Grandma Shu Shu's visit

My little munchkin

Emma’s vocabulary is growing leaps and bounds! Sometimes she doesn’t say the words exactly as they sound so it is hard for us to figure out what she is saying the first few times – such as hands – but others we can understand the second she says them – like bubbles and please. She has very good manners and is learning that if she wants something she needs to say please and thank you.

It is so much fun to be around her now – she is so playful and it is fun just watching her explore and play around. One of the funniest things she does is she will pick up her phone, say hi, talk for a little bit like she is having a conversation, laugh during the conversation and then she will say bye bye before hanging up the phone.

She had her first real accident on Sunday, July 10^th. It was pretty scary but we are so lucky she is OK. She was wearing a pair of sneakers that she doesn’t typically wear because she doesn’t like them – she trips in them a lot. But on Sunday, Emma took them off her shelf and wanted to wear them. Well, they have officially been shelved for a little bit. After playing at the park for a little we came back home and Emma was running from the living room to the kitchen. Before she got to the kitchen, she tripped and fell . When she fell, her head whiplashed into the door jam. She hit the middle of her head and the top of her nose. She started crying right away - thank goodness she wasn’t unconscious! – and when Jamey picked her up she wasn’t bleeding. Her head was banged up pretty bad and a huge bump immediately started to grow. She was crying and crying – wouldn’t really let us put ice on it but she eventually stopped crying. We were so sad and scared but knew she would be OK. Of course we watched her like a hawk for the rest of the day/night and kept checking on her when she was sleeping. Emma’s bump is healing very nicely but she looks horrible – both her eyes are black and blue along with her gnarly bump on her forehead. It is getting better everyday but it is still there. She will touch her forehead though, say “owie” and then walk over to the door jam and touch it – showing us where she hit her head. Also, if she falls down or something she will say ow and walk over to us and want a kiss to make it all better. Sometimes she is just being a drama queen where she will fall down and be fine but will walk over holding her foot in the air or hand and want us to kiss it.

We went this past weekend to meet Dash – Tom and Buffy’s 3-week old. He is really cute and when I held Dash, Emma wasn’t sure what was going on. She looked at me very inquisitively and was wondering why I was holding a baby. It wasn’t like she was mad at me but more she didn’t understand yet she knew I was holding a baby. It will be quite interesting to see how she reacts when we decide to give her a sibling.

As you know from the last post, Emma wasn’t drinking her milk unless it had chocolate in it. It worked like a charm for a few days and then she got difficult again. We were putting Nesquick in the milk instead of using the pre-made chocolate milk and Emma decided she didn’t like that. At first she wanted more chocolate and then she just refused to drink it. I called the doctor to see what her thoughts were and she suggested bringing back the bottle for one feed because the calcium and Vitamin D are important for her development. I didn’t want to go this route so instead I went to the market and bought some pre-made chocolate milk. This worked like a charm! We put half the pre-made stuff in along with half of her regular milk and she is slurping it up asking for more. We are really happy that this seems to be working because the bottle just wasn’t an option for us. On a side note, when I told the doctor this she said Emma is really clever and smart for knowing that we were adding chocolate to her milk. She said she is quite observant and there was no tricking her. Now when we put together her milk cups we don’t really let her watch us but I know she has seen us a couple of times and she is OK with it. Soon the trick will be reducing the mix from 50/50 to more regular milk and less chocolate.

Emma is getting really good at jumping. She will jump in place and she is able to get both feet off the ground. She also likes doing somersaults although she needs some help with these. She does enjoy doing them though. We are looking into potentially putting her in a gym class but it is a bit tricky since the level she would be in now only meets during the week. When she is a few months older the class is available on the weekends so we would be able to take her.

Jamey and I are also looking to put her back in swim lessons. We think it would be a lot of fun for her again so we hope to start them towards the end of August.

Emma’s hair continues to grow. I think we are on track for her first haircut to take place when she is three. Hehe. It is coming in wavy/curly and we didn’t expect anything less considering how curly my hair is. Her hair is such a pretty color – light brown – and with her green/brown eyes she is just beautiful!

Emma’s fine motor skills are continuing to develop. She loves playing with keys and this weekend she was able to get the key into the keyhole of our kitchen door. It is a new game for her and she is getting quite good at it! We put a chair outside (because she loves being outside) the kitchen door and she will climb up on it – yes by herself – and then stand up and put the key in the keyhole until she gets it to go in. This is quite a development and it is impressive she can do this at such a young age.

She also loves to color and I love the pictures she draws. They are quite colorful. She continues to switch which hand she writes with and has started to use her right hand more and more which makes us happy. She is also getting good at feeding herself. She needs help to get through an entire meal but she is getting better everyday. She is able to get a lot of food into her mouth using her spoon or fork and when she is having trouble using the utensils she will use her hands.

Emma is starting to sleep later these days. Every day is different but with her bedtime now between 7:30/7:45 she is sleeping till 6:30 or so. This is a nice break for us especially when she decides to sleep in on the weekend. But this morning we realized we have a little jokester on our hands. It was the cutest thing. She woke up around 6:30/6:45 this morning and instead of her usual scream to come and get her she was quietly playing with her stuffed animals. When 7am rolled around I decided to look at her since she wasn’t making any noise and I found her lying in her bed playing. She then sat up, put her Bunny on top of her head, said hat, laughed and then laid back down. She repeated this a couple of times. It was the cutest and funniest thing. She totally has a sense of humor!! I couldn’t contain myself and I went into her room – she did a few more times and we were laughing. She is so cute and precious. She was in such a happy mood and I was sad to leave her this morning.

Emma is getting her last tooth in before her 2-year old molars come in. She is being a good sport however she is biting on a lot of things - she even tries to bite us sometimes. She knows that she isn't supposed to bite and when she tries to bite us she has a devilish look in her eyes. She hasn't really bitten down on me but she tires.

The other thing we are dealing with a little bit is Emma has started to hit. When she isn't getting her way she will swat at us or grab our shirt/arms. The nice thing is Emma understands when we tell her it isn't OK to do these things but she doesn't always listen. Judith also told us that when Emma is at the park and a kid comes up to play with a toy she has she will hit the kid away and say no, no, no. Judith tells her that it is the other kids turn to play with the toy and Emma can play with it later... We are obviously working on this behavior with Emma and hope that we can get it under control sooner than later.