Hawaii till now

Ma-ma, Da-da, who?

That’s what it felt like in Hawaii. Emma really wanted to nothing to do with us. She was all about Grandma. She wouldn’t do anything without Grandma – Grandma had to take her to the potty, Grandma had to give her her showers, she had to sit on Grandma’s lap to eat her food.

Emma had a blast in Hawaii. She loved the ocean and playing in the sand. Every day we would get our umbrella on the beach, bring her toys down and then she would run down to the water, scoop some water up in her bucket and run back to the umbrella. She loved it!! She also loved taking showers at the beach to wash off the sand but the funny little girl would run right back into the sand and then say she needed to take a shower a minute later. This routine got quite tiresome but it was cute.

We also went swimming in the pool everyday – she is such a water baby!!! She loved going down the water slide with Jamey. She is still taking her swimming lessons and every Saturday she says “pool time!!” She really loves the water.

Emma loved being in Hawaii with the entire family. She was so happy and was on her best behavior everyday. She slept till 5/5:30 which was a blessing considering how early she woke up last year. She did have a bit of a hard time with the babysitter – she liked her but she didn’t want us to leave. I loved how attached she is to us but it was good for her to be with the babysitter. She did well each night so again that was an improvement over last year.

Emma has a new nickname – bossy pants. She definitely knows how she likes things and in her mind knows how they should be. If I try to put a hairband in my hair she will tell me no and try to pull it out. If I am wearing a shirt and she doesn’t like it she will tell me to put on another one. Sheesh! Little miss bossy pants!!

We took Emma to her 2 year-old doctor’s appointment and she was such a trooper. She didn’t care that she was there but she had no interest in getting weighed (Jamey had to hold her) and she didn’t want to stand under the ruler to get her height measured (they had to lay her down). She wasn’t a pain about it but she just wouldn’t stand there. It isn’t uncommon so the nurse just went with plan B. The doctor said Emma looked great – she is in the 40^th percentile for weight (she weighed 27.5 lbs) and 60^th for height (she is 34 inches tall). The doctor said that she is advanced in her speech for her age which made us happy. Emma had to get two shots which is always nerve-wracking. Jamey held her in his lap and I was trying to distract her showing her videos of her party. She didn’t want to watch the party because she was more interested in looking at what the nurse was doing. She got her two shots and she didn’t flinch – she couldn’t care less about it. She didn’t cry until the nurse put band-aids on her. She did not want band-aids!!! Once we figured out that she was hysterical because of them we took them off and then within a second she stopped crying. She then turned to the band-aids and said “bad band-aids!!!” it was hilarious.

Everything is so “silly” right now. If she falls down, she will say, “silly Emma.” If I put on Jamey’s sweatshirt she will laugh and say, “silly Mama, daddy’s sweatshirt.” It is so funny to hear her saw silly to everything. Jamey has also graduated from Da-da and is now officially Daddy. It is really sweet to hear her say it. She puts an emphasis on the D at the end so it is dadEE! Jamey is kind of sad that he is no longer Da-da but Emma is growing up which is a wonderful thing.

I had to go away for work for a week and Grandma Barbara came to visit to help Jamey take care of Emma. She loved having Barbara there. Then Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Bob came to take care of Emma and Jamey met me in Vegas for the weekend. It was the first time we left her for two nights. It was really nice to get away but I was so excited to get back and see Emma. What was really great though is since Emma is talking so much now when I called to say hi and check in on things she and I had a conversation. It was a first on the phone for me!! She said good morning, told me that she was good and slept well, and she ate cereal and milk. She is such a big girl.

When I came home on Sunday, I have never seen such an amazing reaction from Emma. She was jumping up and down for joy!! She couldn’t stop jumping in excitement. It was the best homecoming ever!!

Emma continues to go to swim classes and loves it. She is always talking about going in the pool and looks forward to it every week. She is getting better at listening and following directions. She still likes to drink a lot of the water but she has a smile on her face the entire time she is in the pool.

Emma is also getting more and more stubborn. She wants to do things on her terms and her way which is starting to create some problems. An example of this is on Sunday I took her to the market – it was just the two of us. A quick trip to the market turned into a 40 minute nightmare. When I went to put Emma back in her car seat she wanted nothing to do with it. She wanted to drive and so I let her go behind the wheel and play for a little bit. Well when I was finally done with her playing she wouldn’t get in her car seat. She went limp noodle every time I tried to pick her up or put her in her seat. It was beyond frustrating!!! I called Jamey and told him to get in a taxi and come help out. I was beside myself. I didn’t know what to do and I totally understand now why people drive with their kids not strapped in. Finally, after taking her out of the car and letting her roam in and out of the store, climb up and down stairs and telling her that we will go to the park and see her friends she finally got into her car seat. I was so frustrated with her that when I got home I wanted nothing to do with her.

But on the flip side she is just so cute. Monday when I got home her friends were over. She plays so nicely with them and is so lovey too. She is also quite maternal towards Niko who is only a few months younger than her. It was hilarious to watch her. Niko was coughing so Emma went up to her and started patting her back to help her. Then Emma brought Niko’s water bottle to her and was giving it to her. Niko took some water and then Emma kept shoving the bottle in her face for more. It reminded me of what we do to Emma.

We just love this little girl – for all her good and all her bad. When she wants to be sweet she really is just the sweetest. She runs around the house like crazy person, loves to call people on the phone and loves to Skype with Grandma and Barbara. It is amazing to watch her navigate the iPhone – she knows how to get to her Elmo apps, she knows how to get to the pictures and videos so she can watch them and knows how to call people. The iPhone really is intuitive and easy for kids to use.

A recent phase Emma seems to be going through is when we try to take a picture of her she puts her hand up and says no pictures. It’s as if she thinks she is a celebrity or something and we’re paparazzi. I’m not listening to her so I am still taking the pictures so when she is older and looking through them she will see what a crazy lunatic she was being.

Emma's 2nd Birthday!

Emma is 2!

Wow – 2 years old. I still can’t believe Emma it! (I do have to admit I cried on her birthday because where did the time go???) She is such a little person now! She is growing so much and so fast. She continues to talk up a storm and says the funniest things.

She is practically potty trained during the day and now wears underwear. She still has accidents from time to time but for the most part she doesn’t. We put her in a diaper during her naps (and she typically wakes up dry) and we put her in one at night. It is really amazing that we can say she is practically potty trained and this all happened before she was even 2!

Emma is still obsessed with chapstick – and she always wants it when she is on the potty. Sometimes she will have five at a time. It is so strange that she loves chapstick so much but I guess there are worse things than that.

Emma also loves Elmo. The funny thing is Emma has never seen Sesame Street but there is something about Elmo that she loves. Judith got her an Elmo shirt and that is all Emma wants to wear. She has so many clothes but we can’t get her to put on anything except Elmo. We call it her uniform. So if you see her wearing a pink Elmo shirt in almost every picture from here on out you will know that we tried to get her to wear something else but failed. Oh yes, if you haven’t figured it out, Emma now picks out what she wears. She knows what she wants to wear and you have to put it on. When her Elmo shirt is dirty it isn’t a pretty site at the Wyman house but after reasoning with her for a while we manage to get her to pick something else out. So the funky outfits you see in the pictures are all her doing.

We threw Emma a birthday party at our house. We had 40 adults and kids in total. Who knew everyone could fit in our place. This will have to be the last time though that we do this because our house is just too small. Kids were running around everywhere and it was a lot of fun. We had a musician come to her party and play for 45 minutes. Emma loved it and so did the kids. Emma is used to seeing her because the musician puts on a show every Wednesday at the local bookstore for free and Emma goes every week. We didn’t really have a theme but Elmo was definitely present – not only did she wear an Elmo shirt; the cake had a Sesame Street decoration.

Emma had another special guest come to her party - Grandma Marcia – and boy oh boy was she excited to see her! Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Bob bought Emma two Elmo shirts for her birthday and she wore one of them. It is a nice change to see her in a different Elmo shirt. Now she has three to choose from when she gets ready in the morning.

Emma also got some great gifts from people. One of the best gifts she got was a red flyer wagon from Judith. She calls it a wa-wa and she finally has one of her own. All her friends have one and she was always so sad that she didn’t have one. Now she is so excited to have her own!

Emma still loves to read and we are so happy about it. She got some great books for her birthday that we can now add to her collection.

Another favorite pastime of Emma’s is cooking, eating the food she made and having tea. This is of course just her playing in her kitchen and sitting at her table but it is really cute to watch her cook. She loves playing with all the different food and making soups, eggs, chicken, beans and what not. She can just sit there for hours and play. She likes to have company over for “food” so we are often sitting with her at her table eating or drinking her creation.

Emma loves to sing and dance. She loves singing the head and shoulders song, itsy bitsy spider and twinkle twinkle little star are among her favorites. She also enjoys when we play when you are happy and you know it. She will sing along but she has never sung the song on her own.

She is also learning how to count both in English and Spanish. She can count in English up to ten with some help and we have heard her count in Spanish on her own up to three. I know she can count higher in Spanish but I don’t remember how high.

She’s become quite independent and wants to do everything on her own. She is feeding herself more which is great, and she is walking up and down stairs on her own. In our house she doesn’t hold to the walls anymore to get up and down the few stairs we have inside but she will hold on to the railings other times.

She is back in swim classes and is enjoying them. She is very slowly getting the hang of closing her mouth when she goes underwater. She loves blowing bubbles underwater and overall having a great time swimming. She is going to love when we go to Hawaii next week and she can swim every day.

That’s what is going on with Emma – she is two, knows what she wants (aka can be a bit stubborn when she doesn’t get her way) and is overall a happy little girl. What more could we ask for!

Our little big Emma

Emma will be two years old soon and I just can’t believe it. She has grown up so much and is such a cute, sweet little person. Her personality comes out more everyday and she reminds me of me. That is a good thing and possibly a bad thing. She knows what she wants and won’t stop until she gets it. For example, she loves chapstick – just loves putting it on her lips, carrying it around and unfortunately sticking her fingers in it. She won’t let up until you give it to her and it is an easier thing to give into her than fight with her. When she sees chapstick she lights up – she makes these wonderful facial expressions and they are just to die for. It is really hard to not give in and give her the chapstick. Typically though it ends with us having to take it away because she sticks her fingers in the chapstick – it is really annoying how many chapsticks she has ruined! Another example is Emma loves her stuffed animals – she sleeps with three bunnies, her monkey, giraffe, another little bunny and her other monkey – LaLa. I love that she loves her animals and that she is attached to them but she is maybe a bit attached to them. I don’t mind as much as Jamey does but she likes to bring the majority of her animals to the park or outside the house and it can cause some problems. Granted it is probably best for her to not bring her animals when she leaves the house so we are going to try to stop that.

As I have said before and will continue to say Emma is smart and she knows what she is supposed to do or not do. She will climb up on a chair by the counter/bar in the kitchen and we don’t like her doing it because it is a bit dangerous. So now when she does it she will get up and say, “Emma, no, no, no.” It is really funny to hear her say that.

Emma has started to pick out her own clothes – she has preferences of what she wears and sometimes it is a battle but most of the time it works out. I love watching her go through her clothes and pick out what she wants to wear.

Another past time Emma loves doing is swinging from everything. She has figured out that the kitchen table is a fantastic place to swing from. She will move the chairs away from the table and start swinging. I have to say that the first time she did it I was blown away. I couldn’t believe she was hanging from the table and swinging. Hilarious!

As smart as Emma is, the one thing she didn’t get down was potty training. Last weekend we decided to try the three day potty training method – and, well, Emma failed – miserably. The house was like a pool filled with pee – thank goodness for hardwood floors – easy clean-up. She did pee on the carpet a few times so not as many times as she peed on the floor. It was bitter sweet to she her cute little tushie in underwear and not have diaper butt but I did three loads of laundry everyday for two days. It was just awful. She never got it even though the method says that a 22-month old can do it. She is interested in the potty but this method wasn’t right for her. We are now taking another approach and it seems to be working. It isn’t flawless but she is doing much better. Instead of having her tell us when she wants to potty we continuously ask her if she needs to go and then will go in the potty. Judith wants to try underwear next week so we will see how that goes. In any case it is pretty amazing that she likes going to the bathroom in the potty.

We started Emma in swim classes again. She has only been to two thus far but she is really enjoying them. She is learning that she needs to close her mouth when she goes underwater but she does drink a lot of it. One step at a time. Emma is also taking a couple other classes at the recreation center which she enjoys. They are gym type classes with some arts and crafts aspect at the end too. It gives her something to do during the week in addition to music class.

Emma can definitely be difficult but she hasn’t really entered the terrible two’s just yet. We have the most trouble with her at dinner time because sometimes she doesn’t want to eat what was made for her. It is so difficult to feed her sometimes and it isn’t a pleasant experience. She will want to do anything but eat – play, read a book, skype with family, look at pictures of Gracie. But all in all she doesn’t throw tantrums and we are lucky so far. We imagine they will come someday but hopefully not soon.

For quite a while now we have been working on Emma’s manners. We make her say please, thank you, etc. and it is wonderful to hear her be kind to people – especially us. One of the cutest things she does is when someone sneezes she will either say bless you or “a-chew-ee” – you know the sound you make when you sneeze. It is so precious when she says that. And she has been saying it a lot because Jamey got sick and then of course I got sick.

We are trying to teach Emma colors and while we know she knows them she won’t always get it right. Sometimes Jamey thinks she is color blind because she will say blue or green for everything when she knows it is yellow or red. I think she just doesn’t want to think so says something to appease us but when she gets it wrong we just work with her more.

In addition to chapstick Emma is really into Elmo and trains. Judith got her an Elmo shirt – it is really cute but she is not a fan of when it goes into the washing machine. She knows it needs to be clean but doesn’t want to part from it. We also bought her a Thomas the Train book and a train rubber stamp. She really enjoys the book and loves getting stamps! When she sees a train she says choo choo and will refer to trains as such.

Emma is an avid reader. She will pick up books in room and sit on her stool and read her books. We don’t need to entertain her during this time – she is content reading by herself. But of course we love to read to her and do so at every opportunity. She refers to a number of her books by particular names – and it really cool to see how her little brain is working. She will bring us books to read to her and then request a different one.

We are in midst of the retched preschool process and I can’t stand it! I get so stressed about it and it puts me in a bad mood. I just want to shut down and pretend it isn’t happening. It is so expensive and competitive. Ugh!! And the places we have seen aren’t great – we saw one that we liked but it too has its flaws. I just can’t believe we are already at the stage in Emma’s life to look for a preschool. It makes me sad that she is growing up so quickly but I love it too.

I love spending time with Emma. It is so fun to do things with her and watch her do all the things she can do now that she is older. She wants to do everything herself – “I doey” aka I do it. I love her little sweet voice – and love that she talks so much. She is putting three – sometimes more words together. She will even speak in sentences but when that happens we have no clue what she is saying. She is talking in her own language. She is also speaking more Spanish which is a blessing and a curse – we can’t always understand what she is saying or what she wants. Most of the time we are OK but sometimes she can get a bit frustrated or she will laugh/smile because she knows we don’t know what she is saying. The other day she was saying something (in her own language) and she kept repeating it over and over because I kept asking what she was saying. After ten times of repeating herself she just started to laugh because I wasn’t getting it. it is good that she laughs more often than getting frustrated.

Little Miss Emma was a Princess for Halloween. She wore a princess dress that Grandma and Grandpa bought for her. She was a beautiful princess. I bought her a wand, tiara, ring and earrings to go along with the outfit. She loved the tiara surprisingly given she doesn’t love wearing anything on her head. She also is obsessed with her wand. She likes to “zing or zoing” people with it and thinks it is the funniest thing when she does so. She starts hysterically laughing and it is wonderful to hear the house filled with her laughter. We bought her a dog costume to wear but she wanted nothing to do with it – oh well.

It took almost two years but Emma is really good about going to sleep now. When we put her to sleep she will say “mama, bye bye” and then go to sleep without crying or whining. I can’t tell you how nice it is for her to go right to sleep. And she isn’t that difficult with her naps either which is such a 180 than before.

Emma is the light of our lives. She brings so much happiness to our lives and fills our house with love and laughter. She loves giving hugs and kisses and they never get old. I hope she stays this lovey forever. I also hope she doesn’t become an Emma monster once she is two. Time will tell.

Wrote on Oct. 3 but didn't post till now...

It’s been a long long time since I have last posted an update – and boy oh boy did a lot of things happen!!

Emma is such a big girl it is amazing. I can’t believe how much of a person she is. Emma is a talking machine – she is saying more and more words everyday and when we ask her to use her words and she does. She climbs on everything and is a first class daredevil – not afraid of anything. She loves hanging and swinging on the monkey bars at the playground. She is the only one her age that does that and she absolutely loves it. It is really cool to see – but the little voice inside of me wonders if it is good for her arms...

In August, we went to LA and SD. Emma had a wonderful time in LA with Gracie – her new best friend. She learned how to say Gracie’s name really well and command her to “come.” It is really cute to watch her call Gracie and then with all her might yell come. She does it with such fervor that it will make anyone laugh! A huge milestone happened when we were there – Emma went poo poo in the potty. We were giving her a bath and she crouched down in position and we asked her if she needed to poo. When she said she did we lifted her up and put her on the potty. Low and behold, she pooed in the potty. It was amazing!! We cheered and cheered and she was so proud of herself. We have continued to encourage her to use the potty when we are home and she seems to be getting the hang of it. It really is incredible to see her potty train herself though. She will tell us that she has to go poo poo and then say potty and she will go. Sometimes she just toots and we tell her that she doesn’t need to go to the potty to do that but she is learning. And then just this past week she started to go pee pee in the potty. She is doing this potty training thing reversed but how many kids really potty train themselves.

She was a flower girl in Meredith’s wedding and was a perfect angel that day! Emma looked so beautiful in her flower girl dress! She walked down the aisle with no problem at all and even tried to walk Meredith down the aisle!