I wonder if there is a word ‘big’ enough to describe Livia’s personality. When she toddles into the room, her presence just says ”I’m HERE!” .
Her latest passions:
-Pouring her own water. I got her a kid-friendly pitcher, and she is REALLY good at pouring her own water! She even holds her cup still! She seems so satisfied and proud of herself after she drinks it! And sometimes she blatantly dumps it all on the counter. “Just because”, I guess. 🙂
-Sometimes, I turn my back for a second, and the next thing I hear is a light switch being flipped, followed by running water. I know it’s Livia in the upstairs bathroom brushing her teeth. Having step stools in the bathrooms and the kitchen has opened up a whole new world for her. I try to let her do as much as she can on her own. She sometimes needs help with her toothpaste (which she calls ”tee-tee” <3), but that’s really it. She also loves that we brush our teeth together. Sometimes she even brushes my teeth for me! 🙂
-BASKETBALL!” (she calls it “bee-ta-baahhh!”). Lamar is a basketball player, so this comes as no surprise. She loves watching it, and she LOVES playing with the basketball hoop Lamar got her for Christmas. Sometimes she pretends she’s playing basketball by throwing random objects and saying ”bee ta baaahhh!!!” 🙂
-Books! She can sit through the same story multiple times, which is awesome. We are still working on our ”1000 books before kindergarten challenge”. I lost track of which books we read during December and January. We went to the library for the 2nd 50 books list. I know I could’ve easily filled that list with the books I know we read during December and January, but I decided to just start from last week.
-Pretending! She is now starting to pretend. I LOVE this, because I’m a big kid and I love to pretend, too! She put some magnetic letters in a cup and said ”coffee!” and gave it to me. I was overjoyed! She also pretends her toothbrush is an ”airplane” and makes cute little sound effects. She isn’t into dress-up yet. When she is, we are going to have too much fun!
-Asserting herself. She says “No!” with a big smile on her face. 😛 I try to remember to ask her questions where ‘No’ is a helpful answer. Ex. “Would you like a banana?” or “Are you hungry?” (instead of “Do you want to go to sleep?”).
-Getting into my makeup. I wonder if I have a future makeup artist on my hands! She uses brushes correctly, she knows how to use a ‘beauty blender’ sponge, and she loves putting lipstick on her stuffed animals. Today, she gave Lambchop a makeover. 🙂
-Caillou. (I admit, I let her watch some TV now)! She also likes to watch the ”Sprout Goodnight Show” after we’ve read our stories. She gets so excited about Chica!
-Dancing!!! She loves dancing to all types of music. If it’s a good, upbeat song, she’ll dance to it! She’s got some great moves, too! She also loves to twirl! She says ”twirl!” and spins around! 🙂 ❤
Eating
She hasn’t gone through a picky phase yet. She loves just about every food I put in front of her! I’m really thrilled that she loves quiche (so much protein!). And of course, she loves typical toddler food like Mac ‘n Cheese and chicken nuggets. I’ve been looking up some recipes for the healthy/nutritious versions of these foods. 🙂 Some days, she’s an eating machine, and some days, she just wants to play and I have to pretty much chase her around with a fork (lol!) . She LOVES her ‘junior chair’ from Ikea. It gives her the freedom to climb in and out of her chair without help, which makes her feel super independent. 🙂
Sleeping
This is the only ‘challenge’. There are nights where I have to keep putting her back in the bed for 3 hours (she just continuously climbs down). Then, there are nights where she still lets me wear her and she’s asleep within 10 minutes. I’m working really hard on establishing a solid routine without the carrier. I still kind of use it as a crutch on ‘tough nights’.
Talking
Her vocabulary is out of this world! I stopped counting at 100 words, and that was a couple of months ago. Now, she puts 2-3 words together and it flows. She’ll say things like “Mama, open” , “Dada, GO” or “Mama, pleeeeease”. She also says “Oh noooo, happen?” 🙂 Today, I was chasing her and saying ”come down here!” and she said “I DON’T!” (I could tell she was trying to say ”I don’t want to”). It was too cute.
I can’t get enough of this girl!!!!
My favorite thing about her is her laugh. She has this HUGE, booming belly laugh. I love it! This girl is anything but timid. She’s my little rockstar!
Ciao, Mommy! 