Wow, turns out that Emily's mom is a slacker, too! :)

Emily has been attending school full-time for the past couple of months. She absolutely loves it. She is so social and she seems to have a lot of fun there. The only downside is that she rarely naps there. I think that she has started to adjust to the lack of sleep, but there have been plenty of days when she has been rather fussy and edgy. She does a good job of catching up on the weekends, though, and we have also found that if Chad can bring her home on Wednesday afternoons for a little mid-week nap, then she seems to do much better.

We had her parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago and they basically told me what I already knew - Emily is just the sweetest little thing. She listens well, follows direction, asserts herself when needed, plays well both alone and with others, etc. The teacher asked me if we ever needed to correct her because she just seems so well-behaved at school. :)

Emily has finally started to identify letters and she is really excited about it. Not surprisingly, the one that she has chosen to identify first is the letter E. She points is out to me all the time. Also, Abbie has recently started a "school" for Emily at home and has been helping her hold a pencil to write the letters A, B, and C. Abbie has decided that Emily needs to get comfortable with her letters before they move on to numbers. :)

Also, Emily had her three year old well-child check-up on September 13th (yes, we were very late this year). She is currently at 28.2 pounds (16th percentile), and 37.5 inches (44th percentile). Not much change from some of her prior check-ups, so that is good.

Emily had a great time on our recent visit to San Diego. She had wanted to fly on a plane for a long time and this was her big chance. She absolutely loved it and wants to do it again. Also, she really enjoyed our time on the beach. As tends to be the case with Emily, she was interested but also cautious. She liked the waves, but always wanted to have a grip on someone's hand so that they wouldn't knock her over.

I love the look of pure joy and excitement in this one above. Of course, as is so typical for San Diego, you can see that it wasn't that warm. Mom and Dad are bundled up while the girls were swimming in some rather chilly water. :) As you can see, though, Emily has a hold of someone's had in every single photo.

For Halloween this year, Emily has decided to be Bat Girl. She has a cute little costume with a black mask that is very stunning with her big, blue eyes! She is desperately looking forward to candy, and I think she is at an age where she is really going to enjoy the whole Halloween process this year. Pictures to follow soon, I promise! :)

Lots of Changes

Emily went from having very few changes to having lots of changes all at once. First, she just got her "big girl bed" and began sleeping in it last Friday. So far, it has gone great. She stays in it (thanks to a tot clock that turns green when it is time to get up), and she doesn't seem to roll around too much (although we have guard rails just in case). She really loves her new bed, and it is a very comfortable mattress, so I can see why she is excited about it. Naturally, she also loves having the power to get up on her own and to bring toys and books into her bed as needed.

(being a goof)

The second big change is that Emily just started full-time preschool yesterday. She has been away from school all summer and was really looking forward to going back. She was very excited both this morning and yesterday morning. Also, she seemed to be in a great mood last night, despite the fact that she didn't nap in the afternoon. Last year, she was in the toddler program two mornings a week, and if the kids weren't outside, then they were in one room together. In contrast, this year, she is doing what they call the outer school rotation - she starts in the creative dramatics classroom, then rotates to language arts, to music, and to art class as the day progresses. Such a big kid thing to do!

As for her evolving personality, Emily continues to be a quiet, gentle child who has a great imagination and can keep herself entertained for hours. She loves to throw "parties" as she calls them, which really involves her setting out elaborate place settings, and plastic food for her dolls and stuffed animals. She also likes to spend hours in the shower washing her little toys and imagining elaborate activities. I'm not exactly sure what is going on in the photo below, but this is what I found in my shower the other day and I realized that it isn't random - all the toys have been set very carefully, and purposely.

It kind of reminds me of some sort of modern art thing. Maybe something like this:

http://meganmarlatt.com/artwork/929415_Scattered_Toys_2.html which was done by an art professor at UVa.

Emily's other new personality quirk is that she has decided that "kisses are yucky" so any time we try to kiss her she'll squirm away from us. If we do happen to lay one on her, she'll wipe it off with the back of her hand and then rub it on our body somewhere, declaring, "I took the kiss off me and put it on you." To some extent it is a game, but it is also the case that she is really big on this "no kiss" thing right now. Hopefully it'll pass because she really is such a cute, cuddly thing, and its hard for her mama to not kiss her!

Lazy Days

Not much is new with Emily lately. She has been enjoying the lazy days of summer - running around the house naked, having no real agenda, and just going with the flow. There has been lots of swimming, coloring, and book reading.

She is really interested in drawings of her family, but not really willing to do the drawing herself. Ellie pushed her pretty hard one day and walked her through all the necessary components - we need a circle for a head, we need arms, we need legs, etc. She finally produced a drawing of Daddy on her own but was very displeased that it didn't look like him, so she has since backed off trying to draw people herself. Instead, she'll draw a frame around the outside of the paper, sign her name to the back of the paper (a squiggly line), and then come to any adult present and say "Can you draw our family for me?" She'll watch carefully, dictating who to draw next, etc., but she is only willing to take on a supervisory role. Once the required people have been drawn, she is happy to color them, and draw clothes on them, but she just refuses to do the initial stick figures.

Emily's interest in monsters has grown since the last post. I still need to check her closet and under her bed for her before each nap or bedtime, and this is all the more important since we discovered a great new book, "I Need My Monster." We found it at the bookstore last week, read it 3-4 times, but did not buy it. She kept talking and talking about it to the point where Chad went back and bought it for her. She loves it and asks to read it many times a day. Fortunately, it is a really cute story with really great illustrations. I highly recommend it. :)

As for reading, Emily has started to display an interest in learning to read, but the actual reading is obviously still a long way off. For now, she often pretends to read, or recites stories along with me as I read them, or asks me to tell her what a certain word says, etc. I try to facilitate things by gliding my finger along the words as I read, but it is all a long, slow process which will certainly take years. Hopefully she will ultimately come to enjoy reading as much as Abbie does.

Happy birthday, Emily!!

Emily is officially 3 and she is so excited about it! We had a small celebration with Grandma and Grandpa C. over Memorial Day weekend. Emily was so happy to have cake and to get presents.

She carefully licked the frosting off of her cupcake, insisting that despite how it looked, she really was eating the cake, too! She chose a Dora theme this year. She is very into Dora these days. She has started acting out the themes from the Dora book by insisting that she will make us a map every time we need to go somewhere. Then she'll tell us, "See you go over the mountain, and through the spooky tree, and that's how we'll get to Target!" She is very serious about it and brings the map in the car and everything.

Her mind continues to be very active and imaginative. She will often sit and play by herself, talking quietly the whole time. If you are able to hear what she is saying, or if she is willing to tell you what she is working on, it is usually some game that involves either some imaginary friends who always have goofy names that rhyme, like "Mauper" and "Lauper", or she is imagining that she is playing with kids from her class at school, like Jack and Gavin, who are twin boys.

Her imagination has also started to affect our bedtime/naptime routine lately. Before I leave her room, she always asks me to check under her bed for monsters. Once I give it the all clear, then she asks me to check the closet for monsters. Once the closet gets the all clear, then she will declare, "Ok, so I'm safe!" Only then can she concentrate on going to sleep. Of course, Abbie, being so incredibly helpful, started to tell Emily the other day that the monsters are only visible after I leave the room. I quickly changed the subject before Emily had time to process that one!

Emily's school year is over for the summer, but there were lots of good events during May. Close to Mother's Day, they had a tea party for all the moms. It was very cute! They had all practiced with using their manners and offering their mom a cup of tea, and Emily was so excited to have me in her class.

They also had an end of year party which was basically just a big sing-along. It was cute, but there were a lot of songs and I think both the parents and the kids started to fatigue after awhile. One of the cuter things that they did, though, was to let the kids act out Little Miss Muffet. They all took turns with one kid being Miss Muffet and another kid putting the spider on the tuffet. Then, at the appropriate time, the kid playing Miss Muffet would jump up, pretending to be afraid of the spider. I was so busy trying to get a picture of Emily in her wig and sitting on her tuffet that I only caught the tail end of the rhyme on video, but it is still pretty cute.

Sweet Little Girl

A rare photo of Daddy, Abbie and Emily during our trip to see the bluebonnets. Getting everyone to look at the camera at the same time is nearly impossible, but all things considered, I think this is a pretty good photo of the three of them.

Below is Emily lying in the field of bluebonnets, which I just love because her eyes and the flowers are exactly the same color! She had so much fun running through the field. There were areas where the grass was almost as tall as she is. It is rare that she gets to be in that sort of environment. I always loved that sort of thing as a kid. As an adult, though, all I can think about is the rattlesnake that is likely hiding out there ready to strike.

Also during the month of April, we found a great park in Dallas that has areas for both bigger kids and smaller kids, which is perfect for Abbie and Emily. It is in a convenient location (other than that it is in Dallas), and we spent some time there one morning before getting lunch at our favorite TexMex place.

It actually made me realize how infrequently we take Emily to the park as compared to what we did when Abbie was this age. I think Emily had a nice time and it was really cute to see her making friends with other kids her age. She is generally a soft-spoken girl, but she has no qualms about walking up to another kid and saying, "Hi, I'm Emily. What's your name?"

We received her first report card from her preschool a few weeks ago. They evaluated her development in seven categories - social/emotional, language, cognitive, fine motor, gross motor, art/sensory, and music/movement. As has always been the case for Emily, her gross motor development is the slowest to progress, but I don't tend to worry about that. Neither of my kids are likely to become Olympic athletes. Her teacher's comments were, "Emily is a very sweet little girl. She is very observant of others. She is starting to initiate play with friends and she is very empathetic. If a child is hurt, Emily is the first one running to get a tissue to wipe the tears away. She is well-mannered and very respectful of our toys. She has been a joy to have in our class." :)

Easter

Emily went absolutely wild for Easter this year. In contrast to last year, she was totally into the whole egg hunting thing. Every time she saw one, she would get so excited and run over to it declaring, "An egg!" She was just so overwhelmingly happy with the whole thing! Of course, being able to shove gummy bears and malted milk balls in her mouth also didn't hurt her feelings at all. Every time we looked at her she had a giant cheek that was filled with some sort of candy.

She was also totally thrilled to see the Easter bunny at brunch. She just wanted to cuddle up with this big, fuzzy bunny. I think she would have brought the bunny home if she could have. She was also really excited about the opportunity to dress up a bit and she actually let us brush her hair, which is a rare even these days.

Other than that, life is pretty standard here. Emily continues to be a picky eater, and also has an incredibly stubborn side to her, but is also totally entertaining. The other day, she and Abbie and I were talking about something when she declared, "Think dirty thoughts!" I was a bit shocked until a realized that this is a line from Finding Nemo in which the fish are trying to do everything they can to make their tank dirty. :) She has also become quite the list maker. We started making checklists for her to help her with getting ready in the morning, and now she has started making her own lists. Last night she got paper, and a crayon, and made three distinct scribbles - one for "get PJs on", one for "brush teeth", and one for "go to bed". She very diligently carried the list around with her as she completed the tasks so that she could check off each item as she completed it. So organized. :)

Sweets

Emily has always had quite the sweet tooth. Last week was my birthday and she was very excited because she knew that there would be cake involved. She works very hard to get her hands on anything sweet. At Christmas time she kept taking candy canes off the tree and asking if she could eat them. If I said no, she would ask Daddy. If Daddy said no, she would ask Abbie. If Abbie said no, she would ask one of her stuffed animals. Then she would report back to us that her stuffed animal had said yes. Then I would usually say that if her bear said she could have the candy cane, then he must be willing to open it for her. This worked for a while, but then she figured out how to open them for herself.

(in one of those rides at the mall)

Lately, she has discovered that a lot of restaurants have mints at the door. Chad will often bring some home with him and put them on the counter. She goes to great lengths trying to plan the best way to get her hands on these. Here is the conversation that she had with Ellie the other day:

Emily: "Can I ask you a question?"
Ellie: "Yes, Emily."
Emily: "Do you like chocolate and mint?"
Ellie: "Yes, its a great treat."
Emily: "Daddy got me some. Can you get it for me?"
Ellie: "Oh, you can ask Mom and Dad about that later."
Emily: "That's not the answer I wanted to hear."

 As you can see, lots of strategizing and planning went in to her approach.

(at the aquarium with some Peruvian dancers)

All of the sweets that she gets her hands on must account for her being such a sweet little girl. She has been so cuddly and lovey lately. We were reading a book while laying on the floor the other night before bed. She turned to me and said, "I love you, mama. I just love you." It was so cute. As I continued reading, she continued with things like, "I love you in the morning." and "Let's just sleep on the floor together." Such a little sweetheart!

Filled with Questions

Like any toddler, Emily is always full of questions. Unfortunately, many of her questions lately have been things like, "Am I better yet?" and "How did I get germs?" The poor little thing got a nasty cold right before Christmas. Then, shortly after the New Year she got a stomach virus that took about a week to resolve. Once she finally felt better, her appetite returned, and things were going great for a few days. Now she seems to have another cold, though. This one is much more mild but there have been a couple of days where she has had a fever, which is never fun.

Between all these illnesses, Emily does get a chance to have some fun and be her usual, adorable self. This is a photo from before Christmas, and is Emily doing her impression of a monkey.

She is really into animals and loves to go to the zoo. She was pretty happy to get back there after her stomach bug and visit all her old "friends" like her crocodile buddy (below) and her elephant buddy (both of which are statues that she likes to climb on).

Unlike Abbie, Emily was not too interested in the snow at Christmas. In fact, she informed me this morning that she likes hot weather. Fortunately for her, the weather has started to turn warmer here and she has been able to get back to some of her outdoor activities like playing with her water table. She was so excited to get back to this that she actually helped clean it out to get it up and running again.

Emily continues to surprise us with the things that come out of her mouth. One night as I was putting her to sleep she was telling me about how when she wakes up we never come to get her quickly enough. I told her that she should call for us more loudly - she is very soft spoken and we usually just assume that she is mumbling to herself. Anyway, she responded, "Yeah, I'll say, 'Get your butt in here!'" Funny.

Emily continues to enjoy going to preschool twice a week. Often in the mornings, she'll ask me, "Is it a school day for me?" Today was a school day for her and she was definitely looking forward to getting back (she had to take Tuesday off this week due to her fever on Monday afternoon). The kids were outside playing when we arrived and I was able to "spy" on her a bit before I left. It was so cute to see her taking pretend tools out of a toolbox and using them to fix a car. There was another little girl doing something similar. Emily pulled out a tool and said to the girl, "What's this for?" To my surprise the other little girl actually answered her. So fun when little kids are actually able to converse with one another - usually one or the other will just stare blankly. :)

Cutie Patootie

Emily has been such a little cutie patootie lately, both in terms of her looks and her personality. As I mentioned in the last post, the school photographer got some great pictures of her this year. The photos are finally back, and this is one of the four poses that he captured.

Of course, this is a picture of the actual picture that I took with my phone, which is why it is so dark and grainy, but you get the idea. Personality-wise, she has just been such a charmer - very goofy and playful, but also very lovey and cuddly.

We have been working on potty training more diligently lately and she has been doing a great job with it. She has been in big girl underwear pretty much whenever she is awake and seems to be getting the hang of it. Although, we do still have some accidents and I think they are mostly because she just forgets that she isn't wearing a diaper, which I'm sure is probably hard to remember if you have spent your whole life in diapers.

Like Abbie, Emily got a chance to wear her Christmas dress this past weekend when we went to look at lights. Of course, people like to see little kids in fancy clothes, so she got lots of compliments.

Having the tree up (this is not our tree in the picture, by the way), has been lots of fun for Emily. She likes to look at the ornaments, and move them around, and take them off to play with. Frisbee, our Elf on the Shelf, has also been a big source of entertainment. The first morning with Frisbee in the house, Emily sat close by for well over an hour, just drinking her milk and watching very closely to see if she could catch Frisbee moving her hands. The next morning, when she awoke and found that Frisbee had moved locations during the night, she just burst out laughing. She just finds it all so fun and fascinating to have Frisbee around.

Halloween

In contrast to last year, when Emily refused to put on a Halloween costume, she was all over it this year. She chose to be a ladybug and had many opportunities to wear her costume.

She went to Boo at the Zoo twice during October, had a Halloween party at pre-school, and then went trick-or-treating (of course). She was really excited about it this year and loved the fact that people actually gave her candy. Most exciting for us, is that she is content with just collecting candy and doesn't really ask to eat it. As far as I'm concerned, that is the perfect solution.

I think that she really enjoyed seeing all the kids in costumes and all of the decorations. Oddly enough, however, there was one very tall kid in a giant gingerbread costume that totally freaked her out. He didn't come near her or anything, but just seeing him from afar really bugged her for some reason. So funny!

My difficulty on Halloween night was in trying to get her to actually smile and look at the camera for a picture. She still doesn't quite get that whole idea. Apparently, I got lucky this past weekend, though, because I finally was able to capture a smiling Emily that was looking at the camera.

This is how she seems to us all the time, but in every photo that I post she always seems so serious. In fact, it is so hard to get good pictures of her that I wasn't sure what to expect when the proofs of her school photos came back. Shockingly, however, the incredible photographer was able to get four separate pictures of her that are all adorable! Yes, apparently he is a very talented guy. I am so excited to get the prints back and to finally have some Emily photos in the house! :)

Colds, colds, and more colds

Poor little Emily has had constant colds ever since she started attending pre-school last month. One managed to turn into her first ear infection which we are still in process of treating - the first batch of antibiotics didn't do the trick, so now we are on to a second batch. We are starting to wonder whether there will ever be an end to the bugs that she can pick up at school.

Last Friday, we had our first parent-teacher conference with the head teacher in her room. The consensus from all three teachers in the room is that Emily is a very loving, sweet, gentle little girl who follows directions well, is respectful, and likes to help. Their hope for her is that she will learn to play with the other kids more and that she will join them in singing songs. In short, she is just hanging back and observing things, but is not the outgoing girl that we see at home. Time will tell whether she is an introvert who is shy in a crowd or whether she is just in the process of adapting to this new environment. Either way, I know that she likes school. She is always very excited to go and comes home talking about things that happen during her day.

Speaking of an excited, outgoing Emily, above is the photo that Chad snapped of Emily at Abbie's homecoming a couple weeks ago. As you can see, Emily just had a blast. The cheerleaders all doted on her - painting her face, and walking around with her, just thrilled to have a little "doll" to play with.

Around the house, Emily is as goofy as ever. The other day, she was spinning in circles, making herself dizzy. When she stopped spinning, she declared, "The house is falling over, I think." Of course, all these colds have also made her a bit edgy, which means that she isn't always in the mood to deal with Abbie. One night she declared, "Abbie tried to talk to me!" she was very upset that Abbie would try talking to her. I asked her what was so wrong with Abbie talking to her. She replied, "It's bad for my brain!" Alrighty then! She definitely has her own way of coping, though, and is apparently willing to share her wisdom with others. In response to a jazz singer on the radio, who must have sounded angry to her, she said, "He should go cuddle in his bed until he feels better." :)

As you can see above, Emily definitely likes to take her own advice. This is the cozy little nook that she made for herself yesterday - she gathered all her stuffed animals and blankets up in her little play house and then wiggled right into the middle of it. Once settled, she instructed me to turn off the light and close the door on my way out. She does this from time to time and then within a few minutes will call for me to come back and play with her some more. Funny girl!

Preschool

Earlier this month Emily started attending preschool two mornings a week. She goes from 9am - noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays. She has been totally into it. She has always seen Abbie leave for school in the morning and now I think that she is excited to go to her own school.

Here she is on her first day. She looks kind of splotchy, but she hadn't been crying or anything. She just got into this trance-like mode - staring intently and taking it all in. We have been really happy with the place that we chose and excited for her to have the opportunity to interact with some kids her age while still being able to have plenty of time at home for naps and one-on-one attention. Of course, it is always about balancing the good and the bad, and on the bad side, she has already picked up a cold. :(

Other than this shift in her weekly routine, we don't have much news to report. She is a joy, as always, and her growing vocabulary and sentence structure is always fun to watch. Of course, there are a few zingers in there - every once in awhile you'll hear her say "Damn!" or "That's crappy!" We try not to laugh, but sometimes we can't help it. Then there are the incredibly sweet things that come out of her mouth. She was giving me big hugs yesterday and then she said, "I just love you, mama." So sweet!

First Haircut

Yes, it may be hard to believe, but Emily just got her first haircut this past weekend! I have been holding off for awhile, but it got to a point where the cute little blonde curls were getting a little scraggly looking. Unlike some kids who scream and carry on, Emily was really excited to get her hair cut. She has seen Abbie get haircuts before and likely considers it a "big kid" thing. We always go to one of those places that specializes in kids cuts and has TVs for them to watch. The incredibly serious look above is because she is just fixated on the TV, which she rarely gets to watch.

On the way to the salon, Abbie and I were talking about the TVs that they have and Emily asked, "Watch TB, Mama?" (Yes, she calls it TB.) I told her that, yes, she could watch TV at the salon because it is a special occasion. She replied, "Bad for my brain?" I cracked up. Apparently she was actually listening on all those occasions when I have told one or both kids that TV is bad for their brains. What I find kind of funny about this is the fact that she probably doesn't even know what her brain is or what it does. She just knows that TV isn't good for it. :)

Speaking of things that are bad for your brain, another recent first for Emily (although not a fun one) was her trip to the ER last week. Sitting in her booster seat, which is strapped to a chair, she used her foot to push off the table and managed to send the chair flying backwards. She, and the chair, and the booster all landed on their backs on the tile floor and she got a nice bump to her head. Kind of normal kid stuff (falls and bumps), but then 20 minutes later she began vomiting, getting groggy, and looking pale. Clearly a concussion - not good. Anyway, we decided that a little trip to the ER was in order.

Fortunately, she started getting better, not worse, and I think actually ended up enjoying the ride with the EMTs and the attention that she got in the ER at the children's hospital. Of course, it was a slow day at the ER and most of the time she was the only kid in the pod. She looked at all the empty beds and asked us where all the other kids were - as if she was hoping for a playdate or something. Ultimately, we just hung out and kept her under observation for awhile. As we got ready to leave, she decided that she liked all the party favors she received - the tiny gown, the ankle bracelets, and toe thingy that measured her pulse. Most of it was hers to keep, but we had to coax her into trading the gown for a Dora sticker.

I'm sure it seems a bit perverse to whip out the iPhone and photograph your kid in the ER, but clearly this was long after it was clear that she was OK. As for the chair with the booster seat strapped to it, she hasn't been real keen on using it since the fall and neither have we! We have resurrected the high chair for the time being. Many 2-year-olds are fine without any booster, but she is just such a tiny little thing, and we really don't need any more trips to the ER, so I think that all of us are happy with the high chair for now!

Always Observant

Ever since the day she was born, Emily has been the most observant child that I have ever known (OK, admittedly I have really only known her and Abbie, but she just seems really observant). In the photo above, you can see those keen eyes watching the fish in the fish tank at the doctor's office. I just love this picture because I took it from the other side of the tank, so you can see both her and the fish at the same time, which is kind of fun. Also, I love the fact that Emily happens to be wearing a dress with fish on it.

This doctor visit was for her 2-year old check-up. She is doing great and her percentiles are holding steady. She is 31.5 inches (10th percentile) and 23.4 pounds (10th - 25th percentile). So, she's growing steadily, but she is clearly taking after me. Right now the doctor is projecting her to be about 5'1" when she grows up. By contrast, Abbie is projected to be 5'4".

Although the picture above is from one of those stupid rides at the mall, we have actually been doing other stuff with the kids that is more interesting. Last weekend, we took both girls to the Dallas World Aquarium, which was really cool. These big blue eyes soaked in everything from manatees and octopuses to sharks and crocodiles. She just loved it.

Around the house we are working on all the usual 2-year-old things - we can't grab, we need to share, we need to be gentle with our books, etc. One of the more interesting things that Emily has started doing is blaming everything bad that happens to her on Abbie. So, for example, if I accidentally scratch her, she'll declare "Abbie hurt me!" When we point out that Abbie is nowhere in sight, she'll just stick to her story, "Abbie hurt me! Abbie scratched me!" Or if she falls, its "Abbie pushed me! Abbie knocked me down!" It is really kind of perplexing to watch - in a way its funny, in that she tries to blame her big sister; in a way its baffling, in that she seems to believe things that are so far from reality. We try to correct her, but sometime I think that just makes her blame Abbie more. Goofy girl!

Ah, to be a toddler . . .

It is really apparent from watching Emily that a toddler's life is just filled with all sorts of amazing and wonderful things. Because we don't have any pets (besides the fish), Emily rarely gets to see and touch real animals. She recently got to go to both a petting zoo and the real zoo. I think the petting zoo was simultaneously fascinating and a bit intimidating. She loved touching the animals, but also wasn't sure what to expect from them.

As for the real zoo, she was really fascinated by all the animals and watched them intently. She was even fascinated with the reptile displays - watching the fish, crocodiles, sea turtles, lizards, and snakes. Of course, when given the chance to actually touch a milk snake (very long and skinny, but harmless), she quickly declined. Below she is having a great time enjoying the mist that keeps the visitors cool on hot days (which we have a lot of).

Other signs that Emily's world is really fascinating come from the names that she applies to things, which always make me laugh and can't help but stimulate the imagination. A few that have made me smile:

She refers to the yoga mat as the "yogurt mat"
She refers to the pool guy as the "cool guy"
She believes that the mummies in her Halloween book are "mommies"

Of course the ultimate toddler-ism came at dinner last night. We had soft shelled tacos with ground beef, which apparently we haven't had in awhile. As I put Emily in her chair, she took one look at Abbie's taco and said, "poop diaper." Admittedly, they did kind of look like poopy diapers, but that just isn't the image that any of us wanted in our heads as we sat down to eat. Needless to say, Emily elected to have pasta rather than joining us for "poop diapers."

Happy Birthday!

Our big girl turned 2 yesterday! I feel like she has been 2 for awhile, but yesterday it became official. Abbie made her a special birthday crown, which Emily actually really enjoyed wearing.

We also had a small party for her. Ellie's family came over and Chad made pulled pork on the Big Green Egg. We got balloons and a big, insanely sweet, cake from Sam's Club. Emily definitely knew that it was her birthday and that it was a big deal. Periodically, throughout the day, I would hear her singing "Happy birthday to you!" to herself. Also, she kept saying, "Eat cake. Yummy!" which is pretty funny because I don't think that she has ever really had cake. As for presents, she got a keyboard, a water table, and a play grill. We actually haven't even given her the play grill yet because she was so happy with everything else.

Such a Ham

Our precious little peanut has been lots of fun, as usual. Above is a picture of her exploring the fountains when she accompanied us to campus one day. Of course, it is still almost impossible to get her to look at the camera or to smile. She hung out on campus with me while Daddy helped some of his students. In the middle of Daddy's meetings, Emily decided that she wanted to help too and she kept saying, "Me help kids." She wanted me to bring her to Daddy's office so that she could get in on the whole business of helping. She couldn't quite figure out why we never seemed to make it to Daddy's office. Hmmm.

One of our outings on Easter Sunday was to take a nice drive to see the bluebonnets, which are apparently really impressive this year. There are towns where huge fields of them seem to stretch out forever. It is pretty impressive. The rumor that is instilled in the children here from their earliest days in school is that it is illegal to pick a bluebonnet. However, being the contrarian role model that he is, Chad made sure to look this up, confirm that it is NOT illegal, and then proceed to tell every native that he meets that they are mistaken about this alleged law. That being said, they are very pretty, and are worth preserving, so we were careful to make sure that the girls did not pick any bluebonnets.

Emily really is such a ham when she is feeling good (teething is still an issue for her). She really likes to flirt and tease. She speaks in sentences more and more frequently lately and is doing a good job of putting words together. I don't always understand what she is talking about. Her ideas and stories are getting more and more complex and her memory is getting really good, so she sometimes will start talking about something out of the blue and I won't have any context to help me decipher it. However, most of the time she does a great job at getting her point across. 

She has taken an interest in cutting, utensils in general, and in cooking. She likes to help stir and gets excited about helping to make pancakes, eggs, PB&J sandwiches, etc. This is something that we regularly did with Abbie when she was this age, but now that Abbie is firmly established as sous chef (coat and all) it doesn't leave much room for Emily. Many times Emily will just make due with the play kitchen and will make me sandwiches, etc. Funny to think of a chef that doesn't eat even half of the ingredients that she cooks with. I'm hopeful that encouraging her interest in cooking will encourage her interest in trying new foods.

Last, but not least, our little ham felt the need to catch up on the news yesterday. So funny. Do you think the WSJ would pay us for the photo? Perhaps if they start marketing their paper to the under 10 crowd! :)

Big Girl

Emily is really getting to be such a big girl.

 She has been doing a great job with her words and has started putting together sentences. Last night at dinner, she said "Yummy! Thank you, Dada." Its so amazing to hear. Some of her sentences are less perfectly constructed, but still fun! I think that last night she was trying to say that she had had a good day, so she said "Good day me."

She has been really into pretend play lately and has been cooking up a storm in the play kitchen. She also likes to pretend that she is going places (like to the store) and will get all ready to go and then wave and say goodbye to us as if her ride is just waiting outside for her. When we actually do go some place, she gets really excited about it and likes to bring her purse, and put on her own shoes. Here she is ready for the weekly trip to Target.

Notice that she decided that her bunny blankets should go along for the ride and that a hat was essential, despite the 80 degree weather.

Emily was also very excited to see Grandma and Grandpa C. a couple weeks ago. She was really cool with them holding her, getting her out of her crib in the morning, etc. She frequently asked Grandpa to get her up on his lap so that she could look at the computer with him. She is fascinated with screens and totally bummed that the rest of the family seems to look at this TV thing from time to time, but that she is never allowed to watch it with us. Apparently the computer is the next best thing.

In general, Emily's mood has been great lately. However, she has also struggled with some pain from emerging teeth. A molar popped through last week and it looks like some more top teeth are getting ready to come through any day now. This morning she was in one of her really good moods - ready to play and read books. This seemed to continue after I left for work. As you can see, she looks thrilled to be at the park enjoying the nice weather.

Two!

Emily is quickly making the transition from baby to big kid. Even though her 2nd birthday is still a few months away, she is becoming more and more of a two year old everyday. She is showing more complexity of thought, more strong opinions, more times of frustration - all the struggles of being two. When she is in a good mood and things are going well, she is a total ham. She recently started entertaining us with her very own knock-knock joke, which Chad captured part of on video. It generally goes something like this:

"Knock-knock"
"Who's there?"
"Elmo!"
"Elmo who?"
"Abbie!"

Basically, the punchline (which is always nonsensical) always changes, and sometimes (like in the video below) is non-existent because she just cracks herself up at the thought of how funny it all is.

She is also doing a great job with her words. In the photo below, she put these blocks on her wrists and then said, "bracelets". When I was talking this morning about how much older she seems, she said "exciting". I'm just never sure what is going to pop out of her mouth. This past weekend, she surprised me by saying, "changed my mind." Last week I was wearing some pants that I hadn't worn in awhile and she surprised me by saying, "new pants!"

Of course, when she is having a two-year old moment it can be quite dramatic. When she feels frustrated by something she will cry and refuses to let anyone comfort her. She will cry and say, "No, no, no, no, no, no!" If you approach her she'll yell, "away, away!" Of course, if you go too far away then she will cry for you to come back.

She has also figured out how to go boneless if you pick her up when she doesn't want to be picked up. This past Saturday, Chad got her out of the car, but she didn't want to be held and didn't want to go inside. She went limp and he just laid her down on the mat outside the door. We just stepped over her as we unloaded groceries, etc. and she was happy as a clam to have succeeded at not going inside.

I think that ultimately I needed her to come inside for a nap, so I had to pick her up and bring her in, which made her mad, of course. Poor little thing.

Western Girl

Emily has also gotten into all the western stuff that has been going on around the house these days. We couldn't buy Abbie a hat without getting one for Emily, too. She chose this pink one and refused to take it off. Of course, the second time we went to the rodeo, we brought her hat but then she actually did take it off and Chad kept carrying it for her. This became problematic because all these actual cowboys kept smirking at him and saying, "Nice pink hat!" as they passed by. He was kind of embarrassed, I think.

The other big "event" for Emily from this past week is that she tried to climb out of her crib after nap and fell to the floor. She ended up with a bruise on her forehead but really wasn't hurt in any other way. It was definitely scary for her though, and she talked to me about it for days afterwards. Every time I put her down for a nap or for bed at night she would think about it and say, "crib . . . climb . . . fall . . . head . . . boo-boo . . . crying." This is her way of recounting things - she gives you all the essential words and lets you fill in all the small words around it. Needless to say, we have since put her mattress on the lowest level, which we apparently should have done sooner, but we just had no indication that she would try to climb out. And, I think that I have finally reassured her that she will be OK, but this was a really big deal for her. Hopefully this scare will make her think twice about stuff in the future, but who knows.