We are only a mere three months away from Lauren’s second birthday…how amazing, terrifying, and quite frankly a little
unbelievable!! My baby is almost two years old!! This past month has been filled with so many moments that made Ryan and me laugh and beam with pride. It’s impossible to jot everything down – I just hope that I can note enough so that we will always remember these wonderfully amusing and joyful times!!
Lauren is slowly becoming quite the little chatter box – especially when she first wakes up. A few of the strange things that I can recall her repeating over the past few days as I climbed the stairs were “sit up” & “lay down”, “arm pit”, “apple”, and “green grass”. However, since LP will pretty much repeat anything that you ask her to, it’s not the talking that’s most entertaining…it’s the words that pop out of her mouth completely unprovoked by us that we now find most intriguing. It’s these words that open a whole new window into her amazing personality. Little things that seem to come out of the blue but at the same time make perfect sense. For instance, how Lauren has taken up saying “Amen!” as in agreement with you. I know that’s not the context she’s heard it in but gosh it sure is cute! The other morning Lauren was dancing around the bathroom in an effort to make us late for swim when I heard her exclaim “tip toes”. Sure enough she was walking around on her tip toes and was quite adamant that I do the same. I was all in as it got her going and out the door in record time! Next time she’s sliding around on her head with her bottom straight up in the air instead of walking, I’ll have to try “tip toes!”
There are times I’m concerned that she may becoming a little bossy…to her credit, I think she might just be taking cues from me. After helping me put some clothes in the dryer, I instructed her to “please close the door”. She looked at me and blurted out something. I was blank – really had no idea what she said so I repeated my request about the door but this time a little slower and louder (It’s great having her help me, but it’s definitely not always the fastest and does take patience). Apparently she caught on to this technique and repeated her gibberish back to me, a little louder and sterner as well. I just stared at her blankly so she kept repeating it until finally the light went on…she was asking for a dryer sheet. And really – she was saying dryer sheet as clear as day! I guess it was just so unexpected that I neglected to actually hear what she was saying. Now when you don’t catch on to what she’s saying the first time – she tends to use her “Mommy voice”.
Some other current favorite words are “neat”, “uh-oh”, “too hot” (very seldom is it ever too hot…sometimes not hot at all. Her Daddy keeps reminding her about the consequences of crying wolf but she hasn’t taken heed of his warning yet), and “right here” (as in sit right here, put it right here, or it is right here). Lauren has corrected me after calling her “cute” with “cutie pie” instead and is beginning to say “thank you” without being asked. LP loves to count however we are still ironing out a few kinks. Counting to ten for her always goes like this…”one, two, three, four, six, eight, ten!” However, no complaints – we are so proud of her. She’s starting to understand the concept of numbers and can generally look at four items or less and tell you the correct amount. She also gasps the idea of “a lot” being a big number. Now if you ask her how many of something that she wants (and it’s something she really likes), her standard answer of “two” has been replaced with “a lot”. And we can’t mention favorites without including swimming, playing with her tea set and doll houses, licking envelopes (if allowed she will lick them until there are holes in the paper…repeating the word taste over and over again), and of course playing outside when it’s not raining.
The rain has been quite a challenge lately. Lauren doesn’t understand why Hailey is allowed outside in the rain and she is not. I’ve had to explain to her several times that dogs have to potty outside even when it’s raining. The other day, that answer was followed up by Lauren quickly dashing through the kitchen into our bedroom. In seconds she was back carrying her little plastic dog Frito while saying, “Freedoe outside! Freedoe outside!” How on earth could I deny her that request?!?!
To see more pictures from Lauren’s 21 month photo shoot, click here.