Yes, yes, it's been a long time. I'm working again (very part-time) so my arms have been hurting a bit. And Lula has been changing so rapidly that it's hard to imagine keeping up with this blog. What follows will be an abbreviated attempt at an update.
There is walking. And now there is talking, too. She adds words to her vocabulary every day. She has even said what the doctor claims are "sentences," like "find Mommy" or "find shoes." The doctor says that's a two-year-old level of speech, which made us get all puffed up. This about a girl who crawled for the first time, just a few feet, YESTERDAY. At one and a half years old. And who still doesn't sleep through the night, tragically enough. She was starting to, more and more, a few weeks ago, but that has stopped. In fact, today she skipped her morning nap for the first time. Horrors! I usually shower and nap during that time, and without that break, I'm going to be one stinky and exhausted mama. Anyway I'm hoping that once her naps have fully consolidated her little internal sleep cycle will let her sleep through the night again.
Back to bragging about Lula's amazing brain: one day a couple of months ago she just started being able to count to ten. "one, two, free, fo, fie, sih, sehmen, ayt, nine, ten!" It's just heart-meltingly cute. And by now she can read and identify all of her numbers up to ten. She can read some or most of her letters, too, and though she won't sing the alphabet song herself, she will help prompt you if you pause during it. And she especially likes to identify "B" and "W" right now. I don't know why. So the numbers definitely came first, which might mean that we have a brilliant mathematician in the making here, or just a regular geek-in-training, or just that we have more 123 books than ABC books. Who knows?
And the talking. People, the talking is unbelievable. She has many commands, of course. There's the "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?" which I still find kind of cute and amusing, thank God. And the "This? This. This?" which is sometimes used sort of like a verb. For example: "This? Bubbles." means "get me those bubbles." There's the classic "Side?" which means either nursing ("switch sides") or going outside. She's recently started to say "uppa-down?" whenever she wants to be picked up -- and I have no idea why the "down" is in there, since she will say "down" when she wants to get down. Oh, and she also says "chip?" whenever she wants a snack of any kind. And when she's Done with an activity -- be it eating a meal, or (*shudders*) riding in a car, she says, "done? done?"
Every part of our day now has a Time. For breakfast, it's Waffle Time; after Bath Time is Teeth Time (not that she allows any toothbrushing whatsoever right now, but anyway); and of course there's Nap Time and Night-Night Time. And instead of saying "hi" now she sometimes says "oh, hi!" as if she's been surprised by an old friend calling her on the telephone. Which of course is probably where she got it -- from us pretending to talk on a "phone" she's handed us (usually a calculator or a remote control.)
And of course there are dozens of nouns, as you can imagine. She particularly likes to identify suns. A sun is any circle with ray-like protuberances. Bonus points if there's a smiley face on it. There are many suns out there, if you look carefully enough.
She's been doing physical therapy with Leslie, and she seems to enjoy it, though Leslie makes her work hard. Basically they play together, and while they play Leslie moves Lula around so she uses muscles she needs to strengthen, or she moves Lula so she can learn how to sit up or get down or etc. It seems to be working, because Lula can now sit down on a chair and stand up with ease, and she can roll around from lying down to a sitting position. She's really been enjoying rolling/wrestling about on the floor recently, first putting her head on the ground (while standing up, so she forms an upside-down V), then flopping over sideways, then kinda crawling a bit, then getting herself up to sit, then pulling herself up to kneel or stand. It is a relief to see her finally do these things. Of course, this has made her much more physically adventurous. She's started to climb on things (very low things, for now), and can climb up a set of stairs at the playground, where the hand rails are placed Just So. And for now I'm just grateful that she feels comfortable enough in her physical abilities to explore on her own.
So see? See all that has happened? We also went up to Lake George, and Lula Loves Loves Loves the lake and the sprinklers at the playgrounds here and the pools of various family members. She is a little water child. At Lake George she also really enjoyed simply walking around and checking out the flowers. "Flauwa? Flauwa?"
OK, time for me to go nap while I still can. More short updates to come soon, I promise.
- Sarah.
