Emma’s 15 months!

Emma is a rock star! She honestly is the best little girl. We went to the doctor today for her 15-month check up and she was perfect. She weighed 22 pounds 4 ounces and measured 30.5 inches long. She gained around 2 lbs from her 12-month appointment and that was her biggest jump on the percentile since birth. She is now in the 45% percentile in weight. We all know Emma loves to eat and it shows. What is amazing about her weight is that she has a little stomach bug and hasn’t been eating so much the last few days so it was surprising to see what she weighed. When the doctor did her check-up Emma was watching her intensely. She didn’t cry or seem to mind at all. The doctor even commented that typically at this check-up there is a lot of crying and said Emma is a wonderful little girl. She said that she hasn’t had a no crying 15-month appointment for the last few months so it was a nice change that Emma didn’t cry. Yup, Emma’s perfect!

She has the cutest little belly – well it isn’t so little. She has a big belly and it is so yummy! She likes to lift up her shirt and rub her belly. It is so funny to watch her do this. We constantly pull her shirt down but it usually goes right back up. The one problem we are having with her belly is that her pants are getting a bit snug. She is wearing 12-18 month pants but many of the buttons cut into her belly. The problem is while she needs to go up a size so her pants will button nicely they will be way too long on her. We will figure this all out.

The doctor said Emma is right where she should be at her age – probably a bit more advanced with her speech. Typically kids will say around 4-5 words at this age but Emma says more. I still laugh at Jamey because he was so concerned for a while that she wasn’t babbling. Her favorite word is still “NO” and it is so funny when she says it. It makes us laugh when she says it because she won’t even mean no but she will say it. Emma is totally bilingual. She understands what we say to her and Judith says Emma understands when she speaks in Spanish to her. We love that she can understand both English and Spanish. Judith told us that Emma said patos the other day as in zappatos/shoes. What is funny is Emma loves to talk and most of the time we don’t know what she is saying. She says a lot of the same things over and over again so she definitely thinks she is saying something – it’s just too bad that we don’t understand. And know that we know she is starting to say some words in Spanish is going to make it that more challenging for us to know what she says.

She still knows what she wants and let’s us know when she wants something. She loves going into the hall closet by her bedroom and looking at all the things we have in there. She likes playing with the broom and vacuum although she does get scared of them for a second every once in a while. She really loves the two mardi gras bags we have that we take to the market with us every week. She loves to play with them and carries them around with her. You can take a look at the video in the post to see what we are talking about.

Emma also likes brushing her teeth. She cries when we take her toothbrush away. The only problem with Emma brushing her teeth is that she doesn’t do the greatest job at it. We got a little lax about letting her do it on her own but we realize that we need to help her more. That isn’t a problem though. All four of her one-year old molars are coming in – you can see them all cutting through her gums. One is already all the way in. She is such a trooper!

Emma still loves to read and constantly brings us books to read to her. She will bring them to us and sit in our laps while we read them. This is one of our favorite things to do with her. She is also still obsessed with dogs. So much so, that last week I brought home some Wii and DS games that had dogs on the cover. She got into the bag and took out the ones that had dogs on them. It was so cute because we didn’t know she went into the bag and all of a sudden she was saying dog and brought the Wii game to us to read it to her. We just laughed and laughed. But now they are her favorite things! She opens up the games, takes out the booklet and flips through them like they are a book. She loves looking at the pictures. Her collection of Wii and DS dog games has grown to about five different titles.

Emma has started to sleep longer in the morning which is really nice for us. The time changed helped that a lot! She now sleeps till 6:30 give or take 15 minutes on each side. I have to say it is quite wonderful to sleep a little later.

Right now Emma has a little stomach bug. She got it on Sunday and is still a bit sick. It is so sad because Emma isn't eating and we all know how much she enjoys food. She is eating bread every once in a while since that is her favorite food so we have been making waffles, french toast and stuff like that for her but she only eats a little of it. I hope she gets over this bug soon because I don't like it when she doesn't eat!

The talkative Emma

Emma is talking up a storm. But we can’t always understand what she is saying. She has a language that is all her own and we call Emma-speak. She is constantly repeating one phrase and we get the gist of it – basically it means she wants something. The last couple days a new word popped up and she is excellent at saying it – no. She repeats it over and over again because she wants us to know that she means no. It is very cute. She isn’t throwing any temper tantrums – yet.

Emma knows how to say dog, no, more but it comes out more like mo, mama and dada. That’s what is in her repertoire right now. Yesterday she started to whisper pa-pa/pa-po and each time she did that it was because she had a poopy diaper. I am not 100% sure that when she says that it means she has a poopy diaper and it was more of a coincidence but Jamey thinks that’s her way of telling us. We will see. I know it makes sense but still.

Emma understands so much now and it’s incredible. As you all know, Emma doesn’t like nap time. And when we tell her it is time for a nap she starting running away from us. It is really cute. She will run into the other room and try to play.

Emma is also back into her kissing phase and we absolutely love it! She is the best kisser and her giving kisses to us will never get old! When she goes down for a nap or it’s bedtime she will always give us a kiss. Even if she is crying because she doesn’t want to go to sleep – she will stop and give us a kiss. What I love is she will stop what she is doing all of a sudden and randomly gives us a huge kiss. I love this so much and hope she continues giving kisses.

Emma loves to read books. And one of favorite new things to do, which is so special, is she will bring us a book and then will sit in our laps. Previously, she would bring us a book for her to read but she never would sit in our lap before. Today, for instance, Jamey was in the living room with her and she brought him a book for him to read. His legs were bent in a way where she couldn’t sit down and she hit his legs so he would move them. He then crossed his legs and she sat down on his lap. He said it was the cutest and sweetest thing. I wish I saw it.

Emma started another music class this week and she loves it. She dances all the time and whenever music goes on she either claps her hands, dances or she will conduct. It is so cute when she conducts – she points her fingers and swings them back and forth. She also learned Ring Around the Rosey. Sometimes all we have to do is sing it and she will start moving around in a circle. When we get to the “ashes, ashes” part she stops in her tracks and prepares to fall down. The cutest is to watch her fall down because she will fall all the way down. She first falls down on her butt and then will lean backwards and lay on the floor. It is so funny to see her do it. We have to catch it on camera.

Also, I am happy to report that her hair is finally growing - and it is noticeable! It is growing slowly but it is growing. Our hope is that she will have fairly long hair by the time Meredith and Jason get married.

Lastly, Jamey made a huge discovery this weekend. On Saturday, Emma was interested in exploring Jamey’s teeth. He let her look and feel all around his mouth and he made a pack with her. He said that she was able to do this under the condition that he could explore her mouth. And guess what he found… three more teeth! Yup – he was able to confirm what I have said for a while – she was teething and has new teeth. It is possible she has more than what Jamey found but it is exciting none the less. All the teeth he found are molars. They are just breaking through her gums. I know she will be very happy once they all come in. She now has a total of nine teeth.

Emma the walker!

Emma no longer crawls. She is a total walker. It just happened one day. She was on the verge of walking but she would only take a few steps alone and would hold on to our hand. Then on Wednesday, February 2, she took off. She just starting walking and didn’t want any assistance. She started walking around the house in circles and you can tell she was so impressed with herself! It is amazing to watch her walk around the whole house, walk down the street, walk in the park – everywhere! We love hearing the pitter patter of feet!

One of my favorite moments is we went to breakfast a few weeks ago and when we left Emma wanted to walk back home. We put her down and she walked a few steps then stopped, looked at my and reached out her hand. She wanted to hold hands and walk. I can’t tell you how much I LOVED that!!! It was so sweet. She is such a love bug!!!

Another big development in our life is we finally figured out how to go to dinner with Emma. It has opened the door to our lives and are so happy that we can do this! Yes, we have to go at 5 p.m. so there are many early bird specials we can take advantage of. The funny thing is we aren’t the only parents at dinner at that time. It is way busier than one would think. Emma does really well at this time and she loves being out. She is a great eater so the only thing we make sure is that the restaurant is kid-friendly. Our plan is to go out to dinner once a week which will bring a lot of freedom to our lives. We can officially say we are in the next chapter of being parents.

Judy and Ed came to visit a couple weeks ago and it was great to see them. They kept saying how much Emma has grown since the last time they saw her was at Meredith’s engagement party in November. She was her happy smiley self and wouldn’t stay still for a minute. We went out to dinner with them and Emma was great! I can’t tell you enough how happy we are about this development!

Emma has been going around the city too, over the last few weeks. Judith took Emma to the Zoo and said she loved the seeing the penguins. This was the second time Emma went to the Zoo and we are glad that she enjoyed it. Judith also took Emma to the San Francisco Bay Aquarium. This is a different one than we go to and Emma had a really nice time. After the aquarium, they went to see the seals on the pier and Emma liked seeing them. Apparently she was laughing at all the noises they made.

This past weekend, Grandma Marcia and Grandpa Bob came to visit. Emma was so excited to have them here. When she first saw Grandma Marcia she was apprehensive because she didn’t understand how she was seeing her in-person. After the initial shock wore off Emma was all smiles. She was laughing and screaming with Grandma and Grandpa. She was really sad when Grandpa left to go home (he left of Sunday but Grandma stayed until Monday). She got her sad face and pouted. It was sad to see her react this way. She sure loves her Grandpa!

On Sunday she was a bit cranky but we soon realized why on Monday. Poor little Emma is sick again with a really gnarly cold. We took her to the doctor on Tuesday because we thought her ears were bothering her and long story short she has fluid in both ears. The Doctor prescribed some drops for us to put in her ears so our fingers are crossed that her ears don’t get infected. She was much happier today than she was yesterday so we hope she gets better soon.

P.S. – we got a new camera charger since ours went missing so the good news is soon we will have new pictures of Emma to share and post to the blog.

Some pictures

Everyone always wants pictures so here are some. Emma is so cute and sweet. She looks like a little princess in her dress :) She also went to art class and brought home a wonderful looking art project. We can't wait for her to bring home more of these and for our frig to be taken over by Emma's original designs. We also went to the Discovery Museum with Grandma Barbara last weekend and Emma had a great time.