Lily at 14 Months

At 14 months Lily is little Miss Personality. I have loved every stage, but I must say this is my favorite yet! She is so sweet and loving. She will be playing all by herself and all of the sudden, she stops and crawls onto my lap just to give me a hug. Her hugs are so precious. She wraps her arms around me, lays her head on my shoulder and pats me on the back. If I say “Lily can I have a kiss?” she leans in and smooches me right on the lips. We are still working on a closed mouth kiss, but only sometimes she remembers. I love that as independent as she is becoming, she still wants snuggles  and loves from Mommy.
 

Lily is so playful at this stage. Giggles, giggles and more giggles is the name of her game! She loves to have kisses and tickles on her neck which makes her cackle and belly laugh. I love her belly laugh. She also loves to be held up side down! She squeals with delight and shows me a big cheesy grin.

I can tell that we are entering into the toddler years because Lily is definitely developing a mind of her own! In the bath tub the other day she was standing up and holding onto the edge of the bath tub. I told her to “Sit on your bottom.” As I did this she shook her head no and pushed my hand away. Parenting…..ready…. set…. GO! Even though I don’t like her telling me no, the sass makes me giggle inside.

Lily is not yet walking but still pirate crawling! She is perfectly content flying around the house dragging her bum and right leg while pulling with her arms and left leg like a crab. Honestly, as much as we are pushing and encouraging her to walk this phase cracks me up and I know in a few months when she is walking, I will miss it.

Here's a video of Lily crawling:

This little lady has also learned how to sleep through the night! It only took moving across the world, but something clicked and she goes to bed at 7pm and wakes up at 6:30am. She also has transitioned into one mid day nap which makes running errands a little easier (well as easy as it can be in Japan). I’m waiting for one of the tires to pop off my jogging stoller because we take it up and down stairs, escalators, and load it with pounds and pounds of groceries. Anyways, my baby is sleeping! This has been long awaited and Matt and I are thrilled! Maybe we could survive a second baby?

Lily’s hair is finally starting to come in! If I try really hard, I can gather her hair into two low pigtails! I’m dying to use rubber bandsJ Love my little baldie baby!

Her favorite book is You Are My Cupcake by Joyce Wan, and her favorite TV show right now is Barney.

This girl loves food! Her favorites are cottage cheese, cheese, avocado, and cherrios. When she wants a snack she crawls over the cupboard and bangs on it with her hands. Then she says, “Morrrh?!” Each time I reinforce good language and manners saying “May I have a snack please?”  I wait, and try to get her to at least say please, but we are not quite there yet.

Some of the things Lily is doing include pointing things and saying “That?” I respond with “That is the refrigerator, that is the TV, that is the door.” This game could go on forever. She also loves crawling over to the cupboard with all of the pots and pans, and taking them out! She puts them inside each other, bangs on them for noise, even put one on her head like a hat! I love my girl. She was always getting into the food in the pantry, so I rearranged things so that the bottom 2 shelves could be for her to play with boxes of noodles, packages of rice, or a crinkly bag of snacks. She is thrilled with the new entertainment. Just beware if you walk in my house at any moment you will probably find all of these things scattered around in addition to toys, diapers etc. The other day she learned how to pull all of her clothes out and unfold them all! These apartments in Japan are small and our closests are in the hallway in cupboards so they are easy for her to get to and hard to block off! When we first moved here within days she learned how to turn on the burners on the gas stove, and how to turn on and start the oven. It took me a month to figure out the Japanese child locks.  Miss Lily Bug keeps me on my toes.

She is learning some words. She says Mamma, Dada, Doggie, Morrr (more), Uhhh (up), Mehh (milk), Papa, That, Hi, and Ya! I have also heard her say “All done!” and “I did it!” I can’t wait to hear more language from her.

When Matt or I lay down on the floor, she climbs on our backs and tries to ride us like a horsie. Anytime someone lays on the floor she thinks they are her personal jungle jim. This includes her friend Miley who is 6 months old. I have to tell Lily not to climb on her!

DANCING! One of my favorite things to do with Lily is dance. Anytime she hears music in the room she finds me with her eyes and does and little bounce up and down to the music. I can’t help but go grab her and we dance around the house to the music both laughing hysterically. Our poor downstairs neighbors:-S

Finally, my little Lily has finally graduated into size 2 baby shoes! At this rate she may make toddler sizes when she turns 5 J

Matt and I are enjoying Lily so much. She makes every moment more special and I love that I get to give her all of my undivided attention. I love that I get to see all the little things she is doing and encourage new things too.  She is such a sweet blessing and a joy to be around. She’s a sparkle, that girl, our little sparkle. Love you Lily.

                                                                                                                                                                    

Every good and perfect gift comes from above ~James 1:17