Growing Up

Lucy has been a riot lately. She is impish and funny, looking over her shoulder to make sure we are watching her, then taking off to do some forbidden thing while giggling loudly. It's crazy how much personality she has already, at 14 months old. I'm sure Finn was the same way, but it's hard to remember (wish I was writing this blog back then!). Lucy is already playing with toys the "right" way - driving cars down the firestation's driveway, flying batman through the air. She seems to understand their purpose - I'm sure because she has an older brother to watch and mirror. She has clear likes and dislikes, and no problem showing you that. She is also saying a crazy amount of words - more, Mama, Dada, car, ball, kitty cat, thank you, no, duck, woof. She has even strung "no more" together as her first pseudo-sentence. Granted, most of these words sound very different from the way you are really supposed to say them, but WE know what she is saying. She is comprehending so much, and it all seems to have really come about just in the last few weeks. Which I'm sure also explains her recent middle-of-the-night and early morning wake-ups, the less pleasing side effect of lots of neurological development :-).

Everyone always says that you shouldn't compare your kids to each other, that they're all individuals, but it's hard not to. When Finn was this age, he didn't say anything at all. He was a few weeks shy of his first word - "ball". But by the time he was 2, we constantly received comments about how well and how much he talked. With Lucy starting out even earlier, I wonder what kind of ear noise we are in for. I have a feeling we're going to be investing in ear plugs.

Much of my extended family has not met Lucy yet. We live far from them, and usually only get the opportunity to see them every other year at Christmas. Last year was a Wisconsin year for Christmas, where we visited M.'s family instead of mine, so none of my aunts and uncles have had the opportunity to meet Lucy. Of my immediate family (sisters, brother, parents), they have come to visit us, but with the exception of my mom, they haven't seen Lucy since she was 7 months old or even younger. They really don't know her yet. I'm really hoping that during our upcoming vacation (only 10 more days!), they all get a chance to see her personality, to love her the way we do. How could they not, really? :-)