The time has snuck up on me AGAIN and it is time for the monthly update. We have been so busy with the holiday season and there is much to tell.
- First, Emily continues to become smarter, funnier, sillier, and more imaginative with each passing day. She is venturing into the world of Pretend Play now, and will host tea parties for her toys and wear dress-up clothes. It is adorable! When we ask her what she is doing she’ll say, “Minnie is hungry” or something like that. It’s so cute to watch her feed her toys and tell them things like “take bites!” (which is what I tell her all the time so she won’t stuff food in her mouth), “time to wash hands”, “is it good?”, etc. This is bound to get only more fun as time passes.
-Emily climbed out of her crib on the Sunday before Christmas. I was downstairs and heard a big thud from upstairs and immediately knew (mother’s instinct?) what had happened. I went upstairs and started to open her door, only to have Emily open it from the other side. She was shaken up but not hurt. HOWEVER, she felt very guilty about it and told me over and over, “I jump outta bed....that’s not safe!” It was scary and funny all at the same time. She has not even attempted to climb out again so hopefully that was the last of it. I don’t think she is ready for a big girl bed quite yet.
-She mimics everything we say. Everything! She told Paul the other night to “go get milk- be right back!”. She told Barney to “sit right there- don’t move”. She is also trying her hand at personal pronouns right now and THAT is truly entertaining. She will ask us to “popcorn me”, “drink me”, “chicken nuggets me”, “sit up here me”, etc. etc. Sometimes she will even add a “you” to the end of the command, like this morning when she said, “Mommy, cereals me you!” It is so funny!
-She has begun to understand a bribe- hallelujah!!! We can get her to take additional bites of dinner, drink medicine, etc. with the promise of something else afterward. It is so handy! We aren’t going to over-do it but it is nice to know that we can get her to eat more and things like that. It has taken forever to get her to understand If...Then statements (like, “If you eat another bite of peas, Then you may have one sweet tart.”)
-We experienced a scary afternoon on Monday before Christmas. I had packed the car for our trip to WV and was ready to go as soon as Emily woke from nap and Paul made it home. Well, when she woke up from nap Emily had a fever of 103.3! I rushed her to the pediatrician where she was diagnosed with an ear infection. I felt so guilty before she had told me earlier, “Mommy, ear is hurting!” but I kind of shrugged it off. She loves the antibiotics they prescribed (they are bubblegum flavored) so it has not been any trouble to treat it. Poor girl!
-Because of the ear infection we had to change our plans for Christmas. Instead of driving to Parkersburg before Christmas to spend time with my family, we stayed in NC until Christmas Eve, when we drove to Princeton. We celebrated Emily’s third Christmas there and then my family drove down to Princeton on Saturday to celebrate with us. Thank YOU! to Paul’s Grandma Frances for letting us use your house all day- we really appreciated having the space. My family had a wonderful time with Emily and she enjoyed their company. They bought her a dress-up old pageant dress and she simply loved it! She kept twirling around saying, “I so pretty!” It was hilarious!
-Emily’s favorite Christmas gift was probably the 5 foot tall Mickey mouse that we got from Sam’s club. He is huge, obviously, but she can’t get enough of him. She looooooves Big Mickey, as he is called in our house! He is so big she can’t move him herself so she needs all kinds help to move him from room to room.
That’s our update for this month. I will TRY to update more often but it is hard to find the time. When I go back to school next week it is 2 weeks of testing and then the end of the quarter, which is always a crazy busy time. I will surely enjoy spending time with my sweet girl though! Hope you had a Merry Christmas and you will have a happy, healthy 2010.
