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!

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.

Chocolate, Anyone?

Who knew Doctors would prescribe chocolate as making everything better? I sure didn’t. I mean, yes, I know that chocolate is the best medicine for anything... but for a Doctor to confirm it, well I feel like the happiest person in the world. That’s what happened yesterday at Emma’s 18-month doctor's appointment. Chocolate really works and does make everything better.

Let me go back a few days to explain. Jamey and I decided over the weekend that we needed to get Emma off the bottle once and for all. Per the doctor’s recommendation we got rid of it cold turkey. We did a little send off Saturday night when I was giving her a bottle but it didn’t resonate with her – no surprise there. When I went to feed her Sunday morning she was not interested one bit in drinking her milk in anything but a bottle. She wouldn’t take it from her sippy cup, an adult cup, her yogurt bottle – nothing. We tried everything but she is so smart and knew that we were putting milk in these things and she wouldn’t budge. That went on all day, night and Monday morning. Thank goodness we were going to the doctor for her well-baby check up. The doctor said to give her chocolate milk and then gradually limit the amount of chocolate we are putting in the milk till she eventually just drinks regular milk. I was a bit skeptical of this but when we left the doctor’s we bought chocolate milk and guess what – Emma LOVED it!! She wanted more and more and that made us so happy! We already are putting less chocolate in each cup so this trick works. She really is my daughter because if you all remember my favorite food during my pregnancy was Nestlé’s semi-sweet chocolate chips. We of course now brush her teeth really well at night since she is drinking sugar but hopefully she will be off the chocolate soon.

But Emma is so funny and smart. She really notices the little details. She will look at the color of the milk before she drinks it – she has to make sure it has a brown chocolately tint. It will be interesting to see how long it will take for her to go back to regular old milk. Speaking of how observant she is, Jamey and I have electric toothbrushes – Oral B to be exact. There is a little colored ring at the bottom of the toothbrush that you put on to distinguish who’s toothbrush is who’s. Well we took Emma’s ring off because of the chocking hazard and Emma no longer likes her toothbrush. She wants mine or Jamey’s – and she knows the difference. It is annoying but it is cute and kinda cool that she knows.

In addition to us getting rid of the bottle, we are also making a few changes with Emma’s schedule. We are moving her to one nap and we are also pushing her bedtime back to around 7:30pm so she will sleep a little bit later. The doctor said that it will take a few weeks for the new bedtime to take but so far she has been great. She isn’t sleeping as long as we’d like but she is sleeping till 6:15 or so and that is better than her 5:45 wakeup calls. Hopefully she will wake up around 6:30/6:45 so she gets a little more rest but we will see. We also decided it was time for Emma to take one nap. She is super tired in the morning but we have been putting her to sleep around 1pm and the last couple of days she has slept around an hour and 15 minutes. Our goal is for her to sleep at least 2 hours. Hopefully she will.

On Saturday we had a nice day. There was a street fair on 24^th Street and we got Emma a balloon. This balloon was a source of entertainment and sadness for the days to come. Emma loved the balloon. She even started to say balloon. She was playing with it and carrying it around with her all over the house. Unfortunately, on Sunday the balloon popped. She was so sad about it. She got over it but then what was remarkable is on Monday out of the blue she went to go look for the balloon. Emma would run to the place in the house where the balloon was kept and would point up to the ceiling and say balloon. She didn’t understand that the balloon was gone and would get sad and even frustrated that it wasn’t there. Her memory of this balloon was incredible. She finally gave up last night but then this morning after she was up for an hour she started talking about the balloon again. We asked Judith to go get her some balloons today so hopefully that will fulfill her balloon need.

On Sunday we went to a birthday party for one of Emma’s friends at the park. It was really nice to meet some of the parents of the kids Emma hangs out with everyday. Emma had a great time and it was really cute to see her play with her friends.

Grandma Barbara also came to visit on Sunday and Emma loved having her around. She learned how to say Barbara and it was so cute. Now she says Barbara so that’s another new word for her. Barbara got her a bunch of books and read to her a lot. She was also teaching Emma her ABC’s. Emma was on her best behavior – she was happy, loving and was her sweet herself. We went out to dinner Sunday night and Emma loved being out. She was observing everyone and she ate really well.

On to her doctor’s appointment: The doctor said something that we already know – Emma is perfect. She said that she is even advanced for her age with the number of words she says. Emma weight 24.4 pounds, is 32 and 2/3 inches long and this puts her in the 45^th percent tile for weight and around 75^th percent tile for height. We asked the doctor about her feet turning in and she said that it is normal and that her feet will continue to straighten out until she is 5. So there is nothing for us to do because again, Emma is perfect. We don’t go back to the doctor until she is 2 and Jamey is taken aback by this. He can’t believe that she doesn’t want to see Emma for 6 months. The doctor said that when a baby has issues she wants to see them at 21 months but because Emma is perfect she doesn’t need to see her.

Emma’s new favorite thing to say is “WOW.” It is so cute to hear her say it. When she gets something she wants like she wants the keys and we give them to her she will say “WOW.” It is so funny. She also likes to look at herself in the mirror. Take note of the cool shoes she is wearing – Randi made them for her. She really likes them!

Emma also got a new stroller to push around and she loves putting Tulane Monkey to sleep in it. She will put Tulane Monkey in it, give him a kiss, then get a blanket and put it over the stroller. She will then say night night and push the stroller around. She will say shush to us and hold her index finger up to her mouth. It is amazing to see her do this. What is hilarious is we put the blanket over her stroller when we put her to sleep and she caught on to this and does this with her Monkey. She really is one smart cookie.

Here are some other words that Emma says. These are either words I forgot to write down that she said by her 18-month birthday or words she has said the last few days:

Drea (for Andrea)

Ardo (for Eduardo)

Salsa

Hat

Night

Go

Alla (it’s Spanish for over there)

Wow

Barbara

Balloon

I