Ready, Set, Catch!

Lily has been very into balls lately. For the past couple of days, she enjoys walking around holding one ball in each hand. Sometimes, she bangs them together too. However, you never know when she's going to throw them...so watch out! She throws them both at once with a whole lot of gusto! Of course if you happen to be sitting nearby, you might unintentionally get a bopped in the nose with a ball:)

About two weeks ago, Lily officially became a walker. She now prefers walking over crawling and only crawls when she needs to get to something to pull herself up to standing again. This is so fun since we can chase each other around the apartment with very few falls. Her stability walking outside has also improved a lot. Now, I can save my back a little and walk with her holding onto one finger. She has been brave enough to walk a little on her own on the bumpy grass, but still prefers a finger of help:)

I got a kick out of this picture. It looks like she is posing at the end of a runway as she models her clothes:)

Let's see what other updates I have... Lily has all of her baby teeth except her 2 year molars. I'm sort of glad she got teeth in bunches since it got it over with quicker. She handled teething very well and only had a rough time with her molars (understandably so). Lily's favorite things in the world right now are puppies. She carries around her stuffed animal puppy saying "Puppa, Puppa" the whole time. She shrieks with joy if she sees one of T.V. or in person. I'm not sure where the obsession came from since we don't have a dog and she doesn't see a lot of them. The only thing I can think of is she has a book about Dogs that she enjoys. It looks like we might have to get a dog eventually:)

I've been amazed lately at how much Lily understands. If you ask her to pet her stuffed animals or give them a hug, she will. As soon as I say, "Say good night to Dad", she immediately starts blowing kisses to him. If I say, "let's get the mail" or "let's go", she runs to the door and starts banging on it. If you ask where her puppy, balls, bunny, zebra, etc. are, she will run to get them (for the most part). If you hide a toy and ask "where did it go" and shrug your shoulders, she will raise her arms and shrug her shoulders too (adorable!). She also knows what a bunny says and scrunches her nose and sniffs. In order to solve the throwing food on the floor problem, I taught her to hand leftover food on her tray to me when she's done instead of throwing it. This works great! Now, I just ask, "Lily, are you all done?" and she either hands me food or puts her hand in the air. Sometimes, when she's entertaining herself reading or playing with toys, I just looks at her and can almost see the wheel turning. I finally feel like all of the explaining and talking we do to her is paying off. Now, when she points at things and asks "Dat?" I think she's actually absorbing the answer!

I officially weaned Lily from breastfeeding as of Tuesday and she drinks all whole milk now. It took about 2 months and she didn't protest at any point. The night I dropped the last nursing, she just kept pointing to her sippy cup of milk. She was obviously ready. It seems as if it was more like I was weaning myself from her! It has been an wonderful experience to nurse her for 13 1/2 months and I will miss it. However, we are both ready to move on.