It's been so long since I've posted, it's hard to know where to start.

I'm almost 35weeks gestation. This pregnancy has been significantly harder than my pregnancy with Emma. From vericose veins to leg cramps to heart burn to an uncomfortably over active baby to being way overheated to fatigue, I'm so ready to meet this sweet girl. I'm thankful the nausea/vomiting is over and hasn't come back so far. I'm SO thankful for a healthy pregnancy so far, so I really can't complain. I'm not sure if it's age since I'm 3.5yrs older this time or if it's just this little girl... or probably both. I'm hoping and praying that I don't go past my due date since they will not consider an induction until 41weeks gestation. I've been feeling nervous about delivery since my last delivery was less than ideal. I feel somewhat better that I've had an anesthesia consult and am hopeful to have a working epidural this time. I'm also a little nervous about what we'll do if I go into labor before Suds gets to town. Our neighbors have been so generous to offer to watch Emma and even come sleep at our house if I go into labor in the middle of the night. I'm not sure how Emma will do with that, considering she often times wakes up and calls us into her room to sleep with her. So we'll likely use our neighbors if Suds isn't here, but if I go into labor at night, we'll likely bring Emma to the hospital with us.

Emma has been the biggest sweetheart when it comes to my belly. She's always giving my belly hugs and kisses. She likes talking to "baby haha" and even sings to her sometimes. I need to get some photos of Emma by my belly so I never forget this time. As hard as the pregnancy has been, I feel like my heart has grown immensely just watching Emma's love for her sister. She's so excited to have a sister.

Emma has been so much fun. She's definitely turning into a little kid. We painted her toenails for the first time last week (her request). She really, really wanted blue nail polish. In Emma's world, everything needs to be blue since that's her favorite color. We settled on blue sparkly nail polish for her toenails only (she still puts her hands in her mouth on occasion).

One of my favorite things about Emma's age is watching her language grow. I've started a little diary of sorts, essentially documenting one cute thing every day that she says or does. I haven't been the best about keeping up with it as well as I should, but I'm glad that I've done it. I don't want to forget the cute things she says. Well except the one time recently that she was "telling jokes" with Steve (which they love doing) and Emma randomly mentions how big my booty is... ha! Fair enough, I'm definitely bigger pregnant than I normally am. :-)

Her favorite take-out foods are Chick Fil A and the asian food bar at Harris Teeter. She likes going out for pizza too. She's done a little better recently with foods and not being as picky. We usually don't push her too much to eat foods that she doesn't want. Usually all we have to do is let her know she can have a piece of chocolate for dessert if she eats her dinner, and that usually does the trick :-)

We've had a rough patch with daycare. It's pretty inconsistent how she does with drop offs. She had a month or so that she was kicking and screaming and trying to escape her class to come and get me. It's hands down the hardest part of parenting for me. One of her teachers actually took me aside because she clearly was having trouble (even at home) for a month or so. She thought it was related to me being pregnant and Emma being aware that change is coming. I've absolutely adored this teacher (Ms.Tracy) and the support she's given us. Emma has been doing better lately (well except for drop off today). Ugh. It's so hard to figure out and as soon as you think you have it figured out, they outgrow the phase. I'm hoping she does better with dropoffs once the baby comes. Wishful thinking, I know.... but a girl can hope!

My Emma Love!

Emma just had her 3yr old check-up. She had her first vision test, which she liked since during part of the test, she got to tell them that she was seeing the letter E (her favorite letter).
She weighs 36 lbs (90th percentile)
She is  3'3.5" tall (95th percentile)
She's all up to date on her vaccinations, so no shots this visit.

The biggest change that we're making after her appt is dropping the amount of milk she's drinking. Dr.May had a talk with Emma that she needs to eat more big girl food and less milk. She typically drinks at least 48oz/day. We're working towards her drinking 24oz/day. So far, she's doing pretty well. We're weaning her but she understands that she has to eat more food and can have more water when she's thirsty. The big concern is that the volume of milk she's been drinking will make her anemic. However, her bloodwork was normal at her doctor's visit, so that's good. She did great when she had her finger stick, she didn't even cry. Such a big girl!
She became a picky eater a while back, but there's still a lot of foods that she will eat. We don't give her anything overly seasoned (anything from the crockpot). Her favorites are tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, meat (really any kind of meat that isn't overly flavored), mac and cheese, most fruits, pasta/noodles, chocolate, etc. I bring her a banana most days when I pick her up from school since she's quite hungry by the time I get her (around 5:45).

We're also taking her tv show out of her bedtime routine to help her get to bed earlier when she has school the following day. We really struggle with getting her to bed. She's a night owl. Even on nights when Steve is at work and I'm very tired, we'll get in bed by 8pm, but she still doesn't go to sleep at least until 9:30pm. Sometimes not until 10pm. This is challenging because it's really hard to wake her up for school. She's SO tired.
She now knows that Dr.May disapproves of her having electronics in bed, so we're focusing on reading instead. We've always read some books during her nighttime routine, but now we're reading a lot more books. She enjoys reading and insists on turning the pages when we read to her. Reading more books is not helping in terms of her going to sleep earlier, but I still consider this to be a win.

She loves playing in her kitchen. She loves making us pickle soup and really anything else. This morning she made us donuts in her kitchen, then we had to sit on the rug in our kitchen and eat together.

She also loves playing with her legos, especially her ambulance legos. She loves playing doctor with her Doc McStuffin's doctor kit and her daddy's stethoscope. She even brought this doctor kit to show Dr.May at her 3yr old check-up.

She loves dancing and has shown interest in doing dance classes. I think we'll likely try a dance class for her this fall. When she dances at home, she usually make us dance with her. When we dance with her, she'll say, "You're my king." And of course she's a princess, usually wearing a dress. She's still insanely picky about what she wears. If she doesn't want to wear something, she'll say that it hurts her (when it clearly does not hurt). She likes to wear her hair down. If we're eating and I put her hair behind her ears so it's not getting in her way while she eats, she says "that hurts me." She still HATES buttons and refuses to wear anything with buttons. Her doctor thinks it's just a control issue. Little kids like to have as much control of their surroundings as they can. But really, why does it have to be buttons? Hope this one doesn't last forever. Recently she tried telling me she doesn't like zippers, snaps, etc. I just ignored her comment. In her perfect world, she's walk around in her underwear (or nothing at all). As soon as we get home, she always takes her boots, socks, and pants off. She even came up to me at a birthday party the other day to ask if she could take her pants off (in all fairness, she had a dress on). But still, it's winter and very cold outside.


She really loves playing with her new baby doll. She's REALLY excited about being a big sister. She calls her "baby haha." If we call the baby anything besides baby haha, she gets upset. She loves to give my belly hugs and kisses and even talks to my belly. I think she's going to make a great big sister. Emma still loves to be held. When I asked Emma what was going to happen when her baby sister came, she told me that I still have to hold her, and she can hold her baby sister. Not so sure about that :-)

She's unbelievably sweet and affectionate. It's also cute that if I give Steve a hug or kiss goodbye as he goes to work, Emma runs over to us so we can have group hugs/kisses before he leaves for work. She does not want to be left out!

She only goes to sleep if she's cuddling with one of us. We don't mind, so we haven't changed the routine. We are stating to make her sleep in her own room, and we just go in her room with her. I think we're in trouble when the baby comes, especially when Steve works evenings/nights. Eek!

She desperately wants a minivan. Sorry Steve! She absolutely loves Suds' car and could play in her call all day. In all fairness, Suds and Pops do have a sweet set up in the back of their minivan (with a foam pad/lots of blankets) when they come to visit us. She also loves that she can open/close the doors with a button.


She's getting more verbal and will say if she's feeling frustrated. We still remind her to ask for help instead of screaming/crying, but she's definitely getting better about doing that on her own.
She still says "my" instead of "I." I hope that never changes :-)
I love how she pronounces certain words. Instead of "restaurant," she says "rest-or-not."
Instead of "spaghetti," she still says "sk-beg-E."
She now talks about monsters that she's afraid of. When I ask her where the monster is, she'll point to a knob/handle on a piece of furniture or to a keyhole on the door.

Her favorite color is blue. She got blue rain boots for Christmas. They're literally the only pair of shoes that she'll wear. I guess it helps that she can put them on/take them on all by herself. It's definitely a bonus that they're blue. She had a pink pair of rain boots she wore before these (that literally fell apart before she outgrew them).

When given the choice, Emma always prefers to stay home instead of going to school. School drop offs are not as hard as they used to be since she's familiar with her teachers and the other kids. We're extremely happy with her classroom. I really love her teachers and she has a few good friends. It's really cute watching her hang out with McKenna (her best buddy). The other morning when Emma was sad, McKenna came over and gave her a hug. I'm so thankful she has an easier time at drop off. That was hands down the hardest part of parenting so far when she would cry uncontrollably and want me to hold her. Still makes me sick thinking about it.
Everyday when she wakes up, she asks if it's Friday. They do "show and share" on Friday. She can bring any toy from home to show to her friends and she gets to be in the spotlight for a minute showing off her toy to friends. It's the highlight of her week. She talks about it almost every morning.


She still mostly showers with me. I usually give her the choice between a shower with me or a bath by herself. I take that as a win that she likes to shower with me, since it takes less time to get us clean and ready for bed. I'm usually pretty tired by the end of the day, especially if I've been at work and it was especially bad at the beginning of this pregnancy. To end every shower, she asks me to pick her up and then she has to count to 100 before we get out of the shower. Here is how it goes... "1, 2, 3, 100" :-)

I'm in the 2nd trimester (just over 20weeks) and finally feel human again. I'm trying to enjoy as much time with Emma as possible before her sister comes!

What Emma's Up To

Emma is 2yr8months. I've been doing a "One Line A Day" journal for the past couple of months in place of blogging. That way I can keep track of the cute things Emma does and says.

She is the biggest sweetheart. She likes to tell us that she loves us "whole wide world." She's still saying "my" instead of "I." So she'll say, "My love you whole wide world." Sometimes I'll even say "my" instead of "I" because I don't want her to learn the correct way of saying it. It's just so cute.

I love how she says certain words as well. She says "teef" instead of "teeth."

When Steve got home from work the other night, she made Steve stand on one end of the hallway as she ran to him to give him a kiss. She did it again and gave him a hug. Then she made Steve come running to her to give her hugs and kisses. Did I mention how awesome Emma is? God knew what he was doing by giving us a little girl.

Ever since Steve's parents came to town a couple of months ago, she has been more of daddy's girl than she ever has before. Pretty cute, although it did make me sad a couple of weeks ago when she told me that she wanted her daddy to come sleep in her room and told me that I could go to Kathy's room (what she calls our guest room). Typically she wants me or both of us to lay in her room until she falls asleep. She's still a night owl and doesn't go to sleep until at least 9 if not after 10.

We give Emma a bath or shower almost every evening. She gets grimy from school (esp in the summer since they play outside with sunscreen on). Lately I've been showering with her instead of her having a bath. Every evening she'll tell me that she's going to cry in the shower. A couple of days ago, she was even teaching me how to cry in the shower. When I pretended to cry softly, she made sure to let me know it was not loud enough. She also likes for me to hold her in the shower so that she can lean back and get water to run down her hair (but not on her face). When she does this she smiles while telling me that she has play-doh hair :-)

Emma has an amazing imagination and is very good at imaginative play. Emma is still very literal with naming her animals. Her baby doll's name is "baby" and her dog's name is "ruff, ruff." She did name her tooth fairy doll, "baby haha." Not sure about that one :-) Recently she asked for a brother and a sister (thank you Daniel Tiger episodes about siblings). She said her sister's name is "baby haha" and her brother is "baby hoho." Ha!

She loves dancing and twirling. Nothing makes her happier than wearing twirly shirts, skirts, or dresses. Other than that, she'll wear leggings. Anything with a button is forbidden. She will have a major meltdown. She refuses to wear any pants with buttons, sweaters, etc. This has to change at some point, right? On our days around the house, I let her pick out what she wears and often times she'll pick princess dresses. :-) She's to the point that she mostly likes to put on her own clothes (although often times needs assistance). That's true for shoes too. She's one independent girl!

She has been doing well at school. She's doing some better with drop offs at her daycare but some days we still have difficulty. I think it's dependent on how she's feeling and how tired she is. Before we go into school each day, we say our prayers in the car. We say essentially the same prayer every day so Emma is able to say it with me. She is very much attached to her green blanket and her Mickey Mouse doll, both of which she brings to school. Lately, she's started to get attached to her pink lovies that she held onto as a little baby. She calls them dirty little blankies, or dirty blankie. I promise that they're not dirty. I'm not sure where that name came from. The past couple of weeks she's been bringing her green blanket and her dirty blanket to school (no Mickey). When she sleeps at night, she likes to pile all of her stuffed animals and blankets on top of her. Like a crazy number. I actually will remove some so she doesn't suffocate. I've slowly moved some of her stuffed animals out of her room so that's less of an issue. Speaking of sleeping, we still lay down with her in her room until she falls asleep. I like cuddling with her. So on most nights I don't mind one bit. Usually she'll sleep through the night once she falls asleep on her floor/bed.

Emma has a number of best friends. She always talks about McKenna (her best friend from school), Miriam (who lives across the street), and her cousin Sylvie (who she loves Skyping with). We play outside pretty regularly with Miriam. I feel very grateful to have another little girl on the street for Emma to play with. There are a few neighborhood boys for her to play with as well, but she plays better with Miriam.

Emma will try some foods, although she seems to be getting more picky. We don't enforce her sitting at dinner for very long. Her favorite food without a doubt is milk. She loves it. Like really LOVES it. We have to be careful not to give her too much before dinner so she'll actually eat some food.
She loves smoothies and insists on helping make them. Usually we do OJ/bananas/vanilla yogurt/strawberries/spinach. That is a big win in my book! So most days, she'll drink some of that and ask for more. She really likes fruit, sausage, cheese, corn dogs, tomatoes. She doesn't like peanut butter (is that even possible) nor does she like hummus. I think it's a texture issue with both of them.

Potty training. We tried here and there to put underwear on her in the last several months. Her teachers thought she was ready around the age of 2. I think physically she was ready. On one occasion, she was out playing with kids in the neighborhood and she told me she had to pee. We went inside and she peed in her potty. So physically she got it. However, she didn't want to be potty trained. So we didn't push it. At the end of August (so just over 2yr7months old), she started peeing in the potty regularly (with Hershey kisses being her reward). We usually took her to school in underwear.  But often time we kept her in a diaper at home. We were really inconsistent, mostly because she had zero interest in pooping in the potty. So she regularly pooped in her underwear. Good times!
Update: As of Sept25th, Emma is pooping in the potty! Yah Emma! She initially was asking for 3 Hershey kisses (1 for peeing, 2 for pooping) which I guess was the deal... although luckily she stopped asking after a couple of days (that's a lot of chocolate... not that she would even eat it all).

Emma has an amazing memory. A couple of months ago, when we were talking about birthdays, she went and found every single one of her birthday presents and put them on the kitchen table (where she had opened them) and remembered who gave her what. I was quite impressed! We're definitely to the point that we can't buy her Christmas presents when she's with us- she's attentive and she'll remember. Although recently we bought books through her school. One of the ladies who works at her school gave us the package of books when they came in. Emma keeps talking about how Ms.Lori gave her those books. We've tried to explain that Mommy and Daddy got her those books and they were delivered to her school. Then, Ms.Lori handed us the package... but she thinks Ms.Lori gave them to her :-)

Whenever we leave the house, Emma finds one of her small Snoopy bags as her purse and fills it up so she can leave the house with a purse too. She fills it up with any toys that she can find. So my car ends up being completely filled with toys :-)

I'm forever trying to update photos on Picasa. Tune in and hopefully I'll get more uploaded before too long!

I just realized that I started this blog post 2-3 weeks ago and never posted. I've finally finished it up, so here ya go! I'm months behind in updating photos, so I'll just go ahead and post this for now.

Emma is now 2yr 4+months. When people ask, I'm finally just letting them know she's 2. So we're finally to the point that we're not counting each month.

She loves to pretend play. She uses all sorts of objects as pretend phones. She'll call her daddy, Grammy, or even McKenna (her best friend from school). In the bath, she still tucks her birdies into bed by putting a washcloth on them, then kissing them goodnight. She also pretends to eat Hershey kiss tacos and milk. She might be on to something... because that sounds pretty tasty to me! She also likes to pretend grocery shop.

Her language continues to develop. It's funny when we ask her questions about school, she usually just says "yes" regardless of what the question is. I know she understands a lot of what we say, but when you're talking about what she did earlier in the day, she'll answer "yes" to anything. I'm not sure if she doesn't fully remember of doesn't fully understand what we're asking.  I love that instead of saying "I" she says "mine" or "my" at the beginning of sentences. So she'll say, "My love the beach." The one word I've noticed that she mixes up is tickle. She'll say that the vacuum tickles her. I think she uses it when things scare her (or occasionally if something hurts her). She uses it in the correct context as well.

She's gotten pretty good at saying please and thank you and has even gotten better at saying sorry. My favorite is when she says, "Oh thank you Mom" without being prompted. She usually calls me "Mommy" but the other day I was showering and she was patiently waiting for me at the door of the bathroom. All of the sudden, she kept saying "Ms. Meghan, Ms. Meghan." Ha!

She loves playing with Miriam (the girl across the street) and McKenna (her favorite friend at school). If McKenna is there when I drop Emma off, she'll say goodbye to me and happily go play. If McKenna is not there yet, she gets really upset still. So I've been purposefully getting to her school late in hopes that McKenna will already be there.

Her school year finishes up in June. The rooms are based on age/development. She's in room 4 this year and was initially going to be put in room 6 starting mid-June. I couldn't figure out why McKenna was put in room 5 and Emma was put in room 6 since their birthdays are about a week apart. It seems that her current classroom all got split between room 5 and 6 for next year. We were not happy because they play so well together and get so excited to see each other every day. So I begged and pleaded. Even Steve really wanted Emma to be with McKenna because he's seen how much they like each other. So they've moved Emma to room 5. Yah!

It was funny because one of the other parents whose kid was put in room 5 really wanted their kid in room 6 because he has a couple of friends in room 6 and because she thinks he's so smart/advanced and doesn't want her kid bored in room 5. Really?! This just shows you that we're not type A parents. I honestly don't think the enrichment/activities will be different between the two rooms. It amazes me that parents are already trying to push their kid to be the best. I just want Emma to be happy and enjoy activities with her friends. I'm not concerned at all with Emma's development, so maybe that's another reason that we're laid back and not trying to push her. She's doing great exactly where she is in her development.

She talks about going to Tennessee to see Suds and Sylvie on a regular basis. She also talks about how much she loves the park and the beach regularly. We just took her to the NC coast a couple of weeks ago and she LOVED it! She actually enjoyed the water/waves even more so than building sand castles. It made me a bit nervous since she kept wanting to get in deeper into the water and the waves were crashing on her. She's totally fearless. Luckily she was more content playing with the sand when we were in Florida last week. The waves were especially big so I wasn't very comfortable with her in the shallow water (even with her life jacket).

After work, I usually get home with Emma before Steve gets home from work. So I'm usually trying to get dinner ready. Emma has learned what to say to get me to stop cooking/cleaning up and play with her. She'll come grab my hand and tell me that she wants me to be her friend. How you can you say no to that?! I don't. I stop what I"m doing and I play. Even though we need to eat, I feel guilty if I've been away from her all day. And I miss being with her too. Sometimes when I pick her up, she'll let me know that she missed me when she was at school.

She's become a picky eater. She still loves sauces of all kinds. She likes dipping food into sauces. Ketchup is probably her favorite. She's definitely a tomato girl. She still loves her fruit and her fruit smoothies. We've been bringing bananas when we pick her up from school. She's usually really hungry by the time we pick her up at 5-5:30ish and that's what she's been asking for. She can easily eat 2 bananas if you give them to her. Milk is still the majority of her calories. She loves it. We still have to tell her every night that she can't have milk in bed (we blame Dr.May, her pediatrician... so she knows Dr.May doesn't approve of her having milk in bed).

We were having a ton of crying at bedtime. She's a night owl and likes to stay up late but she still gets fussy in the evening. We started a sticker chart a month or two ago to help stay on schedule. Bathtime starts at 7:30, then she gets one show, then brushing teeth and then book time. We aim for going to sleep at 9... it usually ends up being 10 or so before she falls asleep. We're less strict with bedtimes on the weekend- so she stays up later and sleeps in too.

She's definitely a night owl. In the morning, she always asks for cuddles while she drinks her milk as she's waking up. A couple of weeks back, when I said "good morning" to wake her up, she told me that it was still night time. I think she was hoping that if she could convince me that it was night time, she could go back to sleep.

She tends to be very squirmy before she falls asleep. The amount of energy she has never fails to amaze me. Once she finally starts to calm down at night, she has started asking for back massages and for us to sing to her. In the past, she's never liked us singing to her at night. She's gotten good at saying "Shush" to make us be quiet. But lately, she's started to request that we sing "Silent Night" or as she sometimes calls it "Waca Waca"... not sure how she got that. She also likes us singing the ABCs to her.

She likes to snuggle too. If I'm lying down with her, she likes to play with my hair. She's done this ever since she was a baby. I still have to be careful that she doesn't pull my hair. I don't know what it is about playing with my hair that she likes so much. The other night as we were in the bathroom brushing teeth and getting ready for bed, she told me how much she loved my hair. So sweet!

If you go into Emma's room at night, you essentially have to play "Where's Waldo?" She likes sleeping on the floor and will find different areas of the floor to sleep on every night. Initially I was trying to put a blanket down, but since she'll go sleep by the closet door or by her bedroom door, I would essentially have to put a blanket down on every inch of the floor. So half the time she's on the carpet. She always tries to convince me to snuggle with her on the ground, but I always refuse. It's too uncomfortable. Sometimes she'll come right up to the mattress pad we have on the floor so she can be on the floor and I can be on the mattress pad while we cuddle. Her daddy will lay on the ground with her though.

Her favorite song to sing to (besides her ABCs) is Uptown Funk. She LOVES it. I'm not sure it was the best song for the daycare to teach (there's a kids version of it) because it somewhat sounds like she's singing profanities. But she LOVES the song and apparently most of the kids do. So I think it's a win. It's pretty cute. She thinks it's Up/Down instead of Uptown, so she'll squat down, then come back up when she's singing the song sometimes :-) She really loves the "bibbity bobbity boo" song from Cinderella. She gets really excited when we put it on for her. Another song that she's been singing a lot lately is the Doc McStuffins theme song. Time for a check-up. She loves pretending to be a doctor too. She has a kid's doctor kit, but usually she gets Steve's stethoscope and otoscope to play with.

Her teachers keep telling us that she's ready to be potty trained. I know that she understands the cues. Several weeks back she was playing with friends in the neighborhood and stopped to let me know she had to go pee. So we came in, and sure enough, she peed in the potty. But then other times she resists us at home. We've been talking about potty training and asking her regularly if she needs to go to the potty. But often when we ask if she needs to pee, she usually says no, then will pee in her diaper. We haven't pushed the issue yet. Perhaps in the next month or so we will be more persistent or try to switch her to underwear for the weekend and see if that does the trick.

Springtime!

Springtime is here! We have been loving the outdoors. Our TV time has cut back significantly. We spend a lot of our free time in our front yard and have started going to parks as well. With the nicer weather, bugs come unfortunately. Emma is not a fan. She tells "toes" (mosquitoes) and bees to go away. She definitely learned to scream at some point too. If a bee gets too close, she will scream like you wouldn't believe. Ha! Then she'll tell me that she's scared. I guess she gets this from me. I do not like bugs. I'm not looking forward to the roaches in our house either. Thankfully we have a bug service so we haven't seen too many roaches yet. Oh the joy of living in the woods.

Emma's hair color is definitely blonde but it's quite a bit darker on the top of her head. It totally looks like she had her hair dyed at some point :-) I think it's due to her wearing a hat outside all winter, so my guess is that it will lighten up quite a bit this summer.

We went back to Tennessee at the end of March. Emma did such an awesome job on the flights. I feel so thankful that I have a good little traveler. There is no longer a direct flight between Memphis and Durham :-( At the airport, she even peed in the potty. She was not a fan of the airplane potties. Fair enough. There is hardly any room. Anyways, she LOVED seeing Suds, Pops, and her cousins!! On the plane ride home, she kept asking to go back to Tennessee. I think that Emma thinks that Tennessee is Suds and Pops home. When we were driving around in Memphis, she kept asking to go back to Tennessee :-) 

Anna's coronation dress

Sleepover!

Cuddles with one of Emma's favorites!

 Baby shower for Tres, Melanie, and baby Emma!!

Speaking of potty training, I think her daycare takes her to the potty some. At home, she's usually too distracted playing so doesn't ask to go to the potty. I think we could probably potty train her now if we wanted to. But I assume that the longer we wait, the easier it will be. Perhaps in the next couple of months we'll really try. Right before she turned two, we let her go to school in underwear. She didn't have any accidents at school (until I picked her up... she pooped... and I stepped in it when I had her at the potty). Then when we got home, she peed twice in her underwear even when I kept asking. I think she's doing better now though. Every night she pees in the potty either before or after her bath. She initially would sit on the potty even if she didn't have to pee. She'd ask for milk and just sit there until she had to go. Now she's doing better and not sitting for as long. Also, while we're doing her bedtime, she'll tell us if she needs to go potty. I feel like she's partially procrastinating so she doesn't have to go to bed. But she will pee. So she understands the cues. She's pooped in the potty a few times but it's definitely not the norm yet.

Bedtime is still a little challenging. I really blame ourselves since we don't stick to the same exact schedule every night. So she tries to procrastinate every evening. Typically we aim to do bathtime at 7:30pm. She usually resists getting in the bath but she typically enjoys it once she's in there. Her favorite bath time activity is to put her little birds on the edge of the tub, then she puts washcloths on them. She's pretending the washcloths are blankets. She kisses them goodnight after they're tucked in. Then she says to us, "Shhh, be quiet, birdies sleeping." It's pretty darn cute! After bath time, she puts her jammies on in our room. She is very independent and insists on picking out her own pajamas. She doesn't care what she wears for the most part, she just has to get her pajamas and diaper from her dresser. If you pick it out, she will put it back in the dresser then pick it out herself (sometimes it's the exact same thing you picked out). Then she gets to watch a show in our bed while she drinks her milk. We aim to put her to bed at 9pm after teeth brushing but sometimes she doesn't go to sleep til after 10:30. She usually asks to watch Sylvie swinging (thanks Marilyn's instagram acct). We have to stay in the room with her until she goes to sleep but then we can leave and she pretty much stays in her own bed until the morning. She's definitely a night owl. When we flew home from TN, she stayed up past 1am without sleeping in the evening. You could tell she was really tired but she didn't even cry. She was just taking it all in. We had a few comments about how good Emma was being. Go Emma!

Emma still LOVES her milk. She would happily drink milk everyday and nothing else. Unfortunately she has become a picky eater. Some of the meals we make aren't ideal for little kids (spicy, etc), so half the time, she gets different food from us for dinner, which isn't super ideal. She still loves her strawberry smoothies, but I've started adding blueberries/blackberries and spinach. I feel less guilty that she's not a big veggie eater since she's getting the spinach in her smoothies. She's always loved fruit and that's still true. Her new favorite food is corndogs (they're vegetarian/soy) from Trader Joes. She loves dipping it into the ketchup and mustard.

Overall I think Emma is doing better at daycare. She still has a hard time at drop off on most days. I let her take her blanket and Mickey to the classroom where I drop her off to help out.
Last month, when I picked her up, she told me that she wanted to stay and play. I couldn't believe my ears. It made me so happy to hear that, so I actually let her stay and play for 5 more minutes until she was ready. They were playing outside (but in the covered area since it was raining).
We were paying for her to be in a program called Tumblin Tots once a week. They jump around, get on a mini trampoline, play with parachutes, etc. They introduced all the kids to it, then her teachers let me know how much she liked it. I'm not sure if Emma really liked it or if they told all the parents that. So we signed up in January and she did it in February too. My mom and I watched one day in Feb (we were sneaky and watched from another room so she couldn't see us). She cried throughout the first bit, so we ended up leaving. I didn't want to see her sad and figured she was upset since we had just dropped her off. One of the other moms was watching too and mentioned how emotional Emma is every morning. Awesome. I know she didn't mean to say something upsetting to me, but clearly, Emma doesn't calm down quickly when I drop her off in the morning.
Anyways, it turns out that Emma really didn't like this class (not sure why). In March, they ended up sending her back to her classroom because she was so upset  during her tumbling class and the following week, they didn't send her to the class at all since she got hysterical when the Tumblin Tots teacher came to her classroom to get the kids. I tried talking to her about it but she can't express herself well enough to tell me why she didn't like it. I just felt so guilty because every Friday I would talk to her about the class on the way to school since I thought she like it and I wanted her to be excited about it. Fail. If anything, it probably distressed her hearing me talking about it.

In terms of language development, she's talking up a storm. We understand most of what she says at this point. Here are some of my favorite things she's been saying:
She was saying "probably" in almost every sentence. It was not used correctly though. She meant to say that she really wanted to do something. She clearly learned that from us :-) 
So she'd say, "I'm probably going to watch Mickey." Which meant, I'm definitely going to watch Mickey so put it on :-) Hehe.
Lately, she's been asking ,"what in doing?" instead of asking "what are you doing?" I think she started to realize that she was saying it incorrectly and started saying it right... so we started to say "what in doing"... maybe that's not good for her language development, but it's so darn cute.
I love listening to her sing along to Frozen. My favorite line that she sings is, "the hot and the cold are both so intense, put them together it just makes sense" - always makes me laugh!

She loves big kids (or any kid older than she is). For example, on Easter Sunday, I wanted her to wear a dress to church. I had two options for her, both which were pink dresses. She loves pink but she's very particular about what she wears. It was a big fight getting her to put on one of the dresses. Finally she gave in and wore it to church, but as soon as we got home, she wanted to take it off. Fair enough. So we took it off. Well, later in the afternoon, she saw Miriam (the 3yr old girl across the street that she plays with) wearing a pink dress. She couldn't find her pink dress fast enough to put it back on. Ha! Speaking of clothes, she's very particular about what she wears. I'm starting to ask her opinions when we shop for clothes. If I like it and she doesn't, I don't get it since I"m not willing to battle her.

Emma loves playing with Miriam. She's always asking what Miriam is doing. Emma plays outside with her on most days (at least the days we're not working). Lately they have been taking their shopping carts and they pretend to go grocery shopping. They go around the cove to pick up different items. They play so well together. I feel pretty thankful that she has kids on the street to play with. She's less interested in playing with the boys on the street, but my guess is that's because we don't play with them as much.

Emma did great at church on Easter Sunday. She sat through the Duke Chapel service with us. Quite impressive! She just soaked it all in. We only really go to church on the big holidays. I want Emma to go to Sunday school when she gets a little older. But I really hate the idea of dropping her off at a room to play, since she's in school most of the week. I like my time with her. When she gets a little older and is actually learning Bible stories, I think I"ll be more willing to drop her off at Sunday school.

Emma is very attached to her blanket and her Mickey Mouse. She takes them everywhere with her. She also makes sure that I get Minnie Mouse to snuggle with at night, and she makes sure that Steve has "Wobbles" the moose. She insists that Wobbles go to work with Steve everyday. If she finds him at home while Steve is at work, she gets distraught. She even woke up in the middle of the night crying  and as soon as Steve came in, she gave him Wobbles, then she happily went back to sleep.

Emma is getting more active. She can actually hop now. She used to try put would just bend her nears and then stand straight. She can actually get some air when she jumps now. Fun! She loves wearing her running shoes. She can run pretty fast too. She has been begging for a scooter lately. Here is her first time on a scooter. She did pretty well. She's pretty persistent when she wants something. The girl has a good memory! We're thinking we should wait until next summer, in hopes of decreasing the likelihood of broken bones!

Hoping to update Picasa photos this weekend! Fingers crossed!

Emma!

Emma is such a sweet pea at 2yo!

Here are her two year old stats (despite being 3.5weeks past her actual birthday)

She weighs 32lbs (94th percentile) and is 37.25in (99th percentile). She did really well and didn't cry one bit at her check-up (it helps that she didn't have any vaccinations).

You can check out Emma photos from January and February

Here is one of my favorites recently. Such a beauty!
 
I hope you enjoy my random tidbits about Emma who is just over 25months. I guess I can stop counting by months and just call her a 2yr old!

Emma is still a pretty good eater. She often times will try most foods, but we don't push her to eat things if she wants to spit them out when she doesn't like them. She has a good variety in her diet. She really loves fruit. She has been requesting strawberry smoothies a lot lately. Yum! If she likes what she's eating, she'll say "mmm" or "delicious." She also loves every kind of sauce you can imagine. She likes dipping her food into sauce. At Chick-Fil-A, she'll dip her nuggets into both ketchup and honey roasted bbq so it's totally covered :-)
She has come to LOVE chocolate. Instead of asking for "chocolate," she asks for "chocolate cake" even if it's a M&Ms or Hershey Kisses that she wants. So we're trying to teach her the difference there. It's important to know all forms of chocolate ;-)

Emma is a girlie girl and loves her princess dresses. Her favorite by far is her Anna coronation dress. In the car this weekend when we were listening to the Frozen soundtrack, when the song came on that Anna wears the coronation dress, she got really excited and kept asking to put on her coronation dress when she got home. I was impressed she was able to remember what song was playing when Anna was wearing that dress. Speaking of Frozen, she absolutely loves that movie. Well maybe not as much as Mickey Mouse, but it's definitely one of her favorites. She knows most of the words to most of the songs and sings along. It's excessively cute. It's hard to get a video of it because she will stop singing if she sees you recording. Half the time she makes me sing too but the other half the time she tells me to stop :-) The girl has opinions! She loves singing other kid songs as well. She's gotten pretty good at singing her ABCs and she can count to 12 or so. With the ABCs, she learned the beginning and the end first. Now she's working on the middle. She kind of skips over LMNO when she's singing the alphabet. Or it blurs together anyways. But she gets better all the time.

I think her favorite color is pink (or that's what she usually says when you ask), but her favorite color to paint with is blue.

Speaking of opinions, she is very particular about what she wears. It's not always my first choice in terms of what she wears, but usually I don't feel like it's worth a fight. It takes long enough to get her ready in the morning before work.  She's doesn't tend to like anything new. Our last trip to buy her tennis shoes was a mess. She fought us most of the time (except when she put neon shoes that lit up, which happened to be about 10sizes too big for her). The one thing that we've learned that she likes is pockets. Pretty cute. My guess is that she sees her daddy with shirts that have pockets, so she likes them too.

She's very particular about her diapers. The Pampers swaddler diapers that we use have Sesame Street characters on them. She only likes the "Elmo make happy" diaper. There are several characters and there are two different versions of Elmo. She only likes the diaper with Elmo smiling on it. Thank you Pampers :-/  We realized this weekend that she thought the other Elmo had a sad face, so she didn't want that one. We had a week-long battle with her because she would have a fit and freak out if you put any of the other diapers on her. She still lets you know that she wants "Elmo make happy" diaper but we've made progress and she'll take the other ones too.

She's not waking up every night. She still wakes up some nights but goes back to sleep pretty easily. We've been good about not giving her a milk sippy cup in bed before bedtime. Her pediatrician got on to us for that. Rightfully so. So we changed our habits immediately. She still drinks a ton of milk and even has a sippy right before sleepy time, but then we're good and brush her teeth. We've gotten really good about brushing her teeth (thank you Sylvie)! We Skyped one night and Emma saw Sylvie brushing her teeth, so she was convinced. The other trick was getting her "silly strawberry" toothpaste. I hadn't realized that would make such a big difference.

Her language is really coming along. She copies a lot of words. She's talking in short sentences, although we don't understand everything. It's cute when there's something she likes or is wowed by, she'll say "Wow!" I need to try to get that on film! She has gotten really good about saying please and thank you. I absolutely love it when I don't have to prompt her and she says thank you. The other morning when we were saying our prayers before school, I was saying what I was thankful for and said how I was thankful for Emma. And Emma chimed in (usually she'll sit and listen with her hands together in "prayer" position) and said thankful for Mommy. I thought my heart might explode.

The other day she called me her best friend. Love! So we've been asking her lately who her best friend is. Often times she'll say "mommy" but sometimes she'll say "daddy" instead :-) She definitely loves her Daddy a lot. Not sure if she'll be a Mama's girl or Daddy's girl. Right now she's both. Depending on the day, she'll request one of us over the other.

Some of her favorite activities are still probably playing with her kitchen while pretending to cook/eat and playing "Lego party" with her "Lego buddy." She loves playing with the Lego teddy bear and bunny rabbit. She calls the bear "Teddy" and calls the rabbit "Ribbit." She has a new favorite activity as well... jumping in muddy puddles. Well not literally. She loves watching Peppa Pig (it's our favorite kid show). It's pretty awesome. And Peppa and her family like to jump in muddy puddles. So Emma likes to pretend. She puts on her rain boots and makes me put on my rain boots and we jump on our braided rug seat cushions (which she pretends are muddy puddles). And she'll exclaim that she's getting "so muddy!" :-)  She has also been loving playing with bubbles. It's cold outside so we're not out there much but we ventured out there this past week while it was snowing to blow bubbles. Fun!

We had a pretty hard week earlier this month with tantrums. It can be very wearing dealing with tantrums. Often times, I think she's hungry or tired when she's having these tantrums. Often times by the time I'm able to get to her after work, she's initially very excited to see me. By the time we get to the car and get home, she's usually a mess. We do time-outs when she's out of control and we need her to calm down. I'd say for being two, what I"ve noticed is that she is very opinionated, strong-willed, and independent. I guess that's what makes this age hard. But it's also one of my favorite ages because she's SO sweet and loving. She loves to cuddle and spend time with us. She still likes us to pick her up a good bit. Because of her sweetness, I would be happy if she stayed this age forever. I hope she's always an affectionate little girl.

We are still falling asleep in her room with her. I'd say that I do more than Steve, but he does on occasion as well. Half the time I stay the whole night on her floor with her. I know it's not the best habit. But I sleep well in there and I don't mind. She's so sweet when she cuddles at night. I know eventually we'll have to get her to sleep on her own, but I don't feel the need to rush it. She's only young once.

In terms of her looks, I'm starting to think she looks more like me as a kid. For the longest time, I thought she favored Steve, but I don't think that as much anymore. I still see both of us when I look at her. She still has Steve's exact hands. It's crazy! Her hair is definitely blonde, although it seems to be getting a little darker on the top of head. Possible since she's been wearing a hat whenever she's outside. It'll be interesting to see if it gets lighter as summer comes and we're outside more (without a hat).

Here's a fun story from today before I call blogging quits today. Emma told Steve that she wanted to ride a horse with me. She told Steve that he was too big to ride a horse, so he would have to ride a pig instead. Ha! She really does love animals, so I"m sure we'll have to do horse camp when she gets a little older. 
:-)

2 years old!

Emma is 2 (marathon post)! I've been working on this post for a month, so it's lengthy like usual. If you're here for the photos, I'm hopeful to go through photos this weekend. Hopeful is the keyword :-) That's really how you can see what we've been up to (and see all the fun people that have visited us)!

I'm not sure how she is already two! Although honestly I can't remember my life before she was born and what I did with all my time before!!

Here is what our sweet pea is up to these days...

Sleep
We have pretty much always battled her when it comes to sleeping at night and usually for naps too. We have a general routine but it's not at the exact same time every night. Right now we usually start bed time around 8:30-9ish and she'll go to sleep by 10pm or so.
We usually brush her teeth (with resistance, although sometimes she's cooperative), but then she usually takes her sippy cup to bed. Not ideal for the health of her teeth. She's been waking up in the middle of the night  pretty consistently (lately it's around 2am). Typically if you give her a dry diaper and milk, she'll go back to sleep. Lately I've been staying in her room after she wakes up in the middle of the night.
Because Emma has been fighting sleeping and has been trying to climb out of her crib, we finally took down her crib this week. I figured she would have stayed in her crib for another 6 months or so, but I guess she's ready. She'll lay down on her new bed without and trouble (assuming I lay down next to her). She likes to fall asleep while she has me in a head lock :-) She likes giving me hugs and falling asleep with her arms tightly around me. It's pretty sweet.
It's a big difference compared to getting her in her crib, where she's been hysterical lately.
Her "new bed" is one of Suds old foam mattress toppers on the floor, covered in lots of blankets. She still moves all around at night, so we weren't ready to put her off the ground. She really seems to like it.

Potty training
Daycare told me a week or so ago that she has days with a dry diaper throughout most of the day. They take her to the potty throughout the day (it sounds like they take her certain times and she requests to go to the potty too). She sees other kids on the potty, so that's my guess as to why she's interested in potty training. She has peed and pooped in the potty at home a number of times but it's not consistent. I'd say at  home she still usually pees/poops in her diaper. We haven't pushed the issue. We offer to take her to the potty when we think she needs to go, but usually we just listen to her. This morning when she woke up in her big girl bed, she asked to go to the potty. She peed as soon as she got on the potty. Go Emma! I always give her lots of praise and let her know how proud I am of her.

Last weekend, we ventured to Atlanta and Emma had a stomach bug the whole time. She threw up twice on the drive down there, then she ended up having diarrhea after that (which lasted over a week). Anyways, on the drive home, we stopped and she said "poop," so Steve took her to the potty. And sure enough, she pooped (had diarrhea) on the potty. I was quite impressed she was able to hold it. Perhaps it was easier for her since she her stomach was upset so that gave her the cue that she needed to go. We didn't make it home accident free, but I was still super proud of her. She was very proud of herself as well.

Favorite activities
Emma loves being at home. If you ask her if she wants to go out (to the grocery store or Target or out to eat), she'll usually say no and let us know that she wants to stay home.
Emma loves playing in her kitchen, especially with utensils from the real kitchen. Suds and Pops got her a mixer that matches her wooden kitchen set. Lately she's been making cake in her kitchen. She'll put an egg in the mixer, then move it to the oven. Pretty fun. She also likes to pretend with tea sets. She used to use our real tea pot, but luckily now she has her own (thanks Ashley, Pam, and David)! She likes to pretend/play with me and Steve.
She also loves her legos (thanks Grammy and Grandpa). She spends lots of timing building and "eating" her lego ice cream cones!
She loves putting on princess dresses and twirling. 
Emma went through a phase that she had to hold all of her stuffed animals at once. If you took her out of her crib, she'd get hysterical if you didn't pick up all of her animals too (as in 10-15 stuffed animals plus blankets).
She loves putting blankets on her animals/baby dolls and putting them to bed. She's very sweet with them and gives them kisses and will hold them (or make me hold them and pat them on their backs). Yesterday, she told her baby doll to stop crying :-)
Emma likes to try and hop (although she just bends her knees and pops up since she can't really hop quite yet), and she makes us hop too.
She still loves TV and usually gets a little TV in the morning and usually before bedtime too. Her favorite shows are Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Peppa Pig (which is an awesome show). Occasionally she'll ask for Super Why or Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. They're all fairly educational so we don't object too much. Recently at bedtime, she kept asking for Mickey "Superheroes." We had no idea what she was talking about. She was very adamant about it though. So we finally googled it, and sure enough, there is an episode of Mickey where they're all dressed up as Superheroes. It's amazing how much she takes in and remembers. She got very excited when we found the show for her.
She still loves bath time, although sometimes it takes convincing to get her in the bath.
She loves reading. She used to read right to left (in terms of turning pages), but she's starting to get it down.
She loves dancing! Usually she'll dance along to the songs on her Leapfrog computer. She'll get excited and run around the room too. A couple of weeks ago, we were having a dance party one evening. Out of nowhere, she started to say "Go Mommy. Go Mommy." Haha! I could hardly contain myself. She must have learned that at daycare. She's done it a few more times since then, although sometimes she'll just say "Go Mom. Go Mom." Of course, I cheer her on while she's dancing too ;-)
Sometimes when we're listening to music, she'll sing along with me as well. It's pretty cute. On Christmas Eve, when we went to the Duke Chapel service (not the kids service... we missed that service due to Emma's nap time), Emma and I ended up having to sit in the lobby because she was making noise. But at one point, I really think she was trying to sing when she heard the music. Love it! I think she did pretty well at the service overall.

Food
We finally got got rid of bottles over Christmas break. She fought it for a couple of weeks. I think it was good to transition her since she's now eating more food and less milk, although she still LOVES her milk. Her favorite foods are tomatoes and cheese, macaroni and cheese, and fruit. She really likes to eat butter and sour cream (right out of the container-ha!). She's been eating a ton of clementines this winter and lately she's been eating lots of strawberries. She'll try most of what we eat during mealtime (including spicy sausage a couple of nights ago- we were impressed!). We rarely make her try new foods because she's so adventurous on her own. A month ago, she did not want to try quiche. We knew she'd like it because she likes eggs. We made her sit at the table until she tried a bite. It was definitely a battle of the wills. Eventually she took a bite and exclaimed "mmm" and then went back for several more bites.
She loves Chick Fil A. She asks for it frequently. On our trip back from Atlanta, she kept asking for Chick Fil A and would say chicken nuggets, dipping sauce, fries, lemonade. She had not eaten all weekend except milk, and this was what she was craving. Usually we go to Chick Fil A on a weekly basis.
When I initially tried giving Emma a M&M as a treat (trying to convince her to sit still for a diaper change), she spit it out. You could tell it was not a treat to her. I tried a couple of times but she clearly did not like it. When we first introduced Hershey kisses, she would spit them out, but then want another one. I think she liked the shiny wrapping.
I guess I shouldn't have pushed the issue because now she really likes chocolate. She'll eat Hershey kisses and loves chocolate cake too!
She also loves eating with forks and spoons. She likes being a big kid and she knows that we use utensils, so she wants to as well.
She's definitely growing well.  She's in 4T clothing at 2years old. She can wear some 3T clothing as well, but we're mostly buying 4T and also 5T so she can grow into the clothing.

Language and other random tidbits
She talks a TON. We don't understand everything she says but in the last week or so, we've been hearing more and more sentences and phrases from her and we're understanding her better too.
She knows to say "please" if she wants help with something. We're still working on saying "thank you." When she does say "thanks," it sounds like "tank"
She still loves asking for "wipies" when she needs to wipe boogies off her face or if she needs to clean up a spill/mess.
She loves asking for, "up-eh-sees," or as we call it, "upsies," meaning that she wants to be picked up. As soon as we get home from work, she wants to be held, especially if it's time for us to make dinner.  But really if she's home all day with me, she'll ask for "up-eh-sees" all throughout the day. She tends to be whiny/fussy the second half of the day and close to nap time. She's napping for almost two hours in the afternoon, usually from 1-3pm.
She still gets on and off confused and upstairs/downstairs confused. We'll get it down with time!

She's very strong willed and definitely holds her ground. She's very tough as well. In the last month, she busted her lip at daycare. They said she didn't cry, she just got up and kept running around.

When we got our new washing machine and had her help put clothes in it, she got hysterical.
She knew her shirt was in there, and then you can see inside the washer while it was washing. She was very distressed. Ever since then she's doing well helping with us laundry and will put all of our clothes in the washer and will also help move things to the dryer. She loves the song the washer and dryer play when they finish a cycle.

She's recently become afraid of the vacuum, which is strange, especially considering it never bothered her before.

She loves getting bear hugs from her daddy. Steve will make a bear growling noise while giving her a big hug and she loves it!