Sunny 9 for 2006 February 2

(3) Thu Feb 02 2006 08:31 Toddler Lily: No one told me when your child turns 17 months old, it will seem like their understanding triples. It has been so fun and entertaining to watch Lily repeat the things I say. Half the stuff she probably doesn't understand, but it seems like she is learning a new word every day. It is funny to see how her brain works because right now she calls all fruit apple. I pull out a strawberry, "apple?". No, Lily, Strawhhhberry. An orange-"apple?". The same goes for milk and water...it is all wa-wa or 'agua' as I swear she sometimes pronounces it. And I have caught her many times on the dog page of her books going "meow", and when we see birds, she says "meow". I guess she likes to categorize things into one simple word. For some reason, she loves getting her shoes and socks put on...maybe because she likes to take them off every time we get in the car. She likes to say socks and shoes and pretend to put on her socks while I am putting on the other.

Lily also found out she loves toothbrushes. She carries about 2 or 3 around with her all day long. Whenever she sees me brushing my teeth she always wants me to find hers or she'd settle for me giving her mine. This causes problems b/c right now we are down to Aaron having the last pink toothbrush. So yesterday I let her hold Aaron's toothbrush until we were about to leave, them I took it away. She caught wind of what I was doing and gripped even harder, so I had to yank it from her. Well, you would have thought I told her she could only drink her milk in the kitchen because she wept and wailed and hyperventilated and was very angry with me for over an hour. It was the first time she really cried like "my life sucks, I hate you mom" sobbing with the shoulders shaking and the hiccups of gulps of air.

See, in the past, all I would have to do is give her two different toothbrushes...the ones already ruined. But she knew she wanted the other one...the forbidden one. See, she can tell the difference now and forget about distracting her with another toy...she can remember what I did to her. Mom said that we kids went through our terrible two stages early. So, indeed Lily, get this out of your system early so we can be over and done with it already, that is fine with me.