Artistic Expression

Emily has been an absolute joy lately, and now that she is approaching 5 she is becoming more interested in letting Dad help her with things (which has been good for everyone). She continues to be incredibly creative. She likes to “write” books. She conceptualizes the story, draws all the pictures, has us write the words for her as she dictates, and then she staples the pages together and brings them to school for the teachers to read to the class.

She continues to take pride in her artwork. She often disappears into the playroom for some length of time and then emerges with her latest work of art. Here, she became very interested in drawing the pirate on her Band-Aid box. Many of the boys at school are fascinated with pirates, and some of this has rubbed off on her. Of course, when she emerged with this little gem, I was pretty surprised at the attention to detail – the plume, the hook, the ruffled collar, and the sash are all in place.

She also likes to dance and we often catch her in the living room, just letting the music take her little body where it needs to go. :)

We recently had Emily’s parent-teacher conference, and they feel pretty confident that she is ready for kindergarten (which is fortunate because she will be attending Kindergarten at Abbie’s Montessori school next year). When I told Emily that her teachers thought that she was ready, I was surprised as how happy, and proud she seemed. Perhaps there was a doubt in her head? Who knows. Either way, she is definitely looking forward to transitioning to Abbie’s “big kid school.” She has already spent a day visiting there and seemed to enjoy it. Also, I think that Abbie is looking forward to watching out for her little sister and “showing her the ropes.” They will get to play together in aftercare, which I also hope will be a good thing for them.

I continue to be amazed at Emily’s emotional maturity. Apparently, she is a natural Yogi (or something) because she seems to have taken very naturally to the deep breathing techniques that they taught her at school. Apparently, they taught the kids that when they are upset they should imagine that one thumb is a flower and the other is a pinwheel. Then the kids can “smell the flower, and blow the pinwheel.” The result is deliberative, deep breathing. Emily has used this technique both to calm herself down when she is upset and to help herself fall asleep. Also, earlier this week she and I were caught driving in some torrential rains that resulted in massive flash flooding. It was definitely stressful for her because the rain was loud on the car windows and we kept having to turn around to avoid flooded roads. I heard her singing in the backseat, but I didn’t think much of it until she said, “I’m singing a song to calm myself down.” I asked if that was something that they taught her at school, but she said that she just thought of it on her own. Very cool.



Witty Remarks

(ready for her Valentine's Party)

Emily has been sick a lot lately. She was so sick this week that we took her to the doctor with a fever over 103 on Monday. We actually called on Grandma and Grandpa C. to stay with her this week because she really needs to rest and recuperate. This morning she finally seems to be doing better and she is really excited about going to school for her Valentine's Day party. She got herself all dressed up and ready to go before I left for work this morning.

When she is actually feeling well, she is actually a pretty witty kid. This past weekend, I was at Best Buy with both girls. Abbie came running up to me, asking me if I would buy her a complete set of Harry Potter movies. When I said no, Emily declared, "You're mean, mom!" So, I explained to her that the best moms aren't the ones that say yes to everything. The best moms are the ones who have to make hard choices, and don't always give kids everything that they want. Without missing a beat, she replied, "Then I want the worst mom." Alrighty then.

I could tell Emily was feeling better this morning because she quietly listened to Abbie complain about how art class is no fun anymore because the teacher won't let the kids talk. Then she said to Abbie, "So, its OK that its not fun. Look, Abbie, you're getting older now." Apparently she has decided that life gets less fun as you get older. I just thought it was funny that she was giving Abbie advice with such an all-knowing tone of voice. Funny.

Holidays

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since Christmas. The time seems to be flying by. Just to give you the official holiday update, Emily had a great time (for the most part). She asked Santa for very little (some dresses and some goggles) and she got everything that she asked for. Well, almost everything. At sort of the last minute she decided that she wanted a singing Elsa doll. When she saw that Santa didn't bring her one, she just calmly said, "Oh well, maybe next year." Poor little thing. Imagine being 4 and planning to wait a whole additional year for your singing Elsa doll. :(

Anyway, below are her fancy dresses that she got. In the first picture she is standing in front of her "castle" that we built and then she decorated.

Every now and then we get glimpses into how interesting her brain is. She thinks about lots of stuff and we never know what she is going to say next. One night, a couple of weeks ago, as we were talking to Abbie at dinner about friend-related issues at school, Emily (who often pipes up with helpful advice) pointed out that all the kids should just try to be nice. We thought that was a very good point and we told her so. Then she said, "If they aren't nice then Santa won't bring them very many presents. Like me, he didn't bring me very many presents." I'm sure that the sound of my heart breaking was so loud at this point that it was actually noticeable to those around me. I asked her if she thought that Santa was trying to tell her that she wasn't very nice, and she thought he probably was, so we talked about how its not about the number of presents. Rather its about getting presents instead of coal. She seemed to think that this was reasonable, so I tried to conclude with, "We just wouldn't want you to think that the number of presents says something about how nice you are. We wouldn't want you to make that mistake." She looked at me and said, "But mistakes are how we learn." Of course this is something that we have tried to impress upon Abbie - this idea that it is important to try and to make mistakes and to fail sometimes as a way to learn and grow in life. Apparently, Abbie isn't the only one who has been picking up on that message over the past few years. We had no idea that Emily had been paying attention all this time, so her comment stopped both of us dead in our tracks.

Anyway, between the Elsa doll disappointment, and the stuff about Santa thinking that she isn't nice, we decided to get her a singing Elsa doll, which oddly enough had fallen in price from $100 pre-Christmas to $28 post-Christmas. Imagine that! She was pretty happy about it and did a little happy dance that I wish I had been able to capture on video. So cute!

People who don't eat meat . . .

. . . get some pretty strange ideas about food. Certainly, this has been the case for Emily. As a project at school the kids all made Thanksgiving placemats, and Emily has been very excited about hers. Of particular interest is the area in which they asked the kids how to cook a turkey. Here is Emily's plan:

So, all you silly people who have been putting your turkey in the oven, apparently you have been doing way too much work. If you had just cut the bottom off, you would have been all set. Keep that in mind for next year.

Speaking of coming up with new ideas, our little Rosie Revere, Engineer continues to create. Below she is wearing the glasses that she made (with some help). Originally, she wanted to make goggles, and was very disappointed to discover that it was probably impractical to think that these could be waterproof, so she settled for glasses instead. We taped pieces of a plastic sandwich bag in for lenses, and she was somewhat surprised to discover that she couldn't see very well through the tape, but clearly she was proud of the creation nonetheless.

Lots of Updates

There are lots of updates to give you since the last post. First, in early October, Emily had her 4 year old check up with the pediatrician. She now weighs 33.8 pounds (28th percentile) and is 40.5 inches tall (47th percentile), so she is growing well and her percentages are holding steady. We are all amazed about this because she is such a picky eater and her diet is so limited, but apparently it is all working. This was a particularly un-fun visit, however, because she got her big round of vaccinations - four shots in total. She knew they were coming and she knew it would probably hurt, but I don't think she was even remotely prepared for it. As soon as she felt the first poke she looked all shocked, and when it was followed by three more pokes, she was downright furious. After it was over she just laid on the table and cried and howled for quite awhile to let everyone know how darn mad she was.

Also since the last post, we had Halloween. Emily ended up wearing the Elsa costume for trick-or-treating (along with about 70% of the other girls in the country), but it was a rather cold night, so she needed to wear something under her costume to stay warm. I tried to get her into a nice white shirt that would have actually matched the dress, but she wanted none of it. She chose her own clothing to go under the dress and was somewhat oblivious to how it looked, but she was warm, so that was good.

Of course the dark creature standing next to her is Abbie in her grim reaper costume - talk about polar opposites this year! Emily got lots of candy and had fun running up and down the street. She met another little girl that was her age and the two of them became fast friends, which was fun for both of them, I think.

Emily also continues to have a great imagination and always comes up with interesting things to think about. One night before bed she was silent for a long time. Then she said, "If dinosaurs came back, firefighters wouldn't need ladders anymore." This was the beginning of a long brainstorming session about how life would change if dinosaurs were back in the picture. Just in case you are not aware of the changes that would likely take place, here are a few:

If dinosaurs came back . . .

 . . . they could fly kites really high.
 . . . they could make the clouds come down.
 . . . they could help pirates dig for treasure.
 . . . dentists would have more teeth to clean.
 . . . on and on it went.

Emily has also taken a more pronounced interest in learning lately. She has started asking for a definition every time she hears a word that she doesn't know. She is also really interested in writing her numbers and in doing math, so we often work on her addition facts with her (at her request) and she is actually doing pretty well with it. She will be leaving her preschool and moving to Abbie's Montessori school next year, and she is already really excited about that change. :)

Recent developments

Emily has reached a new phase in her development again. She has become more complex in her thinking, more mature, and more talkative. She has started to embrace the idea of being a "big kid" and asks us almost every morning to check and see if she grew while she was sleeping. "Let's size up," she'll say, and she'll stand right next to us to see if she is taller than the day before.

Clearly, there is still much love for Woofy, but she also frequently makes plans for our next pet. "When Woofy dies, can we get a cat?" she'll ask. What? we just got this poor dog, and you're already waiting for him to die? Craziness.

One of her make believe themes lately has been to choose a couple of her stuffed animals and to label one as "the big sister" (usually the taller one), and label the other "the little sister." Then, she usually plays the role of the mama. Of course, sometimes one of the sisters is mean to the other one, which is something that she helps them resolve. I'm sure that part of this comes from having a big and a little sister in our family, but I think it also comes with her recent obsession with Frozen, in which there is a big sister (Elsa) and a little sister (Anna).

In fact, Emily has decided to be one of these two sisters for Halloween this year. We started out with an Elsa costume but she was wearing it so much that Chad was afraid that it wouldn't make it to Halloween, so we had to buy a back-up - this time an Anna dress. Good thing that we bought them when we did because apparently most stores are already sold out of Frozen costumes.

Singing along with the dress

Anyway, regardless of which one she decides to be, both dresses are very fancy. They light up, and the Elsa dress plays an excerpt from Let it Go, while the Anna dress play an except from For the First Time in Forever. Check out the link above for a video of Emily trying to sing along with the Anna dress.

Emily also seems to be displaying great project management skills, with the ability to conceptualize a project and take it from start to finish. One of her recent projects involved making a bowl out of play-doh, waiting a few days for it to dry, painting it, and then using it to eat out of. Another one involved decorating pieces of paper and then taping them together to make a basket for collecting Halloween candy.

Finally, I was surprised the other day when she asked me, "When can I start doing math?" I explained to her that she already does math, she just doesn't know it. As an example, I said "If you have two oranges, and you get one more, how many oranges do you have?" She thought for a minute and replied "Three." I explained how that is addition, and she was all pleased with herself.

Back to School

Emily attended her preschool full time for most of the summer. However, last week they had a week off so that the teachers could get ready for a new school year. Emily (and Abbie) got to spend the week with Grandma and Grandpa C., who came to stay with us. It gave Emily a chance to catch up on her sleep and to go to the bookstore, which she loves, but rarely gets to do. After a full week off, though, she was ready to go back. Yesterday was the first day of the new academic year, but her teachers, the kids in her class, and the daily routine stayed pretty much the same. She was pretty tired when she came home last night, though. I kept asking her how her day was, but she just kind of stared off into space - too tired to talk, I think.

Other than a new school year, Emily's new routine has been sneaking around the house. I have started thinking of her as my little creeper, and she prides herself on being able to get from spot A to spot B without anyone seeing her. She is particularly concerned about this in the morning when she first gets up. She'll come into the main part of the house, but she doesn't want any acknowledgement. "Pretend you don't see me" she'll declare. She also likes this trick at night when she is supposed to be asleep. The other night I saw her dart across an opening and into the kitchen where we couldn't see her. I actually forgot about it until 20 minutes later when I heard a little noise behind me. I turned around to see a little face watching TV by the back of the couch. Who knows how long she had been there. The other thing she likes to do at bed time is to hide under her covers so that we can't see her. Then when we start talking to the lump in the bed, she'll yell out, "I'm not here."

The flip side of all this invisibility is that when she does want to be seen or heard she is very sensitive about it. If she is talking, she expects that everyone in the room will listen attentively without cutting her off, or finishing her sentence for her. Heaven forbid that anyone starts speaking during her turn. She gets pretty aggressive, declaring either, "I'm trying to talk!" or "It's my turn!" Likely this sensitivity comes from the fact that she is very soft-spoken, and probably has been cut off pretty regularly over the past four years. Poor little thing.

Meltdowns, monsters, and mutts, oh my!

Emily's determined personality, coupled with a natural need to control her environment, has been a challenge for us lately. There has been plenty of whining and crying fits that I hope she will grow out of soon. There is also a little contrarian in her that likes to see how often it can get away with doing the opposite of whatever it is that we want her to do, so there has been a lot of conversations that sort of go like this:

"Emily, get your shoes on so that Daddy can take you to school."
"But, I want you to take me to school, Mom."
"I can't take you to school today, so you need to go in Daddy's car."
"But I don't want to go in Daddy's car." (Insert whining here)
"Well, I'm sorry but Daddy is taking you to school today."
"But I want you to take me to school (Insert more whining)
On and on it goes.

Note that if this conversation had started with me taking her to school, then she would have been demanding to go in Chad's car instead. :)   So, we have been working on all of these challenges by pulling a harder line with her. Hopefully we can nip it in the bud pretty quickly.

When she isn't pushing our buttons, Emily continues to be very imaginative and creative. She is always busy playing some imaginary game, which seems to require our participation more and more often lately. She likes to assign roles and then have people play their part in the story. Again, probably a control her environment sort of a thing.

She also continues to be fascinated with monsters and scary stories. As for monsters, she got a Sully from Uncle Greg and Aunt Elizabeth for her birthday, and then got another monster when they came to visit this past weekend, so she is pretty well stocked up with monsters! Greg says that the blog doesn't really capture how cute Emily is, so I thought that I would post the song that she made up to thank Greg and Elizabeth for Sully (which I think is pretty cute):

As for scary stories, she likes me to tell her new ones all the time, so I have started a multi-part story recently about a little girl who visits the monsters under her bed and they get her to try all of the strange foods that monsters like to eat (it isn't actually scary, but she seems to like it anyway). So far the little girl has tried "pillow", "sock soup", and "hairball chili" (a dish that the monsters only make on special occasions because it takes so much work). She seems to like these stories, so I'll have to start thinking of other gross things that monsters could enjoy eating. Of course, part of the hair for hairball chili came from a little red dog that lives with the family (aka Woofy, our new addition).

As you can imagine, Emily is really enjoying this little guy. He is just the right size for her and he is really good with her. He doesn't try to jump on her, and he really doesn't lick, so there is nothing to torture her. :) She likes to feed him treats, and he is very good about taking the treat from her hand very gently. Sometimes he "talks" and sometimes he likes to show how he can stand on two feet. She really gets a kick out of these tricks and it is fun to watch her get excited about the dog. :)

Happy 4th Birthday Emily!

Emily turned 4-years-old yesterday, and it was a very emotional day for her. On the one hand, she was so excited about cake and presents, but on the other hand, the thought of being 4 really made her feel the pressure of being a "big person."

In the morning, she plopped down on the shower floor and informed me, "I don't like the feeling of being 4. I don't want to grow up and be like a big person." As soon as she got to school, however, she seemed to do better and was all excited to be wearing the little headband and "birthday girl" button that we got for her.

For her birthday this year, she requested, "a kite, a parachute, a toy monster, and a doll." We got her the kite, and Uncle Greg and Aunt Elizabeth got her a Sully plush, so she achieved a 50% success rate, I suppose. She also received books, a chef's coat, and lots of clothes, so I think she did pretty well.

We had a small party with Grandma and Grandpa C., and of course the cake was the big excitement for Emily - she just loves sugar. We were concerned that the wind would blow the candles out so we decided to sing Happy Birthday pretty quickly, which is why it sounds so crazy in the video below. She didn't seem to mind, though.




Afterwards, she said something to the effect of, "I wish that I had a little star, twinkling in the night sky." Then it was time to devour mounds of sticky pink frosting, and she gave it her all.

As I was putting her to bed, she seemed torn again about her new status, telling me to say "Goodnight 3-year-old" to her and to hold her like a baby and to sing her a song while rocking her. After which, I guess she felt better because then she declared, "I like being 4!"

Lots of Activities from April

In my last post, I mentioned Emily's art that appeared at the school's art show, so I felt obligated to post a photo of it. Not surprisingly, she made monsters. The 2nd picture is the one that was in the art show (and I think that she must have had some help with it). The 1st picture is just one that came home from school with her. Its not a monster picture, but I do like all the colors that she used.

Emily had a great Easter weekend. Below she is strategizing before the neighborhood egg hunt. I love the determined, "how can I get as many eggs as possible?' look on her face. She actually did really well. They had separate areas for kids in different age groups, with the eggs being harder to find for the older kids than for the younger kids. Emily was one of the oldest kids in the youngest age group, so those poor one-year-olds didn't stand a chance. :)

She and her cousin Jacksen also had a great time together. They are very close in age and got along really well - swimming, and playing together.

We took the kids to a wildlife center a couple of weekends ago. It is a very large park, with 10 miles of road. Everyone drives through the park and feeds the animals from their cars. The slow moving wide open roads gave both Emily and Abbie an opportunity to test their driving skills. It was pretty cute to watch and both kids had a blast.

We had Emily's parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago. She is doing great with her language development, her creativity and confidence, her social skills and her motor skills. She is still working on her letter and number recognition skills, but she is writing her name now and is showing an interest in reading. They have classified her as a right-brained kid, and commented that, "Emily loves to tell scary stories and laugh with friends. She is quite the entertainer. She is a sweetheart."

Finally, we had a Mother-Daughter Tea Party at Emily's school on Friday to celebrate Mother's Day. It was really cute. Each kid asked, "Would you like some tea? Would you like lemon, cream, or sugar in your tea?" Then they carefully brought us our tea cups and a cookie. The kids spent lots of time practicing and preparing before the party and were so excited and proud of themselves. They finished by giving us each a card and a long-stemmed rose. :)

Tell Me a Scary Story

It turns out that we have a little Stephen King in the making. Emily's big thing lately has been a strong need to hear scary stories. I think it started one night when I told the girls the story about the man with the hook for a hand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hook). This must have thrilled her because now she is constantly asking for more scary stories, and I do my best to come up with good stuff, but it never seems to be scary enough for her. Pretty quickly I grew tired of making up my own stuff so I started using watered down snippets from classic scary stories. So far, she has heard bits from The Shining, Misery, Psycho, The Birds, It (I thought that a scary clown story would put an end to it, but it just seemed to encourage her!), The 'Burbs, and likely more. I am quickly running out of material!

In trying to get myself off the hook, I tried to turn it around by asking her to give me a scary story instead. She rarely lets me get off this easily, but sometimes she will actually come up with a scary story for me. Surprisingly, her stories are pretty good. Not scary, but at least well-told (all things considered). One afternoon, we actually made a story together. She shut us in my bedroom (so that it would be dark) and made me crawl into bed with her. Then we took turns, each doing a few words of the story. It was actually pretty fun because neither of us knew where the story would go, but we both still had power to redirect it every time our turn came around. She was very pleased with that whole adventure.

In other news, school continues to go well for Emily. They just had an art exhibit (but we didn't go to it), and apparently Emily had a picture of a monster in the exhibit that one of the teachers thought was really good, so now I am curious to see it. Also, in school news, it looks like the social comparison process has begun. Yesterday, Emily declared that she wanted to wear a dress to school because, "All the other girls wear dresses and I don't and that makes me sad." Little does she realize that hearing her tell me an "All the other girls . . . " story is MY version of a scary story!

Funny Girl!

Emily has always had a great sense of humor, but lately the teachers at school have really been commenting on how funny she is. She just loves to get a laugh out of people and has started to develop a repertoire of things that she knows will work for her. Even her little boyfriend, Andrew, has been saying to the teachers, "Emily is so funny." Yesterday when I dropped her off the two of them got into this Three Stooges routine where Andrew would pretend like he was going to poke her in the eye with his finger, and then she would collapse onto the floor, pretending that he had knocked her over. I know what you're thinking - That's too elaborate. There's no way that is actually what was going on - but it really was. Honest.

(Emily after Abbie dressed her up in a ballet costume)

They also commented to me today that Emily is one of the few kids who will actually sit still in art class and really concentrate on what she is doing. She has started to draw lots of pictures of the family. One that I picked up today was a picture of the 4 of us in a snowstorm, and she had actually drawn each of us with a big blue cloud at the top of the picture. Here are a couple of my other favorites:

Emily is also very good at picking up on the emotions of the people around her and diffusing them. She has a couple of classic lines that she uses strategically. One line, which is probably similar to something that she has heard us say before, is for times when someone (usually Abbie or Chad) gets an irritated tone of voice. She'll step in and say, "Now we're having a nice night with no fusses." just to remind us all to keep the fussiness in check. Her other lines are ones that she tends to pull on me when she can tell that I am getting irritated with her requests. For example, when I am antsy to get her to bed, and I start to sigh about one of her requests (which I know are designed to stall bedtime), she'll say, "Mom, you're my best friend." or "Mom, I love you." She just knows that it will completely melt me. Such a little charmer.

Finally, in an effort to get Emily to try new foods, we have started what we call, "Emily's Food Adventure." Basically, it is just a piece of paper where we record the new foods that she has tried and whether she liked them or not. It seems to be encouraging her to try stuff. So far, we have gotten her to eat corn, green and red peppers, caramel apples (all of which she liked), a piece of steak (which was so horrid to her that she dropped it out of mouth almost as soon as it went in), and balsamic vinegar for dipping bread in (liked it). For a kid whose diet is 90% PB&J, pasta, egg, raspberries, and yogurt, this is big progress!

Pajama Day

Emily had a great Christmas season this year. She is at a great age to really know what is going on and enjoys being a part of all of it - singing, decorating the tree, eating sweets, opening presents, helping with our annual puzzle, etc.

She doesn't quite get the whole concept of keeping secrets, though, so there were a few incidents where she would point to a present and say something like, "This one is for you, Dad. It's a frame that we bought for you." This makes Chad crazy because he likes everything to be a big surprise.

Emily is back at school now, and is happy to be back with her friends. Apparently there is one little boy that is a special friend of hers. The teachers say that they are very smitten with each other and they will wake each other up after nap and hug and rub each others backs. So cute. Apparently she goes for the older men, though, because this little guy is 4 already. :)

One of Emily's favorite events at school is Pajama Day. She asked and asked about it and it finally arrived last week. Here she is, all ready to go school, and looking like a little goof in her pj's, robe, hat and shoes. Quite a get up.

Other than recovering from a cold that resulted in a nasty ear infection, not much else is going on with Emily. She has been a big fan of Abbie's violin playing lately, and has begun requesting "Twinkle, twinkle little star." She often makes Abbie play it more than once, and she likes to sing along as Abbie plays (which makes Abbie crazy, of course). Very cute.

Deep Thoughts

Emily has really started to grapple with some big topics lately, and it has led to lots of really good questions and interesting conversations. Mostly, she has become interested in issues of life and death.

On the death side, there have been many questions. "Mommy, are you going to die?" And once I explained that yes, eventually we are all going to die, then she said, "Mommy, I don't want you to die." So, I though that she was starting to get the concept and that it is a permanent sort of a thing.

Then, last night, there were all sorts of "what ifs" designed to test the boundaries of this whole death thing. "What if someone's arm could still move, would they still be dead?" "What if someone poured water on their head, would they still be dead?" "Mommy, how do you throw up when you're dead?" Just all sorts of interesting thoughts.

This morning, she actually caught me in a pretty good trap. She asked if her elf on the shelf will die someday. I wasn't quite sure - on the one hand the elf has magic, but on the other hand all living things die, so if the elf is alive then the elf will die. So I decided to speculate that yes, someday the elf will probably die. Here is the unforeseen catch - she then said, "So, then will Santa die someday, too?" Oh, oops. Trapped.

On the life side, she asked me the other day "How you get a baby in your tummy". I tried to be pretty scientific, yet vague, about it. I ended up saying something about how a Mommy sort of has a seed that joins with a seed from the Daddy and that turns into a baby. To which she replied, "Well, I'd like to see that!" Ha!

Halloween!

Emily had lots and lots of Halloween celebrations. Her school did a parade and a party on both Wednesday and Thursday last week. They always do all special events twice so that students who only attend MWF or TR don't miss anything.

For the parties at school, Emily was a dragon, but for actual Halloween she was bat girl. Her school frowns on superhero costumes because they believe that a superhero's tendency to settle conflict with violence sends the wrong message - every school has their own little quirk, I suppose.

Our little bat girl tried on her mask initially, but quickly decided that it was poking her, etc. and refused to wear it the rest of the night. As you can see, though, I don't think it inhibited her ability to have fun. Our big challenge was to keep her from eating the candy as fast as she received it. She is a pretty determined girl when it comes to this stuff! 

In other news, a quick report from the world of Emily's imagination - the other night Emily said to me, "Ms. Cotton (one of her teachers) has a frog in her throat." I explained to her that her teacher doesn't really have a frog in her throat. Rather, this is something that people say when they aren't speaking clearly. This did not satisfy her, though. She said, "No, she really does have a frog in her throat - a little tiny one - because frogs know that throats are a dark place to hide. He has a flashlight in his paw." So cute, and so full of imagination. :)

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!