Well, poop

This blog is primarily about our adventures with a baby/toddler. Did you think poop wouldn't be a topic of conversation? No? Okay,good, just making sure we manage your expectations. :)

Charles and I had to laugh when our pastor said today during the announcements that today was the "perfect" day..10-10-10. This morning started off as anything but perfect.

Let me back up a little bit first since it's been SO long since I posted (I know, sorry, but hey, I'm a working mom these days!). Emmy has been, shall we say, a bit out of sorts the last few weeks. She came home almost 3 weeks ago from Children's Morning Out with a fever. It wasn't high, just low grade, but they had noticed she was warm and she fell asleep in her teacher's arms for a few minutes, which wasn't normal for her. It wasn't so bad that they called us to pick her up early, but but they did let me know when I went to get her. She indeed did have a fever of about 100.3, so we gave her some pain reliever and put her down for her nap, which was quite long. She had been working on molars, so I thought it might be teething. But, she kept a fever off and on until Thursday so she missed Kindermusik Wednesday and school on Thursday. She also had a slight rash on her face on Wednesday, but it went away with in 24 hours. She was fever free by Thursday evening.

Even though the fever went away, for next few days, and really for almost 2 weeks, she just wasn't herself. She went through periods of eating barely anything, and when she did eat her appetite wasn't great. She slept a LOT, with 2-3 hour morning naps and sometimes 3-4 hour afternoon naps, and sometimes as early as 6 pm she would be signing "night-night", telling us she was ready for bed. Plus, she became very, very clingy to me. I'm not sure if this was due to her not feeling herself or if it was a combination of her reaction to my working. I do spend a lot less time with her during the day and she would SCREAM when I left the room to go close myself off to work. Rip my heart out, why don'tcha kiddo. She only wanted me to hold her, so cooking dinner or doing anything while she was awake became difficult, if not impossible.

Then, last weekend while we were at Choir Retreat it seems our usually happy Emmy came back. I'm not sure where she's been, but on Monday when we were back home and into our routine, Charles and I looked at each other late in the afternoon and said "well, Emmy, it's so nice to have you back!" Seriously, it's so nice. She didn't fuss (at least not as much) when I left her to go back to work, she is happier and playing more. She wasn't miserable before, don't get me wrong, we could just tell she wasn't 100%. She spent the weekend with Su-Su and Big Daddy while we went to retreat, so we jokingly thanked them later for whatever they did to return our normal happy toddler to us and "offered" to send her up every weekend. Ha!

That said, this past week, though Emmy has been back to her usual happy self, she has also woken up a couple of nights in the middle of the night ready to party. She's been wanting to eat (at 2 am, sure kiddo, let's have a snack!) and play and read books. It's killed Mommy's sleep. But Friday night, she slept all night and woke up at 8:20 am. Score! So, naturally, we were hoping the middle of the night waking was over. Alas, last night she was up at 3:30 am. I changed her and rocked her, but I resisted turning on lights or doing any other activities. I put her back to sleep and she kept talking to herself and fussing a bit for a while, but she went back to sleep. I, however, had trouble getting back to sleep until almost 5.

But, I was a good girl, got up at 7:30, Charles was up about 8 and we cooked breakfast, folded diapers, ironed clothes for church, etc. About 9, we kicked it into high gear. I headed to the shower (we usually leave at 9:40 for church, we start rehearsal at 10) and Charles went to get Emmy up and feed her breakfast. 9 am is late for her, but since she'd been up overnight, it wasn't surprising we didn't start hearing her until a few minutes before 9. She usually will talk/play in her crib a while, which we assumed she was doing.

Then Charles hollered to me as I was heading to the shower. Oh, boy, was she playing. In POOP. Yes, she had somehow gotten her pajamas unsnapped, her diaper off, and pooped in the crib and it was everywhere. I don't think this was a planned activity, I just think she was playing around. She likes to undo the velcro on her diapers and I guess the snaps on her "new" consignment sale jammies (last time we wear those!) had come undone undone so she was playing with her diaper and it came off, and well, when ya gotta go. Gross. So, I had to detour back and give her a bath while Charles cleaned up the crib. I fed her breakfast then we swapped so I could throw sheets and stuffed animals in the wash and hit the shower. Amazingly, we were only 5 minutes late for church, despite all the poop.

Oh, and also Charles burned the devil out of his fingers on hot grits and he also saw another mouse in the house. So no, long story to say that today did not start out perfect! Haha.

Oh yes, we've had mice. Speaking of poop, it does also not belong in my pantry, which is where we've had mice visiting. And the counters and the floors and the bedroom. We have finally managed to catch 5 mice, and we thought we'd gotten the whole family (some have been babies) but today Charles saw No. 6. We have most of our pantry items in plastic storage bins for now and we take up Rags' food every night. I hope we are able to get rid of this last one soon. This problem has been going on for a month now and it's totally grossing me out.

But back to Emmy, that's why you come here, right?

She is, despite her clinginess and sometimes grumpiness the last few weeks, been adorable, of course. She is talking and signing more and more. She is starting to repeat words more and more. Her current favorite word is probably "outside". Sometimes it sounds like "ous" and sometimes it sounds like "side". We think "side" could also mean "slide," but they both mean "hey, let's out that door right there!" In fact at 3:30 this morning she wanted to go "ous" and I had to tell her, no, baby, we don't go outside in the middle of the night, we go back to bed.

She says something that sounds like swing, wagon, and of course slide. The kid loves, loves, loves to be outside. She can't get enough, really, and thank goodness the weather is cooler and there are fewer mosquitoes so we can spend more time outside without being miserable and/or eaten alive. She likes to ride in her wagon up and down the driveway, run in the driveway, swing, and go down the slide. She likes to pick flowers and pick up pieces of pine straw.

She now says "pass" for paci, "Soos" for Su-Su "Dee" for Dee-Dee and "DAAAHHHDee" for Big Daddy or Granddaddy. When she's referring to Charles it sounds more like "DahDEEE", so we can usually tell the difference. We think. Maybe. There are lots of other new words that come out when she hears them. "Ragsie" and "doggie" are still two of her favorite words. She loves dogs and always comments on them when we see one on a walk. She loves Lucy, Mary Ann and Joel's dog, and Lucy is also very good with her.

As I said, she signs "eat/food" and is starting to say "eeee" when she signs. Very cute. She signs a lot now, so I feel like all those months of feeling like a fool signing these things to her while she ignored us paid off. She signs bath, apple, more, all done, milk, drink, night-night (sleep), cook, clean up, please, and thank you. We are working a lot on please and thank you, and she also says "peees" when she signs please now. She has discovered candy corn and knows we keep it in one of the candy jars in the entry way. She will go to the table there and sign and say "pees" when she wants one. We have Daddy to thank for introducing her to candy corn. :) It is cute, though. And he tells her it's all done when she's had one or two and to say bye-bye to the candy, so she waves bye-bye when she walks by the entry table. Hilarious.

She loves to wave hi and bye, too. She waves to people, cars, animals, inanimate objects, you name it. She tells everyone bye-bye and she's getting better at blowing kisses. Aunt Janis first taught her how to blow kisses this summer, but usually when she would do it (which was rare) she would smack really loudly and on occasion put her hand on her face. She still mostly smacks rather than kiss, but she's getting her hand closer to her mouth and she'll do it more on command now. I love it. She doesn't quite get the difference between giving a kiss and blowing a kiss so giving a kiss to one of us or her baby doll usually is the same thing.

She does love her baby doll and her animals. She will give them a hug and a kiss, and it's very sweet.

When we ask Emmy questions now we get a lot of head nodding. Do you want to go swimming? Big grin and head nod. Did you have fun at school? Big grin and head nod. Do you want to go see Aunt Sarah? Big grin and head nod. We love it!

So there you go, a brief update. We have been busy since Labor Day weekend, traveling to Rome to see Dee-Dee and Granddaddy, going apple picking with Lucas, Lisa, and Will, hosting a church party and helping with Mary Ann and Joel's wedding party, hosting Uncle Robert for a visit, going to choir retreat in the mountains while Emmy stayed in Greenville and did lots of visiting, and of course work and school! More details and some photos to come, but it's midnight and I've got to go to bed! Hope everyone has a great week!