18 Months Old

Lila recently hit the 18 month old mark.  It feels very significant to me.  The kids kept asking me why.  "Is it because she is in nursery (at church) now?"   No...that is not it.  But she's well into toddler-hood and closer to age 2 than 1 and that is just...not so much a baby anymore.

This little girl is so precious to us.  She is often snuggly and loving. She is very opinionated and can be quite feisty.  She is also very tricky.  If she has another sibling's toy, she will hide it behind her when she sees them.  If she spots a pencil, marker, or crayon any place at any time she will immediately run to the walls or cupboards to begin making her marks.  If my bathroom door is open, she makes a beeline for my makeup drawer.  If you ask her for a kiss, she may lean forward and sweetly give you one or she might smack your face.  If I compliment one of the other kids, she beams, claps, and shouts, "Yay!".  She loves music.  She loves milk, pretzels and Chobani Greek Yogurt in peach or pomegranate.  She does not like to sit in her high chair.  When she is done with her food,  she always throws it on the floor.

She likes to eat magic markers.  I try my best to get the kids to keep them put up in their special spot out of her reach but she still finds them...takes off the lid, sucks out as much ink as possible, and then bites off the tip.  Kind of like this:

Don't let her fool you.  She is only coloring on something appropriate because I was taking her photo.

Miles loves his little Ly-Ly.  But he also might kick her or push her down when he feels like it.  And she might...kiss him or smack him in the face.

Lila loves her pink bunny.  On this morning she was snuggling with her bunny, puppy, and trying to feed her baby a bottle at the same time.

Lila's hair is super soft, fine, and naturally curly.  I hope the curls stay!  Most of the time her hair is just flying any which way, but a few Sundays ago I tried to put a head band on her to match her dress.  She immediately pulled it off, as she always does.  I tried to stop her.  I said, "Oh Lila!  Your HAIR!!!  It looks SO pretty with this headband!  Do you want to see?  Oh my!  So pretty!"  I held her up to the mirror and put the headband back on.  She paused and a smile slowly spread across her lips and then she coyly turned away, having just fallen in love with herself.  She did not try to remove the headband for the rest of the day.  And, as you can see by the above photos, she now allows them from time to time.

Here are some photos of my beautiful baby girl wearing the aforementioned headband on the very Sunday she hit that 18 month mark.  A year and a half.  What a miracle she is.