Chatterbox

It seems that Lily has inherited from me a great appreciation for the sound of her own voice and a zest for knowing what stuff is called. Over the past few weeks, her vocabulary has just exploded and I'm constantly picking my jaw off the floor when she identifies things on her own. I'm gonna do my I-swear-I'm-not-bragging-but-am-recording-this-for-posterity-thing again, so bear with me!

Animals
Doggie (and it says "mmm, mmmm")
Kitty (says "mow, mow"),
Duckie (which she LOVES and and will say it says "Kha-kha" (like quack, quack) in a very middle eastern back of the throat way)
Horsey (some days it sounds like "Ho")
Monkey (Mah-kee)
Birdie (Bah-dee)
Turtle (Tur-tah)

Objects
Clock (ka-ka)
keys (she tries to put them in the doorknob)
juice (sounds like deuce!),
Socks and shoes (tries to put them on -- doesn't quite work out)
Milk (which she hates unless I throw the word "chocolate" in front of it!)
Phone (which she loves to "talk" on)

Phrases
All Done (means you better come or I'm gonna start throwin' stuff)
Bye Bye
Hello (when she "talks" on her Elmo "phone")
Hi
No-No (and she wags her finger while she does it)
Uh-Oh (even if she "drops" her cup over the side of the high chair intentionally)

Body Parts
Eye (poke)
Ear (pull)
Nose (insert finger)
Mouth (poke)
Teeth (pry open lips and poke)
foot
toes
Belly Button (she calls it her "buh-buh")

People
Mommy
Daddy
Melissa (she's been calling her na-na, but actually said "Me-Lee" the other day at lunch!)
Derek (deh)
GG (what she calls my Mom)

I swear I didn't intentionally add the "eee" sounds on the end of everything, it just sorta happened!

She is also getting better about following instructions. The other night, I told her to give Daddy a Night-night kiss and, without hesitation, she walked right up to him, kissed him, pulled back and said "Nye Nye." I thought this was maybe a fluke, but I started noticing that the more I asked her to do things, I could see her giving the appropriate response. Our favorite game is "Give the XYZ to Dada." If he makes me mad later, I will give her a dirty diaper to deliver to him :)

I also noticed that she has figured out which words go with which situations. I dropped her off at my mom's last night and I said "see ya!" and she looked at me, waved, and said "Bye!" I can also tell her where we're going and she can anticipate it. She knows to stand by the door when I say we're going outside. This all may seem very mundane, but I get so surprised how much her little brain is able to connect words with actual objects and situations.

My little girl is growing up. With the birth of Leah Catherine, I can clearly see that Lily is indeed a toddler now. Holding that new baby almost made me ache to have another one of my own...but then I realized what I really felt was a sadness that my current baby has just grown up too darn fast. Those first few months went by so fast and I was a blur of new hormones and lack of sleep. As hard as I tried to savor those moments then, I couldn't hold onto them long enough because here we are, a year later and I'm still lamenting their loss. Don't get me wrong, I love the age Lily's at now, but wish that I could hold her as a newborn again, even if just for a few minutes.