What's new with Lucy
Lucy is learning and changing so much every day, that it's virtually impossible to keep track of it all. This is my attempt at the highlights. If my darling husband wishes to add anything - he is more than welcome to amend my list.
Lucy's kitchen spot
Lucy has a special place in the kitchen now, where she likes to hang out. It is the bottom level of a wooden shelf that is basically vacant, and is behind the garbage can (ewww). Anyhow, Lucy collects various items of interest (shoes, cloth shopping bags, her blanket, abandoned socks), and dumps them there. Sometimes she just sits herself down and observes the world. It's pretty funny and I hope Greg can catch it on film some day soon.
Lucy's climbing addiction
Rebecca was a big climber as a baby, but Lucy is an extreme climber. She will try to scale anything. This includes a wall. Just a regular wall! She can now climb (quickly and easily), the couch, the loveseat, all the chairs in the dining room, the coffee table and (almost) our bed. She has also figured out how to open her drawers. Lucy can't be left alone in the living room or you will find her standing on the top edge of the couch. She does this so that she can then stand on the window ledge and look outside. I have caught her trying to climb out of her crib - but only once so far. Today she managed to wedge her leg between the bars. I suspect that like her sister, she will be in a toddler bed before age two - to prevent a catastrophe!
Lucy's babies
Lucy continues to be obsessed with babies. Live and inanimate. She just loves dolls and she loves pointing out any babies that she sees. You don't realize how many pictures of babies are around until someone starts saying "Baby!" every time they see one. Lucy has a few dolls and abuses them. I found one baby wedged in the crib in a manner I would have thought impossible.
Lucy's kissing sounds.
Lucy has started trying to make kisses. Mostly she achieves a smacking sound with her mouth after someone kisses her. It is very cute.
Lucy's not respecting Rebecca's space in the go-bug
The go-bug is our two-seater bike trailer/stroller and generally the girls are very good about sharing the space. But Lucy will sometimes just reach out and grab Rebecca in the face. I have to say that Rebecca has been very good about tolerating this behaviour - she doesn't retaliate, she simply voices her complaints loudly. Lucy is already developed a "I know I'm being naught, but aren't I cute?" face.
Lucy uses a stacking toy and a sorting toy
This weekend I thought Lucy might like to try out a wooden stacking toy. You know the type - a wooden rod, onto which you can slide various size wooden discs. Well, at first it challenged her manual dexterity a bit, but then - she mastered it. All in the space of ten minutes or so! So that same day, I decided to let her try a shape sorting toy, and she figured that one out too! I must be hitting her with these things at just the right age!
Lucy's vocabulary
I haven't blogged much about Lucy's communication skills. She is building up quite the little vocabulary. Not all words are equally well enunciated, but such is the nature of the beast. Here are the words we've identified so far:
- Uh-oh (everytime something is dropped - be it accidental or deliberate)
- Baby
- Shoe
- Baba (this is for Rebecca, on occasion she gets closer to saying Becca or Rebecca, but Baba comes out the most often)
- Mama
- Dada
- Cheese
- Quack
- Ball
- Muk (milk)
- More
- Hi
- Byebye (with a wave)
And in the freakish/semi-frightening way of little babies - sometimes she repeats sentences just after you say them.
I've heard...
It is a baby
Milk please
Lucy goes to the fridge
When Lucy wants a drink, she will now go straight to the fridge. Now, if only I can get her to drive the car to the grocery store and pick up the milk.
Lucy's happy feet
Just in the past week, Lucy has started dancing to music, or dancing when she's happy. It's a funny little tap dance, that only involves her feet. I hope Greg can catch it on video one of these days.
Lucy putting things into containers
With the exception of her laundry hamper, Lucy is now more interested in putting things into other things, rather than removing things from other things.
Lucy's non verbal commands
Even though her vocabulary is burgeoning, Lucy is making her wishes known using body language. We have grunts, we have pointing, gesturing, and facial expressions. I have to be careful that we don't make it too easy for her to avoid language - she communicates non-verbally so clearly that we often don't bother push her to express herself by other means.
Lucy's imitative behaviour
Lucy has many of the same imitative behaviours these days that we witnessed in Rebecca at about the same age. Lucy will pretend to be on the phone and say "Hi". She will also use a hairbrush, and try to put on other people's socks and shoes.
Lucy - another left-handed girl
So - I did initially declare Lucy to be left-handed. Then, for a good long while I thought I might have declared prematurely. But now - blueberries have given me the proof. Lucy loves blueberries. Sadly, from a diaper-changing perspective, Greg allowed her to consume large quantities in one sitting. Nevertheless, one morning, after allowing her to eat blueberries, I elected to clean her hands and face with a moist cloth. But only the left hand was blue!
What's new with Rebecca
Rebecca's basic behaviours aren't changing much - they are just becoming more sophisticated. Her memory does impress me - sometimes she will retain something I mention once in passing, and bring it up days later. Even if I thought she hadn't paid attention at the time. Her social skills continue to impress. She manages to make friends whereever she goes.
Rebecca loves Lucy a lot
Rebecca has been oh so sweet with Lucy lately. She hugs and kisses her. If Lucy isn't around, Rebecca asks after her. If Lucy is upset, she sings to her. Sometimes, she just goes up to her and hugs her and tells her that she loves her. Lately, she even allows Lucy to play with some of her toys. This is a big deal! It used to be, when Lucy wandered into her room, Rebecca would immediately yell "No Lucy!". But now, she will tell Lucy the names of certain toys.
Swim class
Rebecca has at long last mastered jumping into the pool. For ages, in her swimming class, she would simply sit down and ease her way into the water when asked to jump in. Who knows why things have changed!
Rebecca and the truth
Rebecca is beginning to tell fibs. This means that Greg and I have been beginning to talk to Rebecca about the truth. Somewhere in there lies belief, fact, perspective - argh. It's more complicated than it seems. What is heartening about the fibs is that she is only telling us things that I think she feels we want to hear - positive things. So, she'll tell us that she pooped in the toilet, even if she actually had an accident, and we know it. Why? Because she knows it pleases us and elicits a positive response. For some reason, this sits semi-comfortably with me - her motivation doesn't seem terribly corrupt. She's not even asking for something out of it, even though we normally reward potty successes.
First scraped knee
Rebecca got her first big scraped knee this week. It was very dramatic and she refused a bandaid. She put herself to bet and wailed until I cuddled with her.
Telling stories
In general, Rebecca's independent play time consists of elaborate storytelling with a cast of characters she creates using little figurines in her room. It's fascinating to listen to, and especially fun to figure out what has influenced her particular story line. I think what I've found funniest lately is when she dresses up her prehistoric menagerie. One day she took all of her underwear, and draped them over and around her dinosaurs so that they could wear beautiful dresses. Another day she used elastic bands to decorate them.
I don't want to read it anymoreThe same bedtime story for over a month now! It is a pop-up book with sounds, and it is about the ocean. It's a lovely book, but I am heartily sick of it. It is beautifully illustrated and full of wonderful facts about the creatures that live in the ocean. However, I am beginning to know the text by heart, especially for Rebecca's favourite underwater beasties. She now has an unnatural oceanic vocabulary for a three-year old, to go with her unnatural prehistoric creature vocabulary. Who am I kidding? I love that she likes biology!
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