Little girls

Lately, I seem to look at my babies and think more and more what little GIRLS they are.

First, they are fully, mostly adeptly mobile. Harper literally runs around and Lucy speedwalks. They turn around, bend down to pick things up and dance. They have two kinds of dances; the hippie dance where they wave their arms around, and the funky dance where they bounce up and down (or drop it).

Communication explosion. They are signing lots of words now - food, drink, thank you, hat, more, milk, baby, sleep, banana, frog, all done, hot. And saying some - hat, momma, daddy, hi, duck. Lucy is really good at repeating things I say to her. They can also follow two step instructions like - go get your shoes and bring them to mommy. They seem to love to sit in our laps and have us put their shoes on.

Attitudes. They seem to be getting toddler-like attitudes. They like to see how far they can push things. Lucy will stand in the corner of the sofa and start throwing her leg over the side to see how much she can get away with. Our "nooooo, Lucy" does not work at all, just gets her to flash her devilish smile even wider. They both love to throw their food intentionally and slide it around their tray. Harper has started having tantrums when we leave the playground.

They are starting to look like little girls. Harper has all this hair that is starting to curl in the back. They are getting stretched out, and are growing out of their shoes.

I like it because it is fun to interact and play with them, but it can also be hard -bringing me books to read repeatedly(do you really want to read the 5 Little Monkeys for the 7th time today?), needing an increasing level of entertainment and energy, and scaring the poo out of me with their daredevil antics (Lucy has actually hurled herself over that sofa arm). But it also makes me sad, I miss my babies that I could hold and snuggle. Toddlers only snuggle on their terms.