Naked baby on the loose!

You may start to notice that we may have a few more risqué pictures and videos on the ol’ blog these days, as Lily seems to enjoy being naked (or “nay-nay,” of course, in Lily-speak).  I think it’s partly because that’s what babies do, and partly because once you give Lily a name for something, she likes to do it more so that she can talk to you about it.  She now likes to undress her babies (with help, if needed), and then get them dressed again (with help mostly needed) in different outfits.  Her outfit choices are somewhat questionable, as Gracie wore 2 shirts and shoes to the store yesterday (no pants!), so it will probably be a while until I let her pick her OWN clothes when we go to the store…

At home, though, we’re a little more relaxed.  For some reason she was crawling around, and I caught this cute video of her showing off her running/careening skills.

See?  She’s just being silly, and happens to be naked.  I think she gets away with it a little more because she’s still as bald as can be, and looks more like an overgrown newborn…um…with 16 teeth.

Anyway, it isn’t CRAZY risqué. 

It’s not like we have naked table dancing or anything.

SO wrong…

_________________________________________

In the interest of continuity, here she is (naked), rambling in the bathtub.  For some reason, she was mixing together “no ma’am,” “oh no,” and similar sounds and I thought it was cute.  Later in the video, you hear her say what to you (i.e. a novice Lily-speak speaker) probably sounds like “oh oh oh oh,” but to me (i.e. official Lily-speak translator) sounds just like “Elmo.”

Okay, it sounds nothing like Elmo, but she says it every time she sees Elmo and I FINALLY figured out a few weeks ago that she was actually trying to communicate, and not just making a moderately annoying, random sound.

This week, she has transitioned to saying a proper “Elmo.”  It’s really no big milestone, but it’s just interesting for us to see her language evolve and to have two examples (a few days apart) of how rapidly it changes.  After weeks of saying “oh oh oh” for Elmo, she kept trying out different approximations while we spent some time looking at a Sesame Street book with lots of Elmo pictures earlier this week.  By the time we were done, she had settled on her new pronunciation.  Yesterday, she enjoyed looking at some “Elmos” I drew in her bathtub, and tonight she decided to draw her own.

Well, maybe drama or dance are more her thing.

_________________________________________

Finally, Lily and her daddy have a new game where they pretend to be cats.  I didn’t bother to edit out the first part because I think it’s funny that she refuses to cooperate at first, because she does this almost every time we get the camera out!  Fortunately, she comes through in the end with her best meowing. 

Just so you know, she really isn’t always naked.  We had just come back from the pool, and she was FREAKING OUT about being hungry, so we didn’t bother to put on new clothes after getting her out of her bathing suit since she was headed for a bath after dinner.

To prove my point (and finally end this post!), here she is wearing clothes today…a DRESS even!  She had also chosen to accessorize her outfit with a giant necklace she swiped from her cousin Will (whose parents were not sad to see it leave their son’s possession).

 

 

Here she is, a second after telling me a succinct “no” when I asked her to smile for the camera.

 

All dolled up…

…but playing with a dump truck…

…and a construction worker…

…that she insists on calling a “baby.” 

That’s my girl.

In case you were wondering…

No, we’re not ready for markers yet.

Just checking.

Once again…

If you recall, Lily has been advanced on several milestones of great import.

For example, she was leaps and bounds ahead of her peers in developing separation anxiety.

She also outshines her playmates when it comes to tantrum-throwing.

Once again, Lily is hitting one of the really important milestones a wee bit early.

Here she is channeling her inner teenager.

We’re also teaching her to say, “Gag me with a spoon.”

_______________________________________

Now if you’re wondering why she was such a mess in the video, she REALLY likes sloppy joes (i.e. “joe joes”).  She was enjoying eating some sloppy joes like a civilized young lady (i.e. in a bowl and with a spoon) when I turned around to clean something up.  When I looked back, she had abandoned the spoon and had her head in the bowl trying to lick it.

On the bright side, this is definitely a situation where the baldness does come in handy.

__________________________________________

Speaking of mess, Lily now resists letting us feed her with utensils, insisting on doing it herself.  Here she is after feeding herself some especially vibrant yogurt, while also pretending that the spoon is stuck in her mouth.

LOVE this girl.

It’s the simple things

Sometimes, the simplest thing can make Lily’s day. 

Water in a sippy cup WITHOUT a valve

+

a mommy willing to overlook some mess and need for a subsequent outfit change

=

Dumping water on her head, splashing in it, and wiping it up entertained her for a good 20 minutes, which is ages in toddler time.

Fun!

This Fourth is her Second

In tribute to my awkward title from last year, I present “This Fourth is her Second,” a photo and video montage of our attempts to introduce Lily to fireworks without scaring her to death.  We tried to go for things that were “sparkly” or “smokey” or “snakey” in our choices, but we stupidly forgot that our neighbors would be going for things that were more “screechy” and “explosiony” and “deadly,” so it really didn’t matter what we did in our own little driveway.

Duh.

Fortunately, Lily was pretty tolerant of all the noise and flashes.  We started with a few smoke bombs in the back yard.

Hahaha…she wasn’t actually as excited as she looks.

Most of the pictures looked like this.

More “stoic” than “going bananas.”

But she did seem interested in our mini-show, and didn’t get upset, so we were encouraged enough to try the “real” stuff (haha…mostly just fountains and sparklers, but I’m from FL…that IS the real stuff to us!).

Later in the evening, we brought her out strapped in her stroller for the “real” fireworks after she was bathed and pj’d up.  She wasn’t particularly excited and sometimes a bit skeptical, but sat quietly in her stroller for about an hour.  She threw us an occasional “yay”…

…and an occasional celebratory “baby!” for our efforts.

Oh.

Your kid doesn’t yell “baby!” when he or she is excited?

That’s odd.

She also said a sweet “oh no” for me when we accidentally shot fireworks directly at our neighbor’s house.

Oopsie!

As much as Lily didn’t really seem to care TOO much about the fireworks, I was so impressed that she watched them for so long, and the stroller worked out perfectly as it kept her restrained for safety, and the canopy was useful when fiery shrapnel rained from the sky, pelting us and our house in a way that I still cannot get used to in spite of living in South Carolina for 14 years.

(Good grief, that sounds like a long time.  Does “since 1996” make me sound less old?)