BIG NEWS: There's ANOTHER BABY in our house!!!

Sorry, I'm just messin' with ya. It's just bitty baby...
But our Luci May is learning so many new things, it almost feels like she is a new baby every day. She is 15 months now and I feel like I haven't chronicled a lot of how she has changed in the past 3 months. Yeah I know, poor baby doesn't get any attention does she?

Her vocabulary is budding. She has had down all the family members since before her 1st birthday. "Tate" and "Jack" used to both be "Da", but she said Jack's more robustly and that's how we could tell the difference. Fitting, isn't it? They are distinctly different now and she also says her name, Lulu, which comes out "LaLa" with her tongue sticking out.

Other words include "Hi" and "Hello", spoken every time she sees someone when we are out and each time she gets her little hands on a phone. Or anything remotely resembling a phone. On the other side of salutations, she also says "Bye Bye" ("BuhBuh") while vigorously waving. Usually followed (when she's feelin' the love) by blowing a kiss.

She also says "No No" (usually in response to Ruby's wagging tail in her face). It's so sweet and innocent when she says it now. Somehow, I think that could change in the future. Here is a quick video of her nodding "yes" and shake her head "no" with her own Lulu style...



Speaking of "Let your 'Yes' be 'Yes" and your 'No' be 'No'",I know I have the INCREDIBLE Bible teaching in our nursery at church to thank for the fact that she says Bible ("BaBuh") since they sing every week "Oh I love to pat the Bible" and have each baby pat a Bible. Our curriculum for the babies is one of my favorite things about our church. Here is Lulu patting the "BaBuh"...
And eating the "BaBuh" too...
They don't teach that at church. She's "home schooled" for higher learning skills like that.

Almost identical to Bible are what she calls Ruby ("BaBa") and belly button ("Baba" also). I, of course, can tell the difference because I am her mother. And because she is either pointing to the dog or her belly button. I'm observant like that.

Her vocab also includes the important baby words of uh oh and peekaboo. Both of which she used to just say half of the phrase ("uh" and "puhk" respectively), but now she's at 100% with them. Just like her grade average will be in school. (Oh, I kid.)

She likes to tote around a strange sort of security object, a bottle of vinegar...
She's quirky just like the rest of us, folks.

One of my favorite things she has started doing is coming to me with a book and backing up to sit in my lap. I love it when they do that! I never tire of reading "Maybe my Baby" or "A, You're Adorable"(Sung so adorably here) or "Baby Cakes" or "Whose Toes Are Those" or anything by Sandra Boynton. And neither does she...
Thanks to reading, dancing, and a new found interest in playing with some actual toys, she isn't as interested in scouring the carpet for random pieces of lint or pulling every item out of the pantry anymore. (Just the vinegar will do, thank you very much.) But she still has the potential to get into things if not closely watched instead of blogging.

Like my coffee mug, for example...
Thankfully, that one was empty. But the one that she spilled all over the floor (but thankfully not on herself) was not.

Despite letting such things happen from time to time, unfortunately I am the quintessential helicopter mom. With her walking (which is closer to running these days) and the warm weather, we now have all the perils of the outdoors to face (cars, concrete, stinging bugs, UV rays, doggie doo) which keeps me nervously hovering around her. That is in addition to the hazards lurking within the house. Hazards such as crashing through the baby gate and down the stairs. When that happened, I held her and comforted her and then did the only sane thing a mother would do. I gave her chocolate...
She recovered better than I did...
I probably should have had some chocolate too. Instead I breathed into a paper bag. I definitely should not mention that when she managed to crash through the ill-fitted babygate I was only a couple of feet away from her, but I was writing a blog post.

She is still as sweet as ever, but her spunk is coming out more and more as time goes on...
It took 13 months before any made an appearance, but she now has 6 teeth and several more trying to poke through...

Though there are a lot of new things she is doing, one thing has not changed. When she looks up at me like this...

I melt.