Trying to Decorate Emma's Room Pottery Barn Style But Not

The Orange Crayon

Emma has 8 crayons. She typically uses the orange or purple crayon. They seem to be her favorite crayons. One Saturday Aaron was coloring with Emma and accidentally broke about a half inch of the orange crayon off. Emma looked at it and kept saying over and over "Daddy broke it! Daddy broke it!" Periodically she would interject, "Why break it Daddy?" She would also come show me the broken crayon and tell me all about how Daddy broke it. This went on for about 20 minutes. We have never seen Emma go on and on about anything like this. Aaron felt so bad for breaking her crayon and that it obviously bothered her a significant amount.

I kept telling Emma it was OK and that she could still color with the crayon and she kept telling me that Daddy broke her crayon. So two weeks later, she still is talking about how Daddy broke her crayon every time she pulls out her crayons to color. This past weekend we had a break through. She said, "Daddy sorry so much!" and then later she pulled out the crayon again and said, "Its OK." It appears she made it through the seven stages of grief and has reached acceptance.

Birthday Part II

Emma was sick on her birthday so we waited to give her her present until she felt better. And by waited, I mean that really, I procrastinated wrapping it so it was quite a while after her birthday that she got it. We got her a zoo Lego set.

She has loved playing with her Lego's. It is hard to say what she likes more - playing with the normally, or taking them out of the bag and then cleaning them back up.

Emma-isms

Now that Emma is talking more, she is saying some funny things:

1. She was climbing on a box to jump off of it and fell backwards on accident. She laughed and said, "It's good one!" So when she does something on accident (that usually involves falling) she laughs and says that.

2. Apparently Emma really listens to my phone conversations. She insists I talk on the phone on speaker phone so she can hear the conversation and participate. My sister Mary will sometimes say "Peace out" but usually in the context of "I am all done with this situation and am leaving now." Usually it is related to her work. One morning Emma was walking by one of her blocks that had a ladybug on it and I heard, "Peace out ladybug!" I was cracking up so hard. So now she says it randomly.

3. Emma loves to play chase. (What kid doesn't?) One day she was sitting in her high chair and eating a strawberry. She said, "I'm going to get you strawberry!" and the proceeded to eat the strawberry.

4. Whenever we are in the grocery store or where ever, and Emma sees an older gentleman, she points and calls him "grandpa." She knows that he isn't her grandpa, but it is more of her labeling the guy as an old man. We were at a friend's house (who is our age) and she was pointing to one of our friends and calling her "lady." Later that evening she pointed to out host and called him "grandpa." He doesn't have gray hair, or any of the typical identifying grandpa features so I have no clue but she wouldn't change her mind about it.

5. I was making her oatmeal in the morning and she looked at it and said, "Oatmeal stinking hot." It was quite matter of fact. I think that she got that one from me. We have had an extremely hot summer and I think I use the phrase "stinking hot" to describe our weather.

Sunday Naps

I grew up in a family where we all happily took 3 hour Sunday naps. It was really a continuation of church. Aaron grew up in a family where naps where under appreciated. I don't get it. Emma has adopted the Russell attitude. This next kid is hopefully an Anderson.

Here, Emma played for a while instead of napping so it was hard to get her up when we normally get her up because she hadn't been asleep for too long. We brought her down to our room and she didn't want to snuggle with us in our bed so she made herself comfortable on a pillow on the floor and continued her nap there. Aaron and I didn't stop her cause we may or may not have fallen asleep ourselves.

A couple of Sunday's ago Emma's jammies were dirty but we didn't discover it until it was time to put her down for a nap. This was a crisis. I tell you why. Emma is still a nudist. But it has progressed to taking off the diaper. I have found her sleeping, diaper off, in a puddle. The puddle wasn't drool. So we have a single pair of footy jammies that we turn inside out and zip up. It is the only piece of clothing we have found that is strip proof. This is also the only pair of footy jammies that are not fleece and this is key in Houston in the summer. Hence the crisis of the dirty jammies. So we decided to play Russian Roulette and put Emma in normal jammies - pants and a shirt. We ran up there 3 times to either stop her mid strip or full strip and put a diaper back on her. At this point, we were desperate so we did this:

What you can't see is that we also taped her diaper on underneath her jammies. This was really in case she figured out how to get the tape off. But in actuality it just was a sign of desperation because she shimmies out of her diaper so the tape wouldn't have confounded her if it really came to it. Once she figured out that she couldn't free herself from the prison of her jammies, there was much weeping and wailing. That is when she tried to escape a couple of times from her crib. That meant more running up to stop her. This was not a restful nap time for anyone. She never napped.

This is just a cute picture. Emma loves her puppies. In fact, Puppy (the big one) has become her favorite toy. It goes where Emma goes, unless I can stop her of course. I am terrified I will loose it and it will break her heart. So we try to keep Puppy at home.

Another one...

is on the way. We are going to be having a baby in January. Right now we are thinking it is going to be a boy, but will find out for sure in a few weeks.

All Big and Stuff

Emma turned 2. We flew in from Arizona and Thursday night and Emma turned 2 the next day, but there was no way I was prepared to celebrate so we planned to do it Saturday and celebrate Emma turning 2 and Aaron turning 33. We had great plans: swimming, opening presents, cafe rio for dinner (i.e. Mexican), and homemade ice cream for dessert. Emma got a cold Friday. No problem. Saturday, however, she woke up with a fever, so we took swimming off the table, but no worries, because there was still plenty of festivities left. By the time dinner came around, Emma had tossed her cookies. And then tossed them again in the night, so we pretty much had to scrape all of the festivities, except dinner, because that was already done when the puking began. We did put a candle in her guacamole and sing to her. She loved it and wanted to do it over and over again. She gets her love of fire from Aaron. My sister Emily asked if I had made her a cake. It seemed like such an odd idea until I remembered that the rest of the country celebrates birthdays with cake and ice cream. Nope. Didn't make her a cake. Never occurred to me. Lest I seem like a horrible mom, Emma isn't a cake or ice cream fan. The planned ice cream was really for Aaron. The guacamole was for Emma. Emma loves guacamole more than cake and ice cream hands down. 

Grandma Lindy and Grandpa Rich got her a balance bike which Emma has loved to ride around the house. Emily got her a doll high chair and crib and Emma has tried to commandeer it from the dolls for herself. Unfortunately, she is a bit outside of the weight range for the items. Aaron and I got her Lego's, which we haven't as of yet, actually given to her yet. We were going to wait until she felt better, and then things got busy and I just plain old haven't wrapped it yet to give it to her. Good thing she has no clue about when and what birthday's are.

Emma is convinced that she is all big and stuff now. She sometimes calls me Jamie. I don't know if I should respond to it or not. She directed me to the park all by herself on one of our walks. She attempts to jump off fairly tall things, including the stairs.

Her likes:

• stairs
• buttons
• walks
• swimming
• blowing bubbles
• dogs
• playing chase
• dancing
• mangoes
• grapes
• strawberries
• avocado
• guacamole
• bread
• singing "Give Said the Little Stream"
• singing the ABC song all by herself - she gets some of it right - while washing her hands
• sitting on the potty (but doesn't actually use it) and even more so, closing the lid and flushing the potty
• babies
• talking on the phone to Grandma and Grandpa
• playing around in the car

She doesn't like:

• stopping playing to eat
• diaper changes
• playing by herself
• being in the house
• pizza (I totally don't get this one)

Emma is also forming opinions. It is weird to me. I think I was expecting these days to come later on. Like today, I got dressed in a skirt to go to the temple. As soon as Emma saw that, she wanted to wear a dress. I understand that kids like to do what their parents are doing, but surely there are limits. I only wear a dress when it is absolutely necessary. I hate dresses/skirts. It is outside of my comprehension that being like mom would trump wearing a dress. Emma could not be persuaded to keep her shorts on so she stripped herself and found a dress to put on. But her is the funny thing, after I left, Aaron took her to the children's museum. She wanted to change her clothes and wear jeans and a long sleeve shirt. It is over 100 degrees outside here. Aaron gave into the jeans but found an acceptable short sleeved shirt. Really she wanted to wear a pink shirt. If I give her the choice of a non pink shirt or a shirt with pink on it - pink every time. I struggle with the idea that I might need to consult her when I purchase her wardrobe in the future. I thought that came at a much later age.