*For those interested: O Ya was very very yummy. It is also very very expensive and apparently aims for quality over quantity. I left feeling both pleased by our dining experience and angry that I couldn't have MORE OF THAT AWESOME FOOD.

Lily loves Elmo.... NOT

We were lucky this past weekend, getting a visit from Gordon's parents. They came laden with treats for Lily including some items from Goo Ma (Gordon's Aunt on his Dad's side). One of these was a Tickle-Me Elmo - not the crazy new version, but a more basic one. Now before I go on I have to admit that I am not much of an Elmo fan. There's the basic annoyance factor of course, but I've also formed an aversion influenced by reading Buy, Buy, Baby - a book on how companies target marketing to babies and toddlers. I admit this book has made me slightly crazy. However, I also knew that it was just a matter of time before an Elmo entered Lily's life. And of course we love anything that comes from Goo Ma - she's wonderful and absolutely adores Lily.

Unfortunately Lily was not very taken with Elmo - in fact we all got the impression that he creeped her out somewhat. She was especially unhappy when he did his tickle-me bit. I, of course, was secretly pleased that she was not reacting to Elmo as the "evil marketers" hoped. So we put him in the toy bin and that was that. She didn't really interact with him again all weekend.

Fast forward to this morning. Lily and Gordon are home getting ready for daycare. Gordon sneaks into the bedroom to check email while Lily is playing in the living room. (I'm recounting what Gordon told me here - so it's all second hand!). G hears some commotion from the living room and then Lily comes stomping into the bedroom pointing furiously towards the living room. So G follows her in there. They get to the living room and Lily asks to be picked up. She then directs him to the toy box and points accusingly at the Elmo. G picks Elmo up - Lily yells No! He tries to put him back in the toy box - she says "no no no". Finally, he was able to find a home for Elmo that Lily approved of:

Help Me - I'm not all that bad!

So Elmo will go find a home with cousin Sera (who LOVES Elmo) until Lily is more accepting. The best part of the whole thing is that my smug, "my kid is impervious to this stuff" smile was wiped right off my face tonight during a visit to the potty. Lily loves paging through the Parenting magazine while she sits there. I usually point out stuff as we go along "baby, Mommy, girl, car", etc. Tonight I open to an ad for a video of everyone's favorite purple dinosaur. I say "dinosaur". Lily looks at me, looks at the ad and yells "BARNEY!" Clear as a bell. She then keeps repeating it over and over in case I didn't hear her. Still in denial, I call in Gordon and ask him what she said. He says "uh.. Barney?" We're both dumbfounded since our home is totally Barney-free. hmmmm what happens at day care stays at day care?

Can I get some privacy around here?

Word List Update

 

For all of you who have been waiting with bated breath to find out what else Lily has been saying these days - well the wait is over. It seems like Lily's been learning a new word every day now. G and I realized that we're not even sure how many she's got at this point. So here are some highlights, documented for posterity.

Down: For some reason this one cracks me up. Lily does not say "up" - she has no interest in "up" - she just needs "down" - and uses it aaalllll the time. Down from the table after dinner, down from the stroller while on our walk, down from our bed when we try to coax her to sleep with us a little extra on weekends.

See Ya!: another favorite. And notable because it's the first real example of something that we didn't even try to teach her. At this stage you walk around pointing out everything in the house. But "see ya"? She says this when I leave for work, to the other kids at day care, along the bike path. It's a crack up. I guess she's not going to really learn proper English.

Cat: Well, as one would expect, dog has been followed by cat. The best thing about this is that she accompanies it with her version of the ASL sign for cat. At first I had no idea what she was doing... "Honey move your hands away from your mouth I can't understand you" ha ha. then I realized she was trying to trace whiskers on her cheeks while saying "cat, cat". She was standing at the back door when she first did this - looking for Murphy of course!

Bye-Bye: A nice complement to "hi". Now the folks that pass us on the bike path get to hear both. She says this when G or I end a phone conversation. She also says "bye" to most anything when she leaves the room or goes to bed. This habit can be useful for easing transitions: "Lily say bye-bye to the park" Surprisingly, it often works!

Lily: and she's saying her name too! For this one I credit a book that Shawn and Liz gave to her, Lily and the Imaginary Zoo. She's been asking me to read this one too her a lot lately and spends most of the time pointing to the little girl and saying "Lily Lily!". Now she seems to have figured out the connection to herself as well.

Potty: Potentially new today, Lily is very into her potty lately. At our pediatrician's advice we bought a potty for her (ours is a ring that sits on the real toilet - I'm not big on the thought of cleaning a separate potty if I can avoid it). He suggested that we just sit her on it here and there, read some books and hang out. Then when we happen to be in the right place at the right time, we give her positive reinforcement and take it from there. So we thought - why not? Anyway at first she wasn't too into sitting on it at all. Then last week she heard me talking to some Mom friends of mine about potty training their little ones. She went to the bathroom and walked out with her potty ring to show us. From that day on she's been all into it - often initiating potty-sitting time. Tonight she kept pointing to it saying "Lily potty" as we got her ready to do some sitting. She loves "reading" while on it - especially my Parenting magaizine - it's SO cute. So far we're just doing a lot of reading and not much else!

Go: Lily really really loves to go out. If we're home too long she goes and gets her coat and stands by the door. So it's not surprising that she's learned to say "go" to help her cause. I think we can also thank They Might Be Giants' "Go for G" song a bit here too. She likes to sing along.

Yalla: Lily's first official Arabic word. Lily's day care provider, Mimi, uses this often with the kids and it means "come on, let's go". I can't say I've really heard it myself, but I'm not sure I know what to listen for! Mimi says she says it, so I believe her.