Girl Talk

Lilly is a talker.  She has been from the very beginning.  On the days when Lilly doesn't take a nap, she can sit on our bed with some books and talk and sing for two hours.  Without a break.  Just hop in the car for one of our six hour drives to DC if you need further proof.  At three years old, her non stop chatter is starting to become more easily understood by the common person.  She talks to everyone when we go out, and will start by answering whatever question she is asked (How is your day?) and then continues to chatter on about whatever pops into her mind from the day's activities (Do you have bad dreams?  I hope you don't. I had a bad dream about running away.  Anyway, I hope you don't have bad dreams.  Because then you have to go into Mum and Dad's room and they'll give you a cuddle and then you have to go back to bed in your own big girl bed but you can't sing in your big girl bed because Jack is asleep but you can drink water and you can hop out of bed if you have to go to the bathroom.)  This was a recent conversation with a cashier at Target.  The poor cashier had no idea how to respond.

While Lilly loves telling stories, she's also great at offering advice or suggestions, especially to grown ups.  She has had a couple of interviews, yes, interviews, for schools for next year.  We have found a few Montessori schools that we love for Lilly that required interviews before acceptance.  In her first, the teacher asked her to help put away a tower they had made, to which Lilly responded, "Oh, no thank you.  Thank you though.  I'm going to go and play with something else." Well, on the bright side, she was polite about it.  And when the teacher asked her again, she obliged, but only after securing the next activity--making sure it was something she was interested in.  In this same interview, the teacher asked if she could put away the work mat.  Lilly confidently rolled it up, sprinted across to the other side of the room where the bucket was and yelled, "got it!" back to the teacher.  All the teacher could do was smile.  I met with the director of the school afterwards, who told me that Lilly was a wonderful, happy, bright little girl and they'd love to have her there next year.  So, one day, Lilly can look back and say that she nailed her first interview :)      

Lilly loves to tell me what she thinks we should do today.  This morning's suggestion was, "Mum, how about you put Jack down for a nap and we have breakfast and do an art project and then I can watch a something and we can go to the grocery store and I made a list and then we can play in the pool.  Does that sound like a good idea?"  She's also really good at telling Jack what to do.  Poor Jack has no idea what's ahead of him...

Just this week, Lilly has gone from introducing herself as "Wiwwy" to "Lilly".  And those "L's" are highly accentuated.  It sounds more like "Lllllilll-lllly!"  As proud as I am of this new development, it makes me sad to know that the "Wiwwy" phase of our life is over.  I can imagine this is how Mum and Dad felt when Edward started saying "Subaru" instead of "Sabubaroo".  Of course I knew that Lilly couldn't walk around saying "Wiwwy" forever, in the same way that it would have been inappropriate to be 20 years old shoving her one in her mouth all the time.  So yes, I knew it had to end but I miss it already.  Trying to put my nostalgia aside, I love that when people ask Lilly her name now, she can look at them and confidently say, "Lilly," whereas before, I'd always have to translate.

There are a few other things that Lilly says that I know will fade away.  Specifically, any words that start with "sp..."  Her dog "Spot" has always been "Pot" to Lilly.  She loves "pinning" (spinning) when she's wearing a tutu and music is playing, and she often tells people that Dora "peaks Panish" but Lilly only "peaks English."  To Lilly, Jack "pits up" (spits up) and she eats cereal with a "poon."  These are words that she uses every day and I never get sick of hearing them.

Being three also means that Lilly gets dressed by herself.  A couple of months ago, Lilly started putting on all her own clothes (which I am still able to help pick out, amazingly, by giving her two choices every day.)  The only time she needs help getting dressed is when something is "inside and outside"...or inside out.  Just this evening, our little nuny-nuny Lilly came running into the living room with her pajama shorts inside out and with a dead straight face, she said, "Mum, can you help me with these?  They're inside and outside."

If I could freeze time right now, I would.  I'm not sure how having two little ones--one who is three and inquisitive, chatty, sweet and still so innocent, and the other, eight months old and curious, cuddly, smiley (with two little teeth) and crawling-- could be any better.