Happy Thanksgiving!

I just realized I forgot to publish this post...from Thanksgiving.

Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We've just returned from Rome where we spent Thanksgiving with DeeDee, Granddaddy, Aunt Beth, and Uncle Griffin. Emmy had fun playing with everyone! Here she is hamming it up in her cool shades.

Her favorite game? Fly around the room in her portable high chair, piloted by Uncle Griff. He couldn't resist when he'd stop and she'd sign and say "more, more" which sounds a bit more like "boore, boore!" Too cute!

Touchdown!



Trying on one of Aunt Beth's old hats.

She is very advanced, you know

Last week was a busy week for Emmy! On Tuesday she had another check-up at the Developmental Clinic at the hospital where she was born. They offer this as a free service to preemies born at the hospital and they bring them back sometime after 6 months and then again sometime around 16-18 months. As it turns out Emmy was 18 months Monday so she was exactly 18 months for her evaluation this time around.

Again she met with an occupational, physical, and speech therapist and they evaluated her fine and gross motor skills, her social interaction, her speech, her eating, etc. She is 100% caught up to 18 months in ALL areas and in fact is ahead in most! Not that we were worried at all, but we were happy to hear it officially. And of course, now we can say "oh she's so advanced". Haha. The therapists were laughing at her faces she makes and impressed with how well she obeys/understands commands. They asked us if she had at least 20 words she could say, and we guessed yes, at least 20, but when we started counting later, we've gotten to at least 40 words that she can come up with on her own. Not that it matters, but it's funny to start going through the list. She's also very good at repeating, but not everything she repeats she remembers to say on her own.

Emmy went to school in the morning, as usual, and we picked her up about 11 for her 11:30 appointment. By the time she was actually "seen" (which involved playing with the therapists mostly) it was after 12, and by the time we left, she was falling asleep in her Daddy's arms. Imagine if she'd been more awake!

They did take note of our little tip-toe walker. She walked around on her tip-toes a lot when she was first starting to walk while holding onto us or the sofa, etc. Then when she started walking on her own, she walked more flat-footed, I'm sure for balance. Now that she is walking, and running, with confidence, the tip-toeing has returned. She WILL (and does) walk flat-footed, but she just doesn't like to, so the therapist told us just to make sure we stretch out the backs of her legs on occasion.

Then, on Wednesday was Emmy's 18 month check up with her pediatrician. Boy, she was not happy to see Dr. J, which is funny since she never does any of the "bad" stuff to Emmy (the nurses give the shots and prick the fingers!) . But she sure cried when Dr. J did the routine listening to her heart and lungs, looking in her eyes, etc. When she checked her ears, much to our surprise she found a bad ear infection in her left ear! We were so surprised. Her nose had been runny again since the weekend, but we hadn't noticed any other signs. She also had her flu shot and chicken pox vaccine. Not a fun visit! We left with an antibiotic prescription and we go back in a month for a recheck on her ear and a 2nd flu shot and one final vaccine.

Oh, I'm sure you want her stats...she is 29 1/2 inches tall and 19 lbs 6 oz. Yep, she's still under 20 lbs. But, she's grown taller and gained weight and she's following her own growth curve, just on the tiny end of things. Who cares?

The speech therapist did ask for Dr. J to check her upper frenulum as she thought it seemed attached. Dr. J confirmed that it is, but Emmy's isn't severe and she said most kids will fall and it will tear on it's own. To send her to a pediatric surgeon to have it clipped would require anesthesia, etc. and there's not much point since in all likelihood it will happen on it's own, bleed a lot, and feel better with a popsicle and a lot less risk, which was fine by us. My mom reminded me that it happened to me when I was 3 during a sandbox incident on the playground.

Needless to say, our very advanced child was a bit unpredictable the end of the week. I'm sure it's the combination of antibiotics and vaccines and maybe just general toddler cantankerousness, but she gave us quite a difficult time a couple of nights. Thursday night was the worst...we stayed up super late getting ready for a dinner party we were throwing for our friend Lizzie's 30th birthday (it's our thing...we stay up super late getting ready for things...we both work well late at night) and just as we were going to bed, Emmy woke up. And would not go back to sleep. Each of us maybe got 3-4 hours of sleep total...not good heading into another day of work and a dinner party for 12. But, the party was lots of fun and everything went well. And Emmy was in bed by 7 pm on Friday, but then back up at 6. Yuck.

So, we all spent Saturday being lazy in our jammies. Charles and I took turns letting each other sleep (he's also not feeling well...Emmy shared her runny nose with him). Man, we needed it. She was up a couple of times Saturday night, but thankfully last night we were back to our usual full night of sleep. Whew!

Wanted: Bunny

This is Emmy's bunny.  She loves her bunny so, so much, and bunny is starting to show his age as a result of all this love and affection.  We would really love to have a bunny twin, but we can't find another bunny anywhere nor can we remember who gave him to Emmy.  We think he was a part of a multi-item gift and when the gift was written down bunny was left out.  Do you recognize this bunny?  Do you know where he came from?  Any help would be much appreciated.  We realize that a day will come when Emmy will have to say goodbye to bunny, but currently that day is approaching far too quickly.

18 months old

Emmy is 18 months old today! In other news I turned 31 yesterday, but that's not nearly as exciting as 18 months, right? Not when you are a busy toddler running all over the place! Although, my birthday did involve cake, which she loved.

Here are some fun things about Emmy...

She is very good at saying "please". She learned to sign, and now say "peeas" when she wants a piece of candy corn. Guess what? She wants a piece of candy corn at least twice a day! She also is big into signing more. She thinks if she signs please or more she will always get what she wants. We admit, it is hard to say no because it is SO cute, but well, as the song says, you can't always get what you want.

She is into repeating everything. She repeats words that we say to her and she's really building her vocabulary rapidly. She says several words when she signs them (e.g. bath, please, milk), and lots and lots of other words she doesn't have signs for. Her two new favorites are "hot" and "hat." She always tells us the oven or stove is "hot" and she repeatedly told us that the fire at Su-Su and Big Daddy's house was "hot." She frequently makes her Daddy or me put on a hat and she says it over and over and takes it off of us and puts it on herself, or Rags, or her baby, whomever.

She also imitates us when one of us groans in frustration "ugh!". It is so funny, especially since it makes you laugh and forget what you frustrated about in the first place, which oftentimes is something she did, like throw her milk on the floor!

She LOVES "RAGSIE!" It was one of her first words and still when Rags comes trotting in, there is much exclaiming and rejoicing. Similarly, I think Rags loves her so much. She tolerates a lot, and when she's had enough, she moves away. She's still a little "jealous" when Emmy is getting the attention, but never is aggressive towards Emmy. If anything, it just means she gives Emmy lots more kisses to get attention herself.

She is GREAT at giving hugs! She buries her head in you, throws her arms around you, and pats your shoulder. It is awesome. She also blows kisses, which basically constitutes her putting her had up beside or over her mouth and smacking really loudly.

However, she will not give us a kiss. She will blow us one, but she only actually "kisses" her baby, a stuffed animal, a picture, or Rags. Yes, inanimate objects, and Rags. She gives Rags lots of hugs and kisses.

She giggles wildly. Recently a good time to catch her giggling is towards the end of bathtime. She now likes to lay on her belly and stick her face in the water as the water is draining. She'll splash around and laugh until there is no water left. For some reason, she thinks it is hysterical to be in the tub with no water.

She likes to put things in and take things out. She's always pulling things out of bags or purses ("puhs"). She likes zippers and opening up something to see what's inside, then take it out and put it back in again. Basically if it's not a toy, she wants to see what it does.

She is still obsessed with opening and closing doors, though fortunately not nearly as much. We've managed to avoid pinched fingers, too!

She loves to help "cook". She will play with her bowl and spoon or measuring spoons. She sits nicely on the counter and watches while she plays and warns me that the stove is "hot."

She is still great at her animal sounds. She also can say some of the animal names, too. In addition to dog, whale, lion, monkey, and cow she can now also tell you what a duck, cat, bird, fish and rooster. Rooster is hilarious! It's more like "cock-a". We don't have the "doodle-doo" part down just yet.

She loves to be outside. She wants to go "side-side" all the time. She and her Daddy or I, or Miss Ashley, her sitter, spend lots of time outside playing, reading books, and running in the drive way.

She now loves, loves, loves to read. Finally, months of reading to her while trying to keep her from chewing on books or tearing pages, and/or of her only wanting to read one page and then hop up, have paid off! She happily brings you a book, plops down, and listens while you read. She has her favorites that we read over and over and over (and over) again, mostly, but we're getting more variety into our reading and it's just great.

That's as far as I can go tonight, folks. I have uploaded the rest of the Sept./Oct. photos, but I have to do some editing and captioning, then I will get them into an album and post a few here for you, promise! Hope everyone is having a great fall!

Our Little Ladybug - Halloween 2010

Hello there!

I'm sorry I've been not blogging or posting photos. Had I known how busy things would get with my job, I might have thought twice before I said yes! Soon I hope there will be some relief, someone else to help our team and I might not be working all day and all evening!

Here are finally some photos of our little ladybug Emmy. She was the cutest ladybug ever, don't you think? Many more photos taken by "Aunt" Mary Ann are in her Picasa Album.

Here she is at the church Fall Festival.

Kissing Rags. She loves to give Rags hugs and kisses these days. Sometimes Rags tolerates, other times, not so much.

A very intent ladybug with her bucket, ready for some candy collecting.

Regal Rags

Both our girls.

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!

End of summer fun

Here are a few photos to pacify the masses. I'm still adjusting to life working full time! I've uploaded the rest to the August and September albums online. (At left, Labor Day at the lake.)

The next-to-last weekend in August we were thrilled to have Lucas, Lisa, and Will came down to spend the afternoon and hang out. We took the toddlers (I'm trying not to say babies!) swimming in our neighbors' pool.

By the way, if you've never experienced a salt water pool, you should, especially if you currently have a chlorine pool. We love it and if I were ever to have a pool, no question would I do a salt water system.

Their visit came just after I finished working a party (from my party planning days which feels like months ago) so it is amazing that I was able to function I was so tired. Ha! We loved having them here and Lucas and Charles hung out at home with Emmy and Will for a while and Lisa and I went to Publix, Target, and the liquor store. Since they have moved to the "sticks" Lisa is in Target and Publix withdrawal, so I was happy to oblige her shopping needs. Fun times in the big city!

Also, here is my favorite photo from Su-Su's camera from her visit the end of August. She and Emmy were reading one of Emmy's favorite books together. So cute!


The rest of Su-Su's photos are also in the August album. And when you look at them please note, we do own pants for Emmy, she just happened to not be wearing them in most of the photos Mom took. Ha!

Labor Day weekend we went to Greenville to celebrate Big Daddy's birthday and Joanna's birthday. Aunt Mer even came to town! Sadly, I took very few photos and I have yet to upload those from my camera.

What I do have for you are some photos courtesy Mary Ann from Labor Day at the lake! We actually came home Sunday evening so that we could be home for Labor Day. Charles had been asked to be the grill master for the church picnic so we packed up and headed out to Clark's Hill on Monday morning. We had lots of fun! Emmy and I went swimming before lunch with Aunt Mary Ann and several other kids and parents. She loved being able to walk in the water and she kept falling and getting her face in the water, but she thought it was hysterical! Emmy got to take her first boat ride after lunch...which she promptly fell asleep during. She missed her Daddy and Aunt Mary Ann taking a ride on the tube. It was a great day! The rest of Mary Ann's fabulous photos are in the new September Album.