A Day in the Life

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.