They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Dearest Lilah,

The last couple of weeks have found you doing even more fun stuff. It's always amazing to me how one day you don't do something and then all of a sudden, you do! Your new thing is copying things. You have mastered "Giving five" and clapping and you are an absolute dancing fool, and now you have moved on to yawning. That's right: Yesterday, I yawned while you were in my lap, and you looked at me and opened your mouth REALLY wide and smiled like you figured me out. And it wasn't a real yawn that just got started because of mine, it was an honest to goodness copy. Because you laugh and will try to make yawn noises!

You also like to try and copy a snore. A snore sends you into a pretty good giggle. Especially a fake snore. I'll admit - it's a funny sound. But you not only copy Daddy's fake snore, but the dog's REAL one. It's neat to watch you watch us to figure out how to do it!

I can't believe how intently you watch us. It has made me - I guess with good reason - pretty self conscious of the things I say and do! There are plenty of things I say and do that you will be better off NOT copying, for sure. But we enjoy watching you learn so much every day! You are trying SO hard to walk...you don't even crawl properly but MAN do you want to stand up and go! Unfortunately, you don't understand the whole "putting one foot in front of the other" rule to walking and you just end up taking multiple steps forward with one foot until you sit down. But you are becoming a master of pulling up on the chair and the coffee table and the couch, and you are even really good at sitting back down again, but that doesn't mean you haven't fallen over a few times and conked your head. You shake things off pretty quickly, though, so the tears are usually pretty short lived, which is good because your crying face is kind of ugly!

You have eye teeth coming in now and they are giving you far more trouble than your front four. You are drooly and angry! Today you hardly ate anything. You only wanted carbs. You ate bread for lunch and then ate Cheerios for dinner. You drank a lot of your juice, though. I hope that it's just teeth bothering you and that you aren't getting sick! You've had a really bad stuffy nose the last few days that seems to be going away now, but it's been rough on you.

We're getting ready to celebrate our first Thanksgiving with you. I hope you enjoy your baby meal of butternut squash and peas. :-)

Love,
Mommy