Emma!

Ok, this is long over due. I started writing this post a month ago :-) And it's shameful that I still haven't gone through my photos. I have high hopes for doing that over Christmas break since I"m off work all week since Emma's daycare is closed.

Emma is inconsistent with how she does at daycare drop off. After a few hard months, we had a few weeks were she did well. And ever since, it varies from day to day. Usually her teacher will get out paper and marker for her to color and that makes her happy. But it doesn't always work. Her teacher has really made my life easier and has helped us through a lot of the hard dropoffs. I really think she likes it at school. She gets to participate in a lot of fun activities.  We know she likes playing in the sand box when they go outside because she often times comes home with sand in her shoes. They put a photo up outside their classroom of all the kids in their class before Thanksgiving. Emma had one of the biggest smiles with her little Indian hat on for Thanksgiving. It made me happy seeing that.

I still feel like a bad mom when I drop her off and she is sick. But I've called out of work a lot, so I end up taking her when she's sick (as long as she doesn't have a fever or is vomiting). I feel guilty knowing that she'll probably be picking up more sickness since her immune system is compromised and EVERYBODY at school is sick (at least from her teacher's report). But if I kept her home whenever she has a bad cough/running nose, I'd have to quit my job. Emma and I have been sick since Thanksgiving. Initially it was a stomach bug, then a three week cold, and as soon as we started to recover, we both got sick again. Ugh.

Even though I know Emma has a good time at school, it warms my heart that she likes being with us too. When she was sick a few weeks ago, I told her that I was going to stay home with her the next day since she was sick. She got the biggest smile one her face. Happiness.

One of the substitute teachers and one of the main daycare ladies at the front desk have both commented on how advanced Emma is, especially with her language. It really is fun to see her talking up a storm. She loves saying "bye bye" to everybody whenever we leave somewhere. She says it very loudly and makes sure she is heard. Pretty cute.

In terms of language development, she's doing really well. I think her favorite sentence is "Watch Mickey Mouse." Ha! We're definitely not winning parents of the year with her TV time, but she LOVES Mickey Mouse. And we've been sick a lot, so sometimes it's easier to let her watch it. At least it's somewhat educational. It will be SO much fun to take her to Disenyworld (or as Steve says, Disneyland) when she gets older.
When Steve is at work, Emma will say, "Daddy work Duke" and "Daddy doctor."
She still gets on and off mixed up. And she also mixes up upstairs and downstairs.

Emma loves to dance to the songs in her Snoopy movies! She'll ask for "slow, slow, quick, quick" which is a song that Charlie Brown and Peppermint Patty are dancing the foxtrot. Ha! She makes us dance with her.

She is the sweetest little girl. She loves to give her stuffed animals hugs and kisses. Then she'll put a blanket over them to get them tucked in. She's really sweet in the morning (or in the middle of the night) when we cuddle too.  She makes sure to put her cheek against my cheek, even if that means she has to get on top of me :-)

She loves to laugh. Whenever we play with Mr.Wobbles (a moose stuffed animal with wobbly legs), she thinks it's hilarious if he falls over. She'll tell him, "stand up wobbles," and when he falls, she can't stop laughing.
She also likes to pretend to go to sleep. If you tell her to go to sleep, she'll close her eyes and pretend to snore. And as soon as you tell her to wake up, she thinks it's hilarious and wants to do it all over again. :-) She makes us pretend to go to sleep and wake up too.

For the past couple of months, she has done significantly better with diaper changes. She's still squirmy on occasion. But she doesn't fight us the whole time. Often times she'll sit still for a short period of time if we distract her. Hooray!

She's still a good eater for the most part, in that she'll try most foods. Lately she's been loving bread. She asks for it all the time. She loves Annie's mac & cheese and Clementines too. We just started to cut back on her bottles this past weekend. She's definitely put up a fight. She doesn't like her sippy cup as much. Even if she begs for milk, she won't really drink much when we give her a sippy. So I'm a little worried about her fluid intake. We've only been giving her the bottle in the middle of the night (and once in the car). Yes, she's been waking up in the middle of the night (1-2 times) for a while now. It can be tiring but she usually goes back to sleep without too much trouble, assuming you give her milk and lie on the floor next to her until she goes back to sleep. In all fairness, that's how she goes to sleep every night, with us lying down next to her. Probably not the best routine, but we don't mind and she likes it.

Just before Emma was 22months old, she had the most traumatic day of her life. Steve was still at work and I had just gotten home with Emma after work. She was playing the playroom downstairs, and I told her I'd be right back. I had to get my purse out of the car. It was less than 30 seconds that I was gone. By the time I got back to the door to come back inside, I heard Emma on the other side of the door. She locked me out of the house. I didn't even know she could reach the lock. My phone and keys were all inside. Luckily I had opened the blinds, so she was able to see me. I tried to show her how to unlock the door. But she kept getting more and more upset as I tried to show her how to unlock it. She ended up climbing onto a chair and was absolutely hysterical- I thought she was going to fall off the chair. Finally she got off the chair, then I ran to the neighbors house to use their phone to call Steve. Of course it was a busy day and he couldn't leave to come home with his keys. I tried breaking into our house but didn't have much luck- and all of our windows were locked. Our neighbors ended up saving us. Chris drove up to Duke to get Steve's keys from him and Tana came over with her daughter to help me break in/ keep us company. Because I was able to see Emma through the window, I decided not to break a window to get in. If she would have gone into another room, I think I would have broken the back door or broken a window in our house. Eventually Emma got up on the futon and held her Minnie Mouse tightly. I thought she went to sleep holding her. Turns out she was just laying on the futon holding Minnie and not moving. She was distraught. When I came in the house (between an hour and an hour and a half later), she was still laying on the futon with Minnie. When I walked over to her, her eyes were wide open but she didn't budge or even seem happy that I was inside. It took her a minute to realize I was with her and then she wouldn't let me put her down. She really seemed to be traumatized. Even til this day, sometimes I notice that she doesn't want me going back out to the car and she wants to come with me if I need to get something out of the car.

She loves drinking her bath water. She knows she's not supposed to. So she'll look at us while she does it. She knows we'll say no (clearly not firmly enough) and then she gets the cutest guilty grin on her face. It makes it hard to enforce rules when she acts this cute. And she knows it. She gave a pouty face the other day. I don't remember the context but she knows she can get her way if she tries to work us. We might be in trouble ;-)

I asked Emma what she wanted for Christmas, and without being prompted, she said "puppy dog." I'm pretty sure she got this idea from her Charlie Brown/Snoopy movie. We think it's insanely cute and she knows it. Now that she gets a reaction from it, she knows to ask for a puppy dog- and she does. She's done it numerous times. So in all fairness, she will get a puppy dog for Christmas. A stuffed animal puppy dog. Even though she will tell you that Santa is bringing her a puppy dog, when we went to see Santa, she was too shy to tell him. So I told him for her :-) We didn't do Santa pictures (although we still might). We were just lucky that there was no line to see Santa a few weeks ago during the middle of the week, so we went to talk to him. He was very sweet with her and even gave her a Rudolph book.