Lyla has mastered most of her colors. She's got blue, green, pink, purple, orange, yellow, black, brown, and white down. She loves to show off her color knowledge too. She'll tell me the color of something repeatedly until I acknowledge that she's correct. She knows most of her letters and likes to point those out too. Lyla also knows a few numbers and understands one-to-one correspondence when I count things aloud for her as she points to each item. She adores "reading" books and tries to get away with reading a bigger and bigger stack each night before bedtime.
She's hit a separation anxiety phase and is glued pretty tightly to me these days. It's interesting, because she never really had much separation anxiety up until this point. I love that my kisses heal her boo boos and sometimes she just needs me to hold her.
Lyla walks around well and has the cutest little run. It definitely uses up lots of extra movement, but it's so adorable to watch. She can gallop and jump. She loves to dance to music and make whatever happens to be in her hands (her blanket, Elmo, her baby doll) at the moment dance along with music, as well. Lyla is very into songs right now. She loves when I sing to her, which is a bit surprising given my lack of musical talent. She tries to sing along with me and especially enjoys songs which include motions for her to do. The Wheels On The Bus is her favorite jam these days.
Some of the things she has come up with truly surprise me. We pass by a car that has a cover on it during our daily walks and Lyla likes to say the car is going "night night" when she sees it. Whenever we see a Jeep, Lyla says, "baaaa." At first I couldn't figure out why she thought Jeeps were sheep, but then it dawned on me when we read the book Sheep In A Jeep one day.
She said her first full sentence about a month ago. She had a mosquito bite on her arm that was bothering her. I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs and get some cream to put on it to help make it less itchy. So she turns to Archer and tells him, "We'll be right back." I was stunned! She had said 2 and 3 word phrases up until that point, but not a full sentence. And it made sense! She even used the correct grammar!
Her baby dolls are still her favorite things to play with. She's amassed quite the collection and seems to love them all equally. She also loves building towers with Legos and playing with her little Sesame Street figurines. Lyla can also cook up some delicious meals in her kitchen. She enjoys going up and down the slide in our backyard.
While Lyla will pee in the potty before bath time, we still have a ways to go before she's potty trained. That will be our next big adventure. We also need to work on the difference between indoor and outdoor voices. Lyla seems to only have one volume: LOUD. Though she does know how to whisper and will tell me to be "piet" and hold her finger on her nose (instead of her lips) and it's so dang cute.
Archer is incredibly active. The few times we've tried to get him to sit in a chair, we've regretted it immediately. He wiggles and moves all over the place. He can run really fast and is very agile. He loves to jump and can gallop. One of his favorite things to do is run full speed into my arms and not slow down at all as he's approaching. I'm constantly covered in bruises. Archer also learned how to do a somersault on his own and enjoys kicking things (balls, the side of his bed, us when we're trying to change his diaper).
Yes, I said bed in the sentence above. He figured out he can climb out of his crib about a month ago. He and I had a very intense battle one night while Adam was out of town. He would climb out of his crib, I would put him back in and round and round we went for a good two hours. I won. But only for that night. After a few nights, I heard a thud followed by howling. He'd always managed to climb out of his crib without getting hurt, so I wasn't in too big a rush to switch him to a toddler bed. But I didn't want any injuries, so I knew I needed to do something. Before giving into a toddler bed, I tried to put his mattress all the way on the ground in his crib, but he still managed to climb out. And then I bought a toddler-size sleep sack to try to prevent him from climbing, but he busted out of that thing like the Hulk! So the transition to the toddler bed was inevitable. After a tricky night or two, Archer got into a good groove. He likes his bed and magically stays in it (I'm knocking on wood as I type this) throughout the night. Much like every other transition we've been through, I made it far worse in my mind than it turned out to be.
Archer has mastered his letters and is happy to point them out to anyone who will pay attention. He loves to read books and pull them all off of the bookshelves even more. He's a big fan of trucks, though he will cuddle a baby doll every once in awhile. He's especially fond of his stuffed Elmo and Big Bird he sleeps with every night.
Archer does this adorable swaying whenever he hears music. It's so cute since he's usually so crazy. It's nice to see him slow down and just rock back and forth to a little music. He's also into songs and singing. He tries to get me to sing more and more songs each night before bed.
He still sleeps with a pacifier. It brings him so much joy that I'm reluctant to make him give it up. I know that day should come soon, though. We've also got to tackle potty training. Man, growing up is hard!
Perhaps the best part of watching Lyla and Archer grow up is watching their bond grow. Sure, Archer likes to rip toys out of Lyla's hand and Lyla likes to come tell me that "Archer mean," but those instances don't happen all that often. They truly do love each other. They always give each other a hug and kiss before nap time, even if I don't remind them to. If one of them gets a drink of water, they will go bring the other one a cup so they can have a drink too. I'll catch them holding hands in the stroller. I'll hear them giggling upstairs when they're playing in their rooms. They spend most of the day following each other around and move from room to room together. They have such a sweet bond and I'm lucky I get to witness it.
I'm so stinking lucky. They way they squeeze my neck and the way they reach for my hand is almost too much for my heart to handle. They love me in ways I've never felt before and I love them in ways I never dreamed possible. I can't wait to see what the next year will bring.
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