Lucy, For Now

Barrettes fall out within minutes. She has this way of brushing her hair out of her face, with both hands, that kills me. She will sometimes hold still for a single ponytail on top of her head. Other times she squirms away, dashing out of reach as soon as I come close. I need to wrestle her down and hold her still with my legs.

She wakes up cranky now, if she's not really ready to be up. No more quiet babbling over the monitor. She sits up when she sees us, hands us her pink stuffed bear, her Elmo doll, then puts her hands on the mattress and lurches to a stand. She likes to bring her stuff with her when she gets up.

Or she hides her eyes from the light, tells us, "No." Not ready for the day just yet.

Lately she has been waking up at night. A little bug has her pooping at two in the morning. When it's not that, it's teething. I dress her in two piece pajamas with penguins on them, so I can check her diaper without undressing her. They are a little big. One morning last week, I went in to wake her up, and her pants were around her knees. She had scooched out of them during the night, but it didn't seem to bother her.

She still throws food off of her tray when she doesn't like it. She's gotten pickier with her eating. A wider variety of food ends up on the floor now. Her favorite is still fruit, any fruit. Followed closely by gummy vitamins, I think.

She watches TV with her brother, with more attention than I thought possible. She likes it all, she is easy to please.

She comes in the kitchen, repeatedly, while I cook dinner. She rummages through the pantry, looking for a snack. Asking for more snack, even when her bowl is still full. She says the word "snack" a lot. Then she plays with her play kitchen, pretending to wash dishes in the sink, eating "soup" with a spoon out of the fake salt shaker.

She loves to push around her shopping cart, placing all manner of toys and random things inside.

She loves Iron Man, and Batman, and Spiderman, because her brother does.

She loves her brother.

She insists on brushing her own teeth, asking again and again for more toothpaste. Her "brushing" consists of sucking the toothpaste off of the toothbrush. She pretends to spit, like her brother.

She tries walking up stairs holding on to the railing now. She still lets me help her walk down the stairs of our front stoop. As soon as she hits the walkway, she takes off running, unsteadily, toward the neighbors' houses and the frighteningly-close drainage hole, away from the car. Toward the playground. She loves the slide, hates the swing. Would much rather walk in the street than on the sidewalk.

She says more words than I can count. This weekend she learned to say "Morning" when I tried to teach her to tell her daddy "Good Morning." She acknowledges a dirty diaper with a cute little "Poopy?", like it's a question. As if one could be unsure of that smell.

She gives kisses and hugs when asked. She says "Hi!" to strangers at the store. They cannot resist saying it back. She loves to point out the moon, airplanes, balloons. She looks up a lot.

If you tell her she's hurt you, she'll say "wa-wry" (sorry), and leans her head forward for a hug. You can tell it's a hug, because she makes that squeezy noise, the one you make when you give someone a big bear hug. Or if you're constipated.

Her favorite color is yellow (yeh-yow), or maybe green (geen). But definitely not red or pink. If you ask her if she's OK, she'll say "Yeah." If you tell her to wait a moment, or explain something to her, she says "OH-kay", almost a three-syllable word the way she pronounces it. We all take turns getting her to say it, even Finn, because it's beyond cute, this way that she has.

She loves books. She holds her pointer finger in the air and asks for "one more?" through the pacifier, each time you finish one, even if it's the fourth bedtime book. She colors, and laughs a LOT, and lisps when she says "Bus," and dances, and won't let us sing AT ALL, and tells us "No" ALL THE TIME, but says "Yes" every now and then too.

She is so, so easy to love.






At the very end of this video, you can see how Lucy brushes her hair out of her face. You can see the penguin PJs, too :-).