Walking and Talking...

Well, Lots has happened! Lydia has been walking since March. She took two steps, waited a couple days...took two more...waited a couple of weeks...then took five steps, and five more, and five more. Within a couple more weeks she was cruising all over the house. By Mid April she had learned to push herself up to standing without any support and could squat to pick something up without holding onto anything. She has now mastered walking to the point of managing to run (or walk really swiftly) on occasion. She is also doing well on walking up and down steps (with help) and can use a railing appropriately. She can manage to crawl up and down them herself. Along with doing laps around Jason and I, she is starting to talk again. She likes to babble to herself a lot but on occasion says something intelligable to us. So far we've heard tree, kitty, doggie, dada, mama, baba...and...wait for it...Elmo...at least a version of them all anyways. She's also very good at communicating her wants and needs. She tries to open the fridge when she's thirsty, hangs on the height chair tray when she's hungry, and bring you her shoes when she wants to go outside. She understands A LOT too. She walks to the bathroom if you say "let's brush our teeth" or "time for a bath". She also responds appropriately if you give her directions including people or things she's familiar with like "those are Daddy's shoes, give them to him" or "give that to the kitty" or "Pet Nicely!" As far as how our little Lydia likes to spend her time. OUTSIDE. She loves walks, bathing in dirt, picking apart plants, and piling up rocks. She also enjoys being pushed around in her cozy coupe. She is a smilely baby who LOVES to snuggle. She enjoys being read to and frequently tries to read her books herself. She loves fruit, especially watermelon, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. She doesn't like her food to be broken down and prefers to be given large chunks of watermelon, whole strawberries, and she's even cried when I ripped a tortilla into quarters to give to her. She is a cookie monster and will actually beg for oatmeal cookies. Lydia's most recent new experience was at the drive-in. She was so excited she refused to go to sleep. She was even jumping in the back of the pick-up. Eventually she got over-tired and we had to leave the movie about halfway through because she still refused to go to sleep. She even stayed awake for the whole car ride home, staring out the window. She didn't make it to bed until 10 pm. So we won't be doing that again for awhile! Well that's all for now. I'm going to try to be a little more regular about this now that I have more time again. That way no one will have to assign it to me as homework!!! ;)