For The Mamas And The Papas, Y'all.

Since 100% of our family and 60% of our friends live outside the state of Oregon, I do need to occasionally indulge in a Lydia post.  Ya know what I'm sayin'? 
The mamas and the papas need to see their grand baby.  So, if babies make you gag, if you find their rolls of fat revolting, or if you have adverse reactions to sweetness, you should leave this blog post now.  Go to people.com and read about Charlie Sheen or something. 

Lydia is now 13 1/2 months old.  Her vocabulary list is growing almost as fast as she is.  She can say hi, uh-oh, dog, night-night and go, and I'm beginning to think that the word 'dee dee' is what she means for binky.  She waves hi and bye, and signs for food, more, and all done. 

She has 7 teeth and one more just about to poke through. 

She still usually takes two naps a day, but she has been changing up her schedule, pushing her morning nap later.   I think this is her trying to transition from two naps to one.   She sleeps through the night (Hallelujah!) from about 7 p.m. to about 7:45 a.m.  It took her 10 months to sleep through the night and I am still catching up, often taking a nap when she does.  I don't feel guilty about it, either.

Yesterday Lydia was playing around the kitchen while I was cleaning up breakfast.  When I turned around I saw this:

She had pulled down the bread, pulled nearly the entire loaf out of the bag, and was shoving as much as she could in her mouth.  Please also note the floor of my pantry behind her.  Yes, that's the dog food bowl.

She has a playroom now, which is great for a number of reasons.  First, her toys aren't scattered all over the house.  Second, she loves it.  My mom and I set it all up when she was visiting a few weeks ago.

Lydia seems to have no interest in walking.  She occasionally stands on her own for a few seconds, but doesn't really seem to have any desire to do that, either.  Just within the last couple of days she started to let us hold her hands and walk her up and down the room.  She does, however, walk along the furniture, the walls, etc.

She also climbs.  On everything.  EVERYTHING. See?

And once she's on top of whatever she was climbing, she holds her hands out to you to be put on the ground so she can climb up all over again.

Lydia loves going outside.  She loves rocks, but hates grass.

Yesterday we were outside playing and accidentally brought a ladybug in the house with us.  Thinking I could have one of those sweet moments where the baby sits there and watches the ladybug/caterpillar/butterfly crawl around her pudgy baby hand, I showed her the critter.  And before I could do anything, she picked it up and squished it between her fingers with a gag-inducing CRUNCH.  

It was gross.

Finally, she can spoon feed herself and insists upon doing so.  It's been a long, messy road to get to this point.  Brian and I have often put the food on her tray and turned our backs because it drives us so crazy to see her take a big spoonful of yogurt, get it almost to her mouth, and then put it in her hair.  Or spill it in her lap.  Or feed it to the dog.  But she is getting better, as you can see.  And hey, they've gotta learn sometime.

Shucks.  I'm just bustin' with pride.