Random

I have a lot of random thoughts going on today.

It's impossible to get a good picture of Lila these days. But never fear, dear internets, I will persevere!
Lila is learning her body parts. Here we have "belly". She also consistently gets "ear", "nose", and "foot". Of course, she's known where her "hair", "hat", and "bow" are for months.
We're also working on animal sounds. Usually if you ask any, "What does the ___ say?" questions, she'll reply with the "Pththththth" sound of an elephant. But with prompting, we can get the dog's "oof oof" and cow's "mo mo", and sometimes even a nice "raw!" in her dinosaur costume or for a tiger in one of her books. She also loves to tell you about a duck saying "wack wack!" If you ask her what the cat says, she will start yelling, "AT AT" and looking for Bootsie.
Lila's feet are TINY still. She did have a big growth spurt in the feet, but apparently she is still not caught up to "normal". We've had a heck of a time finding shoes for her lately! At school, they really want the kids in shoes that cover the full foot, have a firm sole, and preferably tie rather than velcro, particularly for Lila, who can easily take off any shoes with velcro. I had a pair of size 3 tennis shoes that fit the bill, but they were 3 Wides, and she could pop them off very easily. I shopped for two weeks to find her a pair of shoes in a non-wide size 3 that fit our criteria!! Apparently most children who wear 3's are not yet walking, so most brands make 3's in crib shoes with soft soles that do NO good for walkers. I can find 4's much more easily, but with that little extra bit of length, it makes them really too easy for her to pop off her feet. I finally found the winners at Payless. I know Stride Rite probably has what I need, but I just refused to pay $50 for shoes I know she'll wear about 2 months. Well, the first day she took off the new shoes about ten times. Grrr..... Finally, a parent at work was kind enough to bring me a bag of her daughter's outgrown shoes to try, and of course the one pair of Stride Rites ended up working great. What a racket!!!
We leave for Florida to visit Mim and Pop two weeks from today. I'm starting to get really nervous about flying with Lila!! We didn't purchase her a seat, because her seat alone was going to cost MORE than mine and Clay's put together! That's ridiculous, in my opinion!! Anyway, Clay is sooo tall, he really struggles to get comfortable on a flight without a toddler on his lap, so I know most of the care is going to fall on me. We have a layover going each way, but we will be traveling at naptime, so I'm hopeful that she'll sleep, though she's NEVER wanted to be held while she slept, so there's a good chance that won't happen. Which will leave me with a very tired and cranky toddler I have to keep on my lap for a flight. OOH fun! If you have any tips, send them my way!!!

I have no idea what to pack for the trip to Florida. Their days have been being in the 70's, but nights get down in the 40's, so I'm thinking layers will be the way to go. I went through all of Lila's summer clothes for this coming summer, and I got SO excited! I had forgotten all of the SUPER CUTE stuff I already have for her that I bought last year at yard sales and consignment sales and such! YAY for a wardrobe all ready to wash and wear!!

Lila wore a Valentine outfit to school this week. I figured she might as well go on and wear it so that maybe she'll get 2-3 wears out of it before we retire it. One of the teachers laughed and asked me how many Valentine outfits Lila had. I hated to disappoint, but really we only had a couple items, and some extra red and pink pieces. But never fear!!! While digging in bins, I found more Valentine's Day clothes! Whew...what a relief. I mean, heaven forbid that Lila only have 1-2 outfits for such an important holiday!! Now I have to start figuring out what she's going to wear for St. Patrick's day! We really don't have anything for that one yet! I don't know if I should even admit this in a public place, but I do already have some things for Dr. Seuss week. I'd hate for her to celebrate the whole week without appropriate clothing! I got her the CUTEST outfit for Derby, too. I do love dressing for a theme or holiday!!

Lila's NINTH tooth popped through this week!!! She woke up crying at 1:30am Thursday night for no apparent reason. I got up with her, and finally got her back down, but then she was up again maybe 15-20 minutes later. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, so I went on and got her up, changed her diaper, gave her Tylenol, and rocked her back to sleep. She went down pretty easily, and stayed down that time. It is SOOO rare for Lila to wake up at all in the night, so I was really puzzled. Friday night, though, I felt around and found that little nub of a new one-year molar on top!! I'll never know if that's really why she woke up, but it would make sense, I guess. It's been a long time since she got a new tooth, so we were really excited!

Lila is eating us out of house and home. A couple nights ago, she ate more than a whole Bratwurst. She probably ate 1 1/4, and would have eaten more if I would've given it to her. She didn't have any bun, but she did eat applesauce and sauteed peppers and onions with it. Today, she ate almost an entire sausage biscuit. She left a few crumbs of the biscuit. [Note: we really don't feed our child all processed pork products. Though she would apparently be quite happy if we did.] At school one day this week, they said she ate four servings of lasagna. FOUR! My goodness... I've never found a limit on the number of grapes or blueberries she will eat. She will consistently continue to eat them until I absolutely cut her off.

I'm sure I could go on all night posting all of this random randomness, but I'm sure you're probably asleep by now, and I'd hate to run out material to bore you with on future nights.