Where to Start??

Where to start?? Emma does so many new, exciting, cute things daily and finds more ways to get into trouble daily than we can keep up with!

Emma eats oatmeal for breakfast almost every morning. Some mornings she wants us to feed her and some mornings she wants to feed herself. Since she is still working on being completely adept with utensils and oatmeal is kind of tricky, we give her some help. We're trying to teach her that oatmeal is not a finger food. It's really cute when she can't seem to get a spoonful of oatmeal and then starts to use her left hand to try to pick up some oatmeal, stops herself right before touching it, and shakes her head no, as if she's telling herself that oatmeal is not a finger food.

Emma has been very family oriented for the past week or so. Over the weekend, she was not content unless all three of us were in the same room. At one point, Daddy was reading a book to her in the living room and I went into the kitchen. She quickly came to get me, took my hand and walked me back to the living room then sat back down with Kurt to finish the book.

She is enthralled with books lately as well. Emma has always loved books, but now, she can't seem to get enough of them. I think on Saturday, she brought me at least 75% of the books off her bookshelf and we read the first page of every one. Generally, she brings us several books a night to read. She really enjoys pointing different items out and repeating words or animal sounds. One of her current favorites is Peek a Who? When prompted, she repeats that a cow says Moo!, a ghost says Boo!, a train goes Choo Choo!, and can point out several of the animals on the Zoo! page -- her favorite is the jaguar and she recently learned how to make a ssss sound for a snake.

Emma loves going down to the basement. There are all kinds of fun things to do there....like take DVDs off the shelf, or climb onto the futon to reach the xbox to turn it on, or see if the laundry room or office door is open and get into something there. She is a big fan of pushing/pulling her wagon around --I think it makes her feel big to be able to do it.

Emma watches Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer. Luckily, she mostly just likes to have them on in the background. She rarely just sits and watches. Usually she is playing or bringing books to us during the show. She lets us know when she wants to watch them by trying to climb over the couches to the remote controls or pointing to the TV and saying either Blue or Dora. She sometimes will use sign language --dancing-- to indicate that she wants to watch Blue's Clues. At the end of Blue's Clues, she will stop whatever she is doing, stand up and wave and say Bye! to the tv. Super cute.

The other day, Emma's caretaker at daycare told me, "Emma is so smart. She is also in charge of this room. All the kids look to her to see what to do." We're still not sure if this is good or bad. We're leaning towards that probably means she's the instigator. (Obviously, her father's child!)

Emma is babbling up a storm. It's so cute to hear her trying to hold a conversation. She'll just look at us and talk and we can tell she's trying to say or ask something. In the car on the way home from daycare, I'll ask how her day was and she'll babble a couple sentences.

After we get her dressed in the morning or after her bath at night, Emma will stand up, reach out and then lean over to us and give us the biggest tightest hugs ever. It makes our hearts so happy!

There are probably a million other things I could write, but I think this blog is long enough. I'll catch up more later this week or over the weekend.

Guilty?

Emma loves taking all the DVD cases off the shelves in the basement. She also loves climbing in her wagon. This is what I came downstairs to on Saturday morning:

Favorite Toy of the Weekend

On Saturday morning, Emma decided that a laundry basket was to be her favorite toy all weekend. She quickly maneuvered it through the door and then proceeded to push it down the steps before following it down. She had fun putting toys in it as well as climbing in it herself to play. Her favorite activity was for us to shake the basket back and forth for her. She laughed hysterically when we said "Time to shake the baby!" (Don't worry, we were gentle!)

More fun with friends

On Saturday, we stopped over to a friends' house in the afternoon. Emma had a great time playing with Catherine who is 10 days older than Emma and Tyler who is 10 months old. Emma and Catherine had a lot of fun filling red dixie cups up with ice from the coolers. Emma tried to take the game to the next level by taking beer bottles out of the coolers, lining them up on the deck and then putting them back in. We quickly put a stop to this (although we did let her play with Sprite cans, which she had fun distributing to empty chairs on the deck...you know, as a gift for the next person who wanted to sit there.) The girls played great together, although they did fight over a red dixie cup a few times (I think Emma was the instigator of these fights) luckily, just adding in another cup seemed to solve the issue.

Emma also had fun sharing a cup with Tyler and even going to pick it up when it fell to the ground and returning it to him. :)

Emma and Lydia

On Friday evening, we visited with a friends from Germany who are in town. We had a great time catching up with Dan, Kristi, and their 7 month old, Lydia. We actually met Lydia right after she was born and right before we returned to the US in January. We were so excited to see them and see how much Lydia has grown in the last 7 months!

Emma had a wonderful time playing with Lydia. She shared her toys very well although she didn't quite get that Lydia doesn't play the same way Emma does. When Kurt brought Emma's jumperoo up, he said Emma's face lit up and then got very confused why Lydia got to go in it and she didn't. Luckily, there weren't any tantrums over it! Emma did insist on getting in it a few times....which was hysterical since we had it on the lowest setting and she couldn't jump in it.



The best part of the evening was when we got Lydia to laugh and were tickling her a little bit. Emma joined in and was so proud of herself when Lydia laughed. Emma was surprisingly gentle for a while, but I did take her away when she started to get a little out more rambunctious. I know she wouldn't mean to harm Lydia, but I was worried that she might get carried away and accidentally pinch her.

It wasn't me!

Earlier this evening, Emma brought the little travel alarm clock I have on my nightstand down to the living room and left it in the middle of the floor. While she was eating a snack before bathtime, Kurt happened to find it and came out to the kitchen to ask, "Emma, how did Mommy's clock get down stairs?" Emma responded with a perfect shoulder shrug and I don't know sound then looked and sort of pointed at me pretty much saying I don't know, why don't you ask Mommy? It was priceless!

*sigh* We're going to be in trouble in a few years!

Time

This morning, I was holding Emma in the kitchen so she could point out what she wanted for a snack. She pointed at the clock on the microwave. I showed her that the hour said 8 and told her that I was going to put a clock in her room and that she wasn't supposed to wake up before 8. I asked if that was ok. She shook her head no and said very clearly "Six!" Kurt and I just looked at each other and started laughing hysterically which made Emma very proud of herself and caused her to join in as well.

There have been a few times that Emma has said something that sounds exactly like what the response to a statement or question should be. But she's only 14 months old, so that's completely not possible She decidedly does not know that 6 am comes before 8 am....she won't even sit still long enough for me to point out what the numbers 1, 2, and 3 are let alone 6, 7, and 8!

At any rate, I can pretty much guarantee that she won't be sleeping in any time soon!