growin' up

Somewhere along the way, little-by-little but feels overnight, baby Lily turned into Miss Lily, and suddenly I can't find the baby in her at all any more.

As she was showing Don how to play correctly the other day, he laughed, "There are no little girls, only little women" and I thought, "MAN, is that ever true!"  She then told him to 'stop being so bossy', something she hears herself a LOT and obviously now understands.

At supper last night we mentioned Chuckie Cheese's, and she immediately said, "Yeah, for my birthday!" which WAS where we took her for her 2nd birthday the first week of January.  HOW does she remember that?

And she is CONFIDENT that the reddish-brown haired forest ranger chick in "Open Season" is Aunt Lisa, and talks all the time about the Aunt Lisa movie and asks us to sing her the Aunt Lisa-bear song.

And when you start praying, she will TAKE it away, and pray for all kinds of people and beautiful things, from family to friends to zebras and penguins, to "birdies in the tree-tops" to panties and Bob and Larry.

And she sat through a 3.5 hour church service this morning, only leaving for 2 minutes 2 times to go "pee-pee in the grass."  HOW MANY toddlers can do that?  (how many toddlers have to do that :) ?

eating sidewalk chalk

And when Gislaine, in Creole, asked Lily this evening where baby Sofie was, Lily quickly responded, "Oh, Sofie is with mom" like she was a teen-ager or something.

And she has a way of convincing you to do ANYTHING!

"Mommy, can I have some chocolate?"

"You want chocolate, hunnie?"

"OK, if it makes Mommy happy!" she says, and suddenly it is as if it was YOUR idea to give her chocolate.

showing me that both her tongue AND her eyes are blue

And not only is she completely potty trained and sleeping through the night with no diapers anymore, but she will run up to you, say very seriously, "Mommy, I have to go pee-pee." Then, she will shove a chubby hand in your face, and say gravely, "STAY HERE."  She then runs determinedly down the hall (toes pointed in, JUST like her father) dances off her shorts, and somehow manages to climb on the toilet, sings songs to herself, and when she is finished, bring you back her panties and say, "I went pee-pee in the potty, made Mommy happy!"

And when I look at pictures of her like these, she looks long and independent and confident, and I don't know where my baby has gone!