2 Years and 3 Months Old!

It’s time for the monthly update again! Emily continues to grow and change and amaze us every day. She is incredibly smart....I know I am biased because I am her mom but I have also worked with a lot of kids her age and older and believe you me....our girl is s-m-a-r-t!! :)

Here are some fun things happening with her right now:

-She is coming up with lots of new things to say. She tells us about her day and playing with DD (Miss Jamey’s son). She talks about gymnastics class (“at anastics, wait your turn!”). She tells us about rules when we break them (“We don’t throw!”) She is also continuing to be a major repeater...her newest expression is “Be right back”. It is so cute to hear what she thinks up!

-She seems to have some number conservation but only to 1 or 2, 3 at the most. What this means is she is starting to understand that 1 apple means 1 single apple....2 apples means there are 2, etc. It seems so basic but it is really an advanced, difficult concept. In fact, my first graders have trouble with conservation of number, although we are working on 1-99 instead of just beginning to look at the idea. Emmy is able to count items correctly to 2 or 3 and usually it gets jumbled sometime after that. :)

-On a not so pleasant note, she is hitting and being sassy A LOT right now. It is driving us crazy!! Where did our sweet girl go? She goes from loving and kind to clawing your face and yelling, “NO MA’AM....I DON’T WANT IT!” in the blink of an eye. It’s really a wonderful time, haha! I am trying to steer clear of the “Terrible Twos” label because I HATE labeling kids and phases....but maybe we should call this the “Trying Toddler” stage!

-She is very, very active and very, very brave. This is not a terrific combination! She is all too happy to open outside doors for herself (and walk outside!!) or to run in the street the first chance she gets. Luckily, our doors have deadbolts that are a little out of her grasp, and our street is a cul-de-sac so there’s no traffic. When we’re out in public I carry her everywhere until we get to a cart or the stroller so there’s no risk there. It is wild the things she can do and she always looks at me like I’M the crazy one when I am trying to stop her!

-She is doing a lot of pretend play now. I think this might be my new favorite activity! She loooooves dress up and tea parties and makes us all kinds of foods and drinks in her kitchen. She absolutely adores the tea pot that our friend Audra sent her for Christmas and makes us “Emmy’s coffee” all the time now. What is even cuter is that she will put on dress up clothes now and say, “Ooooh look at me....I soooo pretty!” She is so modest.

-She may, MAY have recognized a word tonight at Walmart- she looked over the deli area to where they cook the rotisserie chickens and there was a huge sign that read, “HOT CHICKEN”. She stared at the sign forever and then looked at me and said, “It’s HOT, Mommy! HOT!” I almost dropped dead on the spot. Who knows if she really connected what she saw but how else could she have known it was hot over there?

-She is a singing machine. Seriously! She loves to sing every song but her two new favorite are from Barbara Milne (look her up on Youtube). She loves, “Do You Know These Letter Sounds?” and “I Love You So Much”. It is adorable to hear her sweet voice singing so nicely. She has also expanded on the first song a little bit and will sing, “Barney Barney, B, B, B” and “Emmy, Emmy, Eh, Eh, Eh”. I am amazed at what she knows!


That’s all the news on our little lady this month. Thanks for checking on her and be sure to look at all the new pictures!

Visit with the M Family!

Today my friend Laurie, her husband Matthew, and their little boy Nicholas came to visit us. Laurie and I “met” over 2 years ago (really, almost 3 years ago) on an Internet chat site for people who were trying to conceive a pregnancy. She and I and 8 other ladies branched off from that group and made a private Yahoo group....now, 88,000 emails later (that is the true number!!) we are still chatting every day. All of us have at least one 2 year old (Jess has 2 year old twins) and some of us have gone on to add Baby Number 2 to the mix. We are closer, even though some of us have not met, than I am to a lot of my friends whom I see every day.

Anyway, Laurie, Matthew and Nicholas came to spend some time with us and we had a great time! The kids played so well together and were so funny! We enjoyed hanging out and watching them interact. Then we packed it up and headed to get some yummy pizza for lunch. After lunch we were infringing on naptime so they headed back home and so did we. We are hoping in the spring to meet up at the Zoo and hang out again!

Thanks a ton to Matthew for driving your precious family up to see us. I’m glad we got to spend some time together, friends!

2 Years and 2 Months Old/ Christmas 2009

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.

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!!