Toddler Verbiage

When you have a verbally exploding toddler running your life around, it's hard not to find yourself commenting on the things she says all the time and saying words like she does even when she's asleep.

Currently, the top two repeated {by her parents} words are "So....." and "news".  
Lily walks around chatter chatter chatter all day long just saying words she knows.  Sometimes she's talking about things going on around her, sometimes she's just saying words out loud, sometimes sharing with us things she sees and can verbally identify, and sometimes she's engaging in coversation with someone or the tv or the dog. Rarely is she quiet. 

She uses, "Soooooo...." just like that. Elongated space filler.  It's hilarious. We watch one particular news channel and promos are on a lot where they say the word "news" a billion times.  Her version is lispy at the end, "newth".  It's adorable.

George and Andrew say "newth" all the time randomly.  It always makes me laugh.

I keep a list of new words, phrases, and funny things Lily does with her age so we don't forget. Because as much as I think I'd be able to remember, I know I won't. There's too much and time goes too quickly.

The other day, she and I were in the car and had a conversation like this:
L: "Mama. Mommy. Mommy. Mama. Mum. Mama. Mama. Mum. Mommy."
Me: "Lily." 
L: "Hi."
{Family Guy anyone? yeah. it was just that.}

Daddy says, "Gimme five, buddy!" and hold out his hand and she does it back, loudly exclaiming, "BUDDY!"  However, if I do the exact same thing, she just gives me five. No "buddy".

I love watching her social interactions develop. She's very loving and snuggly and also very independent. She likes to do things on her own, her own way sometimes.

We have noticed she's become VERY attached to her blanket and her paci in the last month or so.  The paci is going away at age 2, once those damn 2 year molars finish coming through ruining sleep. 

She cries, "Pthaaa--seeee" when she can't find it. It's one of those words she says funny where her tongue comes out on the letter "p" and it's elongated as she whines for it.  She loveloveloves her "blankie".  Her favorite is a purple afghan her great-grandmother crocheted for her before she was born. My grandmother.  The thing about it is, it's big. And she drags it all over with her. She's been sleeping with it her whole life and I'm so glad she loves it so much, but sheesh it's twice as long as she is and she wants it with her all the time.   She elongates her longing for "baaaaankeeeeee" too. And sometimes she just says short and quick, "bank.et." like a staccato note. 

Last night was one of those miserable teeth nights where she had her paci IN her mouth, her baaaannnkeeeee wrapped around her, yet she was crying for both.  She woke up 3 different times and the final time was about 5:45am.  It's going to be rough when it's time for paci to go to paci heaven I can already tell. Yikes!  I'm just not willing to have a pacifier wielding giant walking around, so despite the difficulty, it will happen.  But, until then, "pthaaaa-seeeee" is ok with me for the next 3 and 1/2 months.

The Party Don't Start 'Til I Walk In

Hey y'all, I'm Stephanie! ~ I feel happy saying "y'all" since I spent some significant years of my adult life living in Tennessee and gave birth to a baby there too. :)  Southern by proxy or something, right? 

Well, I certainly am not adopting "yinz" from living in Pittsburgh even though I was born here.  My parents thankfully took us in a Uhaul across the country when I was six years old and I was raised in the desert in a tent. No, not really.  The tent part's not true. But, the desert part is.  I grew up in Mesa, Arizona in a traditional family with loving parents and two younger brothers.

I'm a wife to my best friend, George. We've been together for 5 years and married for almost 2. Our love story is very full of peaks and valleys and it's made us strong together. We are miscarriage survivors and we have a spunky 20 month old baby girl, Lily.

I'm also a mama to a 12 year old boy from my first marriage, Andrew {mine} and a nearly fulltime stepmama to an 8 year old girl, Reagan {his}.   Yeah, so that means I've had babies in two different decades~my son was 10 when my daughter was born.

I'm a former kindergarten teacher who's lucky enough to stay home with my baby girl right now, but I do look forward to getting back into the classroom! 

I take wayyyy too many photographs, have an unnatural affinity for Sharpies, I'm a lifelong learner, I'm fiercely passionate about parenting, education and family, and have a strong faith.

This blog is the baby that came after I outgrew previous blog homes documenting pregnancy and everyday life in separate places. I write primarily about my everyday life with most of it about Lily.  Andrew is of the age where his life is more private, so I tend to write more about his events when writing about him. 

I'm honest. I'm authentic. And my life is not always full of the good stuff.  In addition to writing about the good stuff, I write about the struggles in being a stepmom, dealing with an uncooperative, wacky BM {bio mom of my stepdaughter},sharing custody with an out-of-state parent {my son's dad}, the difficulties of parenting a tween, toddler and stepchild.  I've very protective of my marriage and while I may gush about him sometimes, I write about him mostly in his role as a daddy.

I embrace people and their stories and have made many good "real person" friendships through social media. Heck, I met my husband online {not on a dating site}so I'm a believer. :)  

Like I told my husband years ago, as a teacher, my job was to champion people~~seek out their best, their potential. Be optimistic and hopeful.  As I've gotten older, I've learned thos traits weren't about my job as a teacher. It's who I am.

Hope you'll stick around! Looking forward to getting to know you!

Weekend: Party of Three

Weekends in our house are usually the four of us ~George, Andrew, Lily and myself.  This past weekend, Andrew headed out of town with Scouts for a trip to Valley Forge, Independence Hall in Philadelphia and the Flight 93 Memorial in Shanksville.  So, once again our party of three remained.

Friday morning, we dropped him off early morning to head off on his big trip and snapped a couple phone pictures of him. I thought it was sweet him saying goodbye to Lily. ♥

After two days of a fever, I suspected Lily had an ear infection. After dropping Andrew off at Scouts, we got an appointment at the pediatrician, dropped Reag off at school and off to the doctor we went.

20 months weighing in at 26 1/2 pounds. 

poor baby. :(

Yep. Ear infection. Mama knows her girl.  After the last time {about 6 months ago} when we discovered her allergy to penicillin, we've been fortunate that she's been healthy and hasn't had any more medicine other than occasional ibuprofen for teeth pain. A new antibiotic on tap and within a day, she was good to go. Thankfully she's a champion medicine taker too! 

That night we hung out at home and watched the Pens self-destruct in their second playoff loss of the series. Blech.

Of course, nothing says awesome like your husband asking you if you smell natural gas in the basement on an otherwise uneventful Saturday afternoon.  Turns out after a visit from the fire department and then the gas company, we did have a leak.   So with the gas was shut off, our party of three quickly took showers before there was no hot water.  Just what everyone always wants.

Everything got repaired Saturday night and Sunday morning the gas company came back on to turn the gas back on. I'd already decided on an easy, family fav crockpot meal for supper, so there was no worry about what to do if the gas company didn't come out quickly.   Fortunately this wasn't a huge problem and I'm so, so grateful for a husband who is handy and capable. I love that about him!

Again Sunday, we watched the Penguins destruction in the third playoff game of this series.   Andrew arrived home from his trip. Lily was super excited to see him! We were glad he was home too.