Miss Independent

My 13 month old has a new favorite word. 

NO 

Oh boy! Lilly's little personality is really starting to show. I think I have to use the word "toddler" now. But this isn't a bad thing. A little bittersweet.. Well A LOT bittersweet... But she is SO much fun right now. And all of this "NO" talk is really cracking us up. I might as well laugh now because it might not be so cute later down the road. 

"Lilly, put down your phone and come eat dinner with your family" ... "NO!" ..... Nah, Lilly will never be like that. Right?.. RIGHT!!!??? 

So, I saw this blog recently about reasons why my son is crying and thought I would come up with my own variation... 

Reasons Why My Daughter says NOOOO!! 

I put her in her highchair.

I won't let her play in the fireplace. 

I put the baby gate on the stairs. 

I picked her up. 

I put her down. 

I put her socks and shoes on. 

I took her socks and shoes off. 

I won't let her play in the dogs water bowl. 

I took her out of the tub. 

I put her clothes on. 

I offered her a greenbean. 

I put her in her carseat. 

I wiped her nose. 

I took a bite of her pickle. 

I laugh every..single..time!! She is Miss Independent right now and wants to do things her way. She is saying so many words and I just love her little voice. She said hey to every single person at the grocery store yesterday. She is my free spirited child and I wouldn't have her any other way. Cheers to the toddler years! 

Just Zoo It

Lilly's asleep. I desperately need to get up and shower but my legs feel like jello. I think that's a sign that our trip to the zoo was a success!

Lindsay, Addison, Cole, Lilly, Mom, Dad, and I all piled into the car with two strollers, a cooler, and some diaper bags. We were serenaded the whole way there by my nieces. This was great entertainment for Lilly and Cole. 

The forecast called for rain starting at 4:00. It started pouring down rain 10 minutes before we arrived at 10:00. The weather man sucks. 

We sat in the car at the zoo parking lot with 4 very VERY squirmy children and waited for the rain to stop. If you ever want to torture a child I highly recommend doing this. Did I mention that the weather man sucks? 

We decided to brave the rain and go on in after we ran out of goldfish crackers. They were our saving grace. We unloaded the kids and quickly made our way to the entrance. 

After buying 6 ponchos at the gift shop it decided to stop raining. 2 diaper changes later and we were off to explore the zoo! 

We saw lions, zebras, elephants, monkeys, and birds. Lilly and Cole took a snooze in the stroller. I nursed Lilly on a bench while looking out at an ostrich. We waited in line for the tram to take us across the zoo to the food court for lunch for about 30 minutes until we were told that the trams were not running at the moment. If I had to guess I would say that we walked about 7 million miles. Ok I'm exaggerating... It was more like 4 million. But it was so totally worth it and so much fun! I just love being a mom. It is the best thing in the world!!! 

Gas to fill up the car full of children- $50.00

Snacks and drinks for the trip- $20.00

6 unused ponchos- $12.00

1 kids sized sweatshirt so Lilly wasn't cold- $24.00

Hearing Lilly call every animal at the zoo a dog- PRICELESS!!! 

And thank you mom and dad for taking us to the zoo. Lets go again next weekend!! :-) 

It's A Jungle Out There

Every time I look at the news I always tell myself I will never look at the news again! But then I always do and I'm usually left with the same feelings of disgusts and heartache. There are the occasional stories that restore your faith in humanity but those are few and far between. There have been so many tragedies that have happened already worldwide since Lilly arrived last April. I can't imagine how many more will have happened by her 5th, 10th, and 20th birthday. And I dread the day that Lilly sees one of these tragedies on the news and I have to explain to her what evil is. Children are so innocent. That is one thing I love about teaching. Innocence is such a precious thing that we only have for a short while.

It KILLS me when I hear kids talking about that R rated movie they saw last weekend, their new video game that is super violent, or their favorite song that only has 127,497,469 cuss words in it. Seriously!? The only question I'm left with is WHY?? Why do you think it's ok for your child to watch that movie or sing that song? Let them be children. Let them get dirty. Let them sing their ABC's for the hundredth time. Let them do things that interest them and be supportive about it. Mike and I were discussing this the other day. We were wondering about the kinds of things Lilly will be interested in and his response was priceless... "If Lilly wants to play the trombone then I want to play the trombone too." Ummm yeah... It melted my heart too!

But on the other hand, there is such a thing as being overprotective. When Lilly was first born I had a lot of anxiety about different things, as any new mom does. Putting Lilly in the car those first few weeks was very scary for me. I dreaded her first fever or cold. Chocking became a concern when she started eating food. The first time she rolled over and slept on her tummy was the worst night of my life. I felt like I couldn't close my eyes for 1 second. But as these different things happened we got through them and realized that it was not the end of the world. My anxiety became less and less and my confidence as a mother grew. Now I don't think twice about Lilly sleeping on her tummy or eating a goldfish or going for a ride... And it's not because I don't care... It's because I REFUSE to live like that. Scary things happen every single day. But you know what!?... We are still going to leave the house, play outside, go to the pool, walk on the beach, swing at the park, go out to eat, go on walks, and take trips to target.

I researched some statistics recently that help put this in perspective:

62 people in the US get struck by lightning each year. That's a 1 in 5 million chance.

You are more likely to be struck by lightning two and a half times than to be kidnapped as a child.

1 in 18,585 people are killed in car accidents.

A person's chance of getting attacked by a shark in the United States is 1 in 11.5 million.

There will always be evil in this world. I hope that never holds Lilly back from doing what she wants to do. Because she can do anything her little heart desires. Even if that's playing the trombone.