Subscribe to my Blog
There She Grows

After a few too many times of yelling “stop!” Aunt Jen had Lilah saying ‘hammer time. da na na na’ afterwards. Then we decided she had to be introduced to MC Hammer.

taken when lil was ready to fall asleep after a fun day at griffith park.

Last year between croupe and teething, our poor sick Lilah didn’t enjoy halloween to the fullest, but we had some good times. I’m sure she doesn’t remember that now, but this year she is extremely psyched about all things halloween. We’ve been talking about it since early last month; now that its approaching Lil can’t wait. We discuss it every day. She knows we’ll soon be getting a big pumpkin to carve into a jack-o-lantern. She’s constantly pretending there’s a ghost in the house, or sometimes she is a ghost cat slinking around. She has also taken it upon herself to ride our broom like a witch, cackling as she tries to maneuver around in our small kitchen. She is obsessed with her halloween books, bringing them with her on car trips and into school. She says she wants to give Halloween a hug. Here are a few of her decorations:

Here’s a brief video that is a few weeks old now, when she rediscovered her ducky costume. Its the one she wore last year, but fits must better now. I’ll make a green cape and find some flight goggles to transform her from an everyday duckling into Ming-Ming, the ducky from her very favorite show the Wonder Pets.

This video just cracks me up. I love that she is good friends with some of the 8-10 year old neighbors.

Some spicy dancing at the Atwater Street Party the other night. Lilah was reeeaaally into it. And she wanted to be a part of it.

After this, I tried to corral her back so the dancers could do their thing, but she was NOT having it. We ended up doing a conga line with all these people. The samba girl was a good sport, I think she was really enjoying Lil’s enthusiasm.

Every year at our reunion vacation, the cousins are expected to put on a little play for the grownups. i paid my dues for years doing this too, but lately I’ve managed to take a seat in the audience as one of the grownups. I am in my 30s now, after all. We (myself and my fellow cousins of the older echalon) would always do little skits. Sometimes we attempted to work in a bit of a roast on our aunts and uncles, depending on our level of annoyance at that time. But for the past few years they younger ones have opted for a singing and dancing variety show.

This year, Lilah insisted on being a part of every number. She would not entertain for a moment the idea that she was too young to involve herself. She is a born performer; if there is singing and dancing involved she is all about it. At first it was a bit of an annoyance to the other kids but, having no choice, they got over it. As far as Lilah was concerned, she was an integral part of the whole thing in its entirety. (which lasted about a half hour or 45 minutes total… throughout which Lilah did not sit down or stop moving even for a minute.) Here’s just one small part of the show – what was supposed to be a Sophie solo act.

After the cousin show was over, our whole family got up ‘on stage’ for a dance party. Good times! I love my fun family.

We’re in the middle of a family reunion vacation at my mom’s beach house on Lake Michigan. Its an annual event, and this is Lilah’s 3rd year in attendance.     The first time she was a 2 month old, then last year she had just turned 1 and had a lot more fun.    This year, however, is a whole new world.  Now she can do so much more, and she just LOVES playing with all her older cousins, doing everything she can with them.

I’ll make a photo post at the end of this long trip, but I had to pop into ye old blog to just say (have i mentioned this before?) my kid talks SO freaking much for a just-turned-2-year-old.   I know this has always been a thing, but it seems like she has become even more talkative in the last few days. I just emerged from the bedroom to find her already in her swimsuit about to be taken back down to the beach by Grandma and Aunt Mairz.

She sees me descending the stairs and yells out, “Hi Mama!!!!” I ask her what she’s doing and she says, “Go to beach! Play in sand! Go swimming! Find some rocks! Throw in water, maybe! Sunscreen, all done. Lets go!”  All at once, before I reached the bottom stair.   I was like, whoa!

Here she is doing the Hula Hop with her cousins, who she is having SO MUCH FUN with.

Its a little over a month since my last post of this nature. But even with all the songs she’s been learning since then, the ABCs remains a favorite. She is starting to learn different versions of it now, like alternate melodies and the spanish. But the original is still something she belts out frequently. This isn’t the best video, but I do what I can. I like how she takes breaks to drink, and picks up right where she left off.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is not one of Lilah’s best renditions of the hokey pokey, but its the one I happened to get on camera.

hokey pokey from corinne m on Vimeo.

Lilah is more and more aware of the letters in the alphabet with every passing day. She is almost able to identify them all. Sometimes she gets Y and V confused, but hey that’s understandable, right? She’s been singing the first line of the ABC song for ages now, but in the last month she started singing the whole thing. I never have my camera out at the right time to catch it, which is the case for almost all her feats. I finally did manage to capture a lazy version of it yesterday while we were in Palm Desert…with Papa singing along.

Lilah and Indie met through our mom’s club playgroup about 7 months ago. They hit it off immediately, and started hanging out more often at either our house or Indie’s. Their friendship is very special to Lil. She knows and really likes a lot of babies and kids; certainly all her playgroup buddies and other neighborhood kids and schoolmates. But the way she talks about and interacts with Indie is just on a whole different level. The two of them are just amazing together, the way they play and chat and hang out. And they’ve learned from each other too. I’ve wanted to post about their adorable friendship for awhile now, but I waited too long and now there’s too much to show and say. Here’s some pics of the gals, plus a bonus video after the cut… of lilah getting a bit overly amorous. I hope they are friends forever!

Read the rest of this entry »

this is very old-hat for lilah, but i don’t think i ever got it on video before.

featuring a surprise cameo by indie! lilah’s little baby bff. a post about their adorable friendship is long overdue….

Happy and She Knows It from corinne m on Vimeo.

Lilah was a bit ill this day. We got a call from the preschool saying she had thrown up so I picked her up early, then she was sick a few more times throughout the day. (that is why her clothes are off… things got pretty messy!) At some point she had a huge burst of energy and was clearly feeling better, finally. Which made for a very happy Lilah.