She's such a girl!

Lila turned 18 months on December 4th, and she is officially a girly girl!  Definitely, NOT her monther's daughter on that front.  Although, I will say, I enjoy the bows and tutus far more than I ever thought I would.  She loves her bows, her dresses, and especially her shoes.  She always wants her shoes on.  And lately, her maternal instinct has kicked in.  She wants her baby doll all the time.  Doesn't really matter which one.  And it can actually be a bunny or a bear too.  But she wants to rock it and sing to it and shhh it.  Then she wants to go lay it in her bed, turn the humidifier on, turn off the light, and close the door.  Then after about a 30 second nap, she's ready to go wake them up.  It is so stinkin cute.  She also like to feed them and give them her sippy.  The first time I realized she was trying to give the baby a drink, i went to look for a baby bottle, and realized we didn't have any!  Needless to say, we've asked for some for Christmas.  We've asked Santa for a lot of baby doll related items!

If there was any doubt before, Lila is definitely left handed.  She uses it for everything, from drawing, to eating, to hitting!  And her vocabulary has massively expanded in the last month or so.  She can repeat almost anything you say.  And she is saying far more words on her own now.  Not worried at all anymore.  She is addicted to "ki ki"  her word for candy canes!  She loves fruit chews and ice.  She still loves music.  We were at Grand Prairie Lights the other night and one of the girls in the show started tap dancing.  Lila stood up in her chair and started copying her.  I see dance lessons in her future!  She also plays with the singing christmas animal just like Ben used to!  It's so neat to see one of their few similarities.  She loves school now.  She's ready to head out the door before I am.  She's still a mama's girl, but she's beginning to show some early signs of independent play while we're at home which will be a life saver for me!  And she and Ben have started playing better together.  They like to build forts in the living room!  Ben gets mad when she tears it down.

Ben's doing great.  His stomach is still bothering him which we all hate.  But besides that he's awesome.  He and I are working on some reading and counting things at home which has been really fun for me.  To see him excited when he learns something new or does something he didn't know he could do is extremely cool.  It gives me a glimpse into the future, and it's pretty neat.  We are working on reading and writing his alphabet and counting and writing to 20.  We are also working on rhyming and starts with, and some art stuff.  We are really working hard at turning off the TV for a large portion of the day.  If Ben had it his way, he would watch TV all day everyday.  But once it goes off, he plays great by himself.  He plays great with Lila.  He'll draw, ready, dance.  You name it.  But once that TV comes on, he's in a trance.

I'm sure I'll post soon about Christmas, but I wanted to give a developmental update before I forgot some of the ways they're changing!