2 Years and 1 Month Old!

It’s time for the monthly update! We enjoyed a wonderful morning today as we headed to a local Festival of Trees and had Breakfast with Santa! Emily loved seeing him and she did really well sitting on his lap, however, she didn’t stay there long!

We are enjoying Emily so much right now- this is the best age so far. She is so smart! Seriously- I know all parents claim that their kiddo is smart but Emily shocks me all the time. Here’s what she can do:

-She knows all basic colors (think the Crayola 10 pack…we’re not doing cerulean and magenta yet, but she knows the basics!)

-She can count to 20- she does not have one-to-one correspondence to twenty yet, of course (maybe one-to-one to 1 or 2) but she gladly counts all the time. She will count the stairs, the puffs when she takes her medicine, the legs on her toys, etc. So grown up!

-She knows square, circle, triangle, rectangle, oval, star, and crescent.

-She knows what foods she wants to eat for her meals….my only comment here is that you’d better hope you have it on hand when she asks!!

-She is making so many amazing connections right now and expanding on what she knows. For instance, she saw some music notes and started talking about Baby Einsteins—this is a show on Playhouse Disney that features a composer of the day, artist of the day, etc. She saw the music notes and thought of the sheet music that they show on each episode! So smart!

-She knows about 40-50 songs. I blogged about them a while back and she knew over 20…now she is obsessed with Barney and has learned all his songs, too…so add those to the list!

-She is speaking only in complete sentences now and her speech is really clear. Most people can understand what she says with no difficulty. She is able to answer questions and follow simple one- or two- step directions/ commands.

-She knows just about all of her body parts—head, shoulders, arms, fingers, belly, bottom, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, tongue, teeth, chin, legs, knees, toes, feet, back, and bellybutton. She will also gladly point out any body parts on anyone else too!

-She likes to play pretend and is very realistic—she pulls her cupcakes out of her kitchen oven using a pot holder! She also will cook lots of meals for us now and give us lots of bites!

-She makes lots of phone calls now- she calls her Grandaddy (Paul’s dad) at least 4-5 days per week and also calls him non-stop from her toy phones. It is really funny to listen to her talk to her “caller”…she will say, “Hi, how are you?” and then turn to me and say, “It’s for you, Mommy!” Then at the end she’ll say, “All right, bye!” She sounds just like me!

-She loves to read her books now- she will say all the words that she knows (she has memorized several stories). She also has several books that have a lot of pictures (Baby’s First 100 Words is a favorite) and she will point to every picture and say it now… even hard words like “firetruck”, “strawberry”, “computer”, and “owl”. She is super smart and we are so so so proud of her!

We will be visiting our families for Thanksgiving and Christmas so watch for lots of fun pictures from those events too. Thanks for checking on our sweet girl!

2 Years Old!

Yes, folks, it’s true-- our girl is two! I can’t believe it but she is getting so big so fast. We are enjoying every minute (well, almost!) of what we are calling the “Terrific Twos”...so far, so good!

Here are the new things going on with our girl:

-- She is speaking almost totally in complete sentences. She says please, thank you, thank you very much, and you’re welcome after almost every request. She also copies a lot of what we say. She is learning probably 5-10 new words every day. Today it was “soon” (“What is soon?” is what she asked me!), “Christmas trees”, “Nutella”, “tear it” (as in, “Please don’t tear it, Emily...we want to color it, not tear it”) and “soup” (which she called “suit”). The words are not 100% clear but she is saying long strands of words and I can generally understand her...so can Paul and Miss Jamey.

-- She can jump with 2 feet and can jump across the Tumble Trak at gymnastics.

-- She can draw a face. I’m not even kidding. She has a little Magna-Doodle and asks me all the time to draw faces for her. I always draw a big circle, then 2 eyes, then the nose, mouth, ears, and hair. The other day she said “I draw face” and proceeded to draw a big circle (she’s been doing that for about a month now), then very slowly, deliberately drew 2 eyes. When it came time for the mouth her hand slipped, but it didn’t matter...I stole that face away so fast! I am going to take a picture to show ya’ll....you won’t believe it!

-- She can operate any and all doors in the house. This is challenging, to say the least.

-- She is very interested in sitting on the potty but nothing really happens while she’s on it. I still will let her sit there 200 times a day if she wants, though, because I want her to have access and I keep hoping that one day, something will come out! :)

-- She helped me bake cookies 2 weekends ago and I think I’m going to let her help me cook something like that around 1 or 2 times a month- she had a great time and was actually very controlled. I think she thought she was big stuff standing on a chair by the counter!

-- She is beginning to pretend play. She will feed Barney and Baby Bop (holding out spoons of food from her Tea Party set into the air and saying, “Here Barney!”) Also she took some food out of her oven in the play kitchen she got for her birthday and used the oven mitt to get them out. It was SUPER precious!

-- She is beginning to understand pronouns....it is MY blanket, MY toys, MY cup, etc., which is normal...but she is also experimenting with YOUR purse, MOMMY’S car, DADDY’S shirt, etc. So amazing how much she is learning!

-- She seems to be getting some toddler eccentricities, which I have to say I love to pieces. The other day she needed to wear 2 different shoes and I was totally ok with it. I really think toddlers need to have some control over their lives and if it comes down to wearing crazy outfits, I’m ok with that! I think it’s super cute.

-- She has learned to ask us for what she wants to eat. This is both helpful and hilarious, depending on what she says. For instance, we were out on her birthday day and she said she wanted spaghetti, so we bought it. She ate it, and all was good. Apparently, though, she also LOVED the taste of birthday cake because nearly every morning this week she has said, “I want birthday cake!” when I ask what she wants to eat. So funny!

-- She is getting very good at counting (to about 16) and at identifying numbers. At gymnastics yesterday she was standing on a hopscotch mat and showed us the 2, 4, 5, and 7. On the way out to the car Paul was holding her and said, “Daddy was proud of you for knowing your numbers!” and she said, “I knew about five”. I thought Paul might drop her he laughed so hard!

That is about all I can think of for now. She continues to amaze us every day with something she says or does. It is so incredible to watch her growing and changing all the time!

2 Year Old Girl!!!!

So, expect a lengthy post after the festivities this weekend about new and improved TWO YEAR OLD GIRL....but for now, I will update you on our 2 year old well-child visit today:

Stats:

Weight: 25lbs 8oz- 35% (she moved up a couple percentiles- yay!)

Height: 35.5" (90%....how did we get a tall kid?)

Head: 19cm and some change... I forgot to ask about the percentile for that.

Her doctor said she looks great, was impressed with her language skills. She SHOULD have been impressed with Emily's art skills since I had given her a pen and paper to draw on while we waited, and she drew all over HERSELF instead. Seriously!

She had already had MMR at her 18 month appointment so today she got her Hib booster, regular flu shot, and, to my great joy and satisfaction, H1N1 shot too! After having my student's father die this week from swine flu I feel like the risk of getting it FAR outweighs the risk of getting the shot. I was mistaken that Emily couldn't have the H1N1 vaccine- she just couldn't have the nasal mist b/c of her asthma. So I was thrilled that she was able to get it!

Unfortunately, yesterday we noticed a rash on her diaper area...today she has it on her legs, feet, and lower tummy, as well as blisters in her mouth- she has hand, foot, and mouth disease. It's a virus and the pedi said not to worry about it- all her friends at Miss Jamey's have already been exposed (DD has it now too). Since it's a virus there's no antibiotics or anything...just Tylenol to help with fevers if there are any. The doctor was 100% not worried and said it was still safe to give her the vaccinations today.

We don't go back until April for a 30 month appointment. Dr Y was WAY impressed that we haven't been in since her 18 month appointment!

Busy Month!

Hi everyone! Sorry we have been lacking in updates this month- we have been very very busy! Some of you may know that Paul’s father was injured in a motorcycle accident on Sept. 5. Since then, we have been traveling quite a lot to see him. He is expected to recover but it will be a long journey. We are so glad that he is OK and are doing our best to keep his spirits up. What better way to do that than to spend time with Emily Claire?! :)

We took Emily to her first fair recently. She LOVED it! She was in awe of all the sights and sounds and really liked the funnel cake, too! We didn’t go on any rides this time- next year we will.

We are all set for her birthday party, which is at our house on Sunday the 25th. I can’t believe that she is almost 2! I get so nostalgic this time of year, thinking about the last few days of my pregnancy and how eager we were to get her here. How quickly she has grown up! Just this morning I walked in her room to find her with her tea party set all set up, “pouring” drinks. It was adorable! Hard to believe that a year ago she couldn’t even walk...now she is running, hopping, and having tea parties!!

Stay on the lookout for new pictures soon- we will probably hit up the pumpkin patch next weekend and post those when we have them! :) T-minus 10 days till someone is 2!!

23 Months Old!

It is simply amazing to me that today Emily is 23 months old! I can’t believe it! She is getting so big and can do so many things... that old saying about growing up too fast is 100% true. Here’s all the new things she can do:

-The biggest thing I suppose is that she is 100% paci-free, for 17 days now. She doesn’t even ask for it anymore!

-She holds entire phone conversations now when you let her use your phone. I can understand about 80% of what she is saying.

-She is a major repeater- she can say anything you say! (So watch what you say, haha!)
-She is getting much better about following directions at gymnastics class-- still some trouble during Circle Time but she follows the rules for the long rectangle trampoline and for the pit...so I am happy with that!

-She can open every doorknob in the house.

-She can unscrew bottle lids.

-She can put on her own shoes (sometimes on the right feet, sometimes not!)

-She is in the “life is better naked” phase and will randomly strip down and run around shrieking with delight. It’s all fun and games until it’s YOUR kid!

-She can count to 20.

-She knows all the songs on “Barney’s Songs” (she is obsessed with Barney!), all the songs on our car music CD, and all the songs I had taught her before. She probably can sing about 35 songs in all- amazing!

-She is using a lot of sentences now- “Go Jamey’s house”, “I want it/ I don’t want it”, etc.

-She will eat her gummy vitamins alone now, they don’t have to be intermixed with her regular gummy snacks.

-She loves “topcorn” (popcorn) but has to be reminded to take only 1 kernel at a time!

-She will stand up in a shopping cart and say, “OH NO MA’AM- sit down! Dangerous!”....all while standing and looking at you. Not that this has happened, of course!

-Speaking of standing, her new fave activity in the house is to try to stand on her ride on toys. Evil Kanevil.

-She loves to color and is getting really, really great pincer control from doing it so much. Also, she can draw a circle very well.

-She knows red, green, blue, purple, and yellow with pretty good consistency. She definitely did NOT learn this from eating a lot of fruit snacks. Definitely not.

-She is now sleeping on a pillow in her crib and loves it- she actually lies down a lot faster now, I think because she is more comfortable!

-She is alerting us to having used the bathroom in her diaper and will bring us a new “diapey” and lie down to be changed.

-She loves to sit on the potty but has not released anything YET.

-She is starting to notice things outside the car- like cows, cars, trucks, etc. She is becoming a lot more aware of things around her like airplanes, birds, etc.


-She can kick a ball- Daddy taught her how!


All in all, she is becoming such a big girl. No part of her is a baby anymore and it is so shocking to us how quickly that happened! We are so excited for her birthday next month- be watching the mailbox for your invitation!

Paci Free- That's Me!

It’s true! Emily gave up her paci last weekend and has not had it since Friday morning. She did SO WELL- she hardly cried (under 25 minutes!) and has hardly asked for it since it “went bye-bye”. We are SO proud of our big girl!

22 Months Old!

Hello again! It’s time for the monthly update- can you believe Emily is 22 months old now? I sure can’t! Here are some highlights and funny stories about our little princess.

-We have been playing a fun game where Emily asks something that sounds like a question and I respond with, “WHAT?!” in a very loud voice. (It’s funnier in person, I swear!) Well, yesterday morning we were playing before I had to leave for work and I said, “Emmy, can you give your Mommy a big kiss?” and she looked up from her toy and said, “WHAT?!” the same way I say it! It was SO funny, especially because she thought of it all on her own- we had not played the game in a day or two. She is hilarious! What made it even better is that while I was laughing she looked at me and said, “I a funny girl!”....yes, yes she is!

-She is getting to be quite the daredevil- jumping on the couch, beds, etc...basically anything. She also wrestles like crazy with Paul and likes to play very roughly....where is my sweet girl going?

-She and Jamey’s son DD have been playing “pretend” -type games a lot lately-- like going to the store together, etc. What is super funny to me is that Emily wants DD to hold her hand...and when he lets go, my little manhunter grabs it back! They are too funny together.

-She is loving animal sounds and body parts a lot lately. She always wants to do her animal puzzles and will tell you a lot of the names if you ask...same thing with body parts. Last night she woke up and I was wearing my glasses- she reached up, touched them, and said, “Glasses!”....such a smart girl.

-She is a dancing queen- loves all music! Lately I am noticing that she will dance different ways to different songs...makes me really excited that she hears these differences and already knows how to adjust her moves to match the rhythm.

-We are doing much more complicated hairstyles right now- French braids, regular braids, multiple ponytails, etc. It will probably all stop on Tuesday when the kids come back to school and I have to be there so early, but for right now we are really enjoying it!

-She is blurting out sentences left and right....her vocabulary and word acquisition skills AMAZE me! I read that toddlers can add a new word to their vocabulary every 90 minutes and I believe every bit of that, especially in a child like Emily who is constantly being stimulated by her parents or babysitter. Our girl is one smart cookie!

That’s about it for now- she is probably 25-26lbs and is about 34 inches tall...next time for the “official” visit is on or near her 2nd birthday pending no issues between now and then. Thanks for checking on our sweet baby.