Emma Rose

 

Emma loves her books. Some days, she'll flip through every book that she owns, which is a lot. Sometimes I read to her, but sometimes she likes to flip through them by herself. I will let her know if she's looking at it upside down. If I tell her that, she'll flip it around and keep reading. Often times, she'll flip through them right to left. She has a "first words" book. Last week, she started flipping through it and told me what everything was. I was floored. Talk about a good memory. I guess kids are like little sponges. It's just fun seeing them in action. She's pretty good with the animal book in that series too, except she never says the animal name, she just tells you the animal sound. Our favorite is her elephant impression. Her language continues to develop. She's not talking in sentences consistently but she definitely puts sentences together here and there. This past weekend, she said, "Emma eat hummus."

Daycare drop offs have been hard again lately. I feel like we had a few good weeks and now we've regressed. The teach mentioned that she likes reading books but she doesn't have time since she has to help all the other kids as they get dropped off, which is completely understandable. So this week we tried giving her a piece of construction paper and a marker. For the past two times at drop off, as soon as you give her a marker/paper to draw, she happily sits there and says bye to me. It's awesome! The teacher is super impressed because she knows her colors pretty well. So she's been letting Emma choose the color of the paper and marker.

She has just recently started singing. I'm not sure how this started exactly, but I know we had asked her about her music class that she has at school. We just learned about it. A music lady comes in every other Wednesday (which luckily is a day she's typically at school). Anyways, her singing is out of control cute.

Since I last posted, Emma has gotten much better about wearing her coat. Although it seems she'll only let us put her one pink fleece on. I figure that she watches the other kids at school and realizes that they have to wear coats too. I asked one of her teachers and she mentioned that she tried to refuse but then they let her know she couldn't go outside if she didn't wear a coat. And then she let me know that they put her coat on her backwards so she couldn't unzip it. Ha! I'm pretty sure she was referring to Emma when she said that, although there is a little bit of a language barrier with one of her teachers. Either way, I think it's kinda funny.
Emma will still tell us if she wants us to take something off or on, except usually she says "on" when she means "off." And she says "off" when she means "on."

I love that she can talk to us and tell us what she wants, although she still gets frustrated a lot. But we work on her saying, "Help please." She's pretty good about asking if she really needs help. What's even more amazing is that she has just started telling us if she doesn't feel well or if she gets a boo boo. She kept saying "poop" to us last week. She had a dry diaper, but then she ended up being gassy. She's been saying that on and off to us over the past week, and it's usually when she needs to pass gas. So I think she's trying to let us know her belly doesn't feel well. She's also started telling us what body part hurts if she gets a boo boo. And then once we kiss it, she'll say "better."

If you ask Emma what her name is, sometimes she will tell you"Emma Rose." It's adorable. And sometimes if you ask her who Steve is, she'll say "Daddy Rose," although usually she'll just call him
"Daddy." Pretty darn cute. She's been calling me "Mommy" lately. I love her sweet voice. I should probably get more video clips of it before she starts sounding like a big kid. I also love how she says Sylvie's name. It's really sweet. We Skyped with Suds and Sylvie last night and at the end of the call we got her to say "love Sylvie, love Suds."

Although we have so many awesome moments with her, we have our bad moments too. I keep thinking that we've gotten to the terrible twos but then it gets worse. In the past few weeks, we've had a couple of really bad episodes with Emma. One of them was at Target. She was hysterical. I had to let her out of the stroller because she was almost tipping it over trying to get out of it. Then she was flailing herself around the ground. I just sat and waited and told her to let me know when she was ready. Sometimes it overwhelms me, but it didn't bother me in the least. Anyways, the nicest guy came up to me and offered to buy me a coffee. Clearly he felt sorry for me :-) I didn't take him up on his offer but I let him know that the offer was very much appreciated. How nice. He had two kids that were almost teenage and said he remembered that stage. How could you forget it? Anyways, I ended up figuring out that she had dropped her princess, which is her favorite stuffed animal. She was devastated but she didn't tell me why she was upset. Once I talked to her and let her know that we had dropped princess but would go find her, she was very cooperative.

A couple of days after her tantrum at Target, we had a really rough evening with Emma. It flustered both me and Steve. We would have left her in her crib to cry it out, but she was flailing herself around her crib and I was afraid she was going to hurt herself. She was also trying to climb out. I've never seen her so out of control. I just don't think she wanted to go to bed (at least that's what we assumed). We had an hour and half battle with her. We kept taking turns and I think she eventually wore herself out.

We have a lot of nights that she fights bedtime. Now we've gotten used to having one of us lay on the floor next to her crib until she falls asleep. So now on most nights, she won't go asleep unless you're laying there with her. I think this wasn't the best move on our part. But I don't think either of us mind too much. We rotate who does sleepy time, usually based on Emma's preference. She still cries for a bit. But once she calms down, she'll often times hold your hand as she falls asleep. And nothing beats that.


Halloween has come and gone. It was an extra big treat because Steve's parents flew to town the evening before Halloween and were able to come trick or treating with us. Emma had a birthday party for a neighbor on the street right before trick or treating. She stayed pretty close to my side. I think she was the youngest kiddo there. She did play with sidewalk chalk for the first time while she was at the party. She really seemed to like it, so we ended up buying some. Fun! We've also just started watercolors, and she has a lot of fun with that too. She definitely likes artsy things. I guess what kid doesn't?

She wore her Minnie Mouse dress for her Halloween costume this year. We had a couple of other options - a duck and a witch, both of which Sylvie wore when she was younger. I asked her several times on several days if she wanted to put those costumes on, and she made it very clear the answer was no. I tried to put parts of the costumes on her, but she didn't approve. My conclusion was that Halloween should be fun for her and she LOVES that Minnie Mouse dress and doesn't get to wear it to school. So I let her wear it. She really feels like a pretty princess when she wears it.

Emma got a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch at school. Then we had smaller pumpkins around the house that were Emma sized. Emma took two of the smaller pumpkins and put them next to her pumpkin. She kept saying Princess pumpkin,  Mickey pumpkin, and Emma pumpkin. So sweet.

I'll work on updating my Picasa photos soon! I'm shamefully behind like always :-)