Very clean

Emma is very passionate about helping D & I clean.  She asks for squirts of windex on a paper towel and goes to town wiping down the floor, tables, cabinets, and her toys.  If you give her a paper towel, the cleaning will keep her busy for about 30 minutes.  She received a High Chair for her baby dolls on her birthday and I have watched her wash every rung of that chair down with a baby wipe, several times. 

Right now, Emma is supposed to be taking a nap...I watched her take her socks off and use them to wipe down every rail on the frontside of her crib, starting from the top and moving downward  She might have taken the need for clean too far today.

The Songstress

Emma loves music and she loves to sing.  This week she has started offering live performances, from her crib.  Renditions of "Happy Birthday", "Wheels on the Bus" and self-written songs about her babies have been heard.  At nap and bedtime, she will scream for about 10 secs when we leave the room, then start singing.  The singing goes on for about 10 minutes and when it stops, she is passed out.  The singing is quite loud...the other night I took a shower after I put her down, had the exhaust fan running and I could hear her yelling her songs out.  Doug had the monitor so I couldn't see what was going on for sure and when I asked him if I had heard her singing her butt off, Doug just started laughing and said, 'yes, yes she was".

No like!

Emma "no likes" apple pie and chocolate milk...I'm going to go ahead and assume she doesn't like baseball either.  HA!

I gave E. a teaspoon of chocolate syrup in her milk after nap, thinking it would be a fun surprise treat for her...not so much.  At least she's rejecting "not so great" food choices and 95% of the time, she's still a great eater and we are thankful for that.

We are trying to get her to prefer the good stuff in these critical food years, not the crappy addictive stuff that is causing obesity in the US.  I talked with the pediatrician about trying to live healthy and she said it's an uphill battle, because of course the junk is everywhere and it's impossible to control when your children go off to school, spend the night at friends, family etc.  We do eat treats but in moderation; we don't want her raiding the pantry at others houses and gorging herself on sugar elsewhere because she isn't allowed to have any at home.

The interesting battle is "juice".  Apparently the older generation was taught to give juice as a source of vitamin C.  You wouldn't believe the looks we get when we say she can't have juice.  They also ask, "how is she going to get Vit. C?". Um, by eating mandarin oranges, peaches, pears and grapes.

The other night Doug and I were laughing at our obsession over E's diet and keeping the high levels of sugar and high fructose corn syrup out of our pantry.  I am actually stunned at how aware Doug is of ingredient labels now.  He called me out for buying the Quaker Oatmeal To Go bars...they have like 20 grams of sugar!  

We have witnessed other kids all jacked up on crap and how their behavior escalates with the sugar intake.  No thanks, the toddler insanity is enough on it's own without external forces amping her up.  We gave E. a store bought cupcake on her birthday and within 20 mins she wasn't able to control herself or listen to direction.  We took her for a walk around the block to burn the sugar off and said, "never again".n There were still a few more cupcakes left but we scraped the icing off!  I know, scraping icing off is crazy talk.

All Smiles

2nd year checkup

We survived the 2nd year checkup and do not have to go back until 3 years old.  There was a flu shot today, but no vaccinations.  The nurses were commenting on how much she has grown and I told them Emma has grown half an inch to a full inch every month.  The nurses didn't really believe me until they plotted it on Emma's growth chart and were blown away at the serious height spike since March.  They brought the chart in and said, "ok, you weren't kidding, you need to see this" and handed me the paperwork.  Dr. B. feels like she is still catching up from her first year and isn't concerned that her height is growing too quickly while her weight is staying around 27lbs.  We are also free to step down to 1% or skim milk because Emma is 93% in height and 90% in weight, on the American growth charts. 

Since gum seems to really calm Emma down, I gave her a piece for this Dr. visit and until the flu shot she stayed calm.  She stopped crying immediately after we sat her up and yelled, "done" which got the room chuckling.  The pediatrician was blown away by the fact that E. does not swallow the gum and encouraged us to use the gum in any situation that we know Emma gets anxious in...she feels this calmness of chewing is related to the little bit of sensory issues she has.

This week was a big week, with a lot of activities and her family party.  By Sunday, Emma was "off her rocker" and trying to come down from all the excitement of attention and stimulation.  Emma is definitely showing off when people are around now and testing us to see if we will discipline her in front of others.  She lures visitors into places of the house where she knows she isn't allowed to play, like the formal living room, dining room and in the stairwell.  Yesterday, her great grandmother came to visit and in addition to dragging her to every room she isn't supposed to be in, during lunch, Emma decided to spit out every bite she took...smiling as she did so.  She got a timeout and when she returned to the table, she ate as she normally would.  We've noticed that sometimes kids just needs to be removed to regroup and will come back to themselves.  Toddlers are odd little humans!  Hopefully the Terrible 2's go quickly...the boundary testing is exhausting.

Molars

It's only right, that 2 molars come in for your 2nd Birthday. Emma woke up with a second molar peeking through on Thursday. Two molars pushing within 2 days is kinda cruel, but she has been handling these teeth coming in MUCH better than the previous 14 she cut since last September; nowhere near as moody or clingy as before. When we met her in China, she had just cut a second tooth and spent the next 6 months cutting teeth like crazy. Her pediatrician told us in January or March (can't remember which appt.) that the molars were right there and ready to come out...they took forever to emerge since that visit.

I do not miss the drool those first teeth dumped everywhere. We couldn't wait for the major teething to stop so we could clean carpets, which we just did this week, ironically. She is not as drooly this time around and the molar symptoms have been sneezing and a running nose. When E. teethed before, she wouldn't chew on anything for relief. This week she found a bottle nipple I had given her, for her "babies" and she has been chewing on it everyday...funny how kiddos change things up. I am sure part of the molars coming in so smoothly has a lot to do with how much more mature and less anxious she is now compared to last Fall.

Birthday Mail

Emma still enjoys going to the mailbox everday, so you can only imagine her delight in going to the mailbox, on her birthday, and seeing all the cards addressed to her inside. D's arm is stretched out in this picture, trying to keep Miss Grabby Hands away from the mail so she would look at the camera. Momma bought her a special birthday hat that she can grow into from year to year. The hat is awesome. Everyone should have a special birthday hat to pull out of a box once a year. Now I need to find a hat box to stow it away until next year.

Emma is 2!

The Birthday Girl is really enjoying her day from the moment she woke up; we have been singing the birthday song and telling her she's now two.  Emma was trotting/skipping around in her diaper as we were singing in her room and she was saying, "Happy".  Just in time for her 2nd Birthday, one of her 2 year molars popped in on Tuesday morning, but we didn't find it until last night during teeth brushing.

After breakfast Emma opened her gifts and she definitely has the hang of unwrapping presents now compared to Christmas.  We got her a Leap Frog birthday cake that sings/counts and she has been practicing blowing out the candles.  She also received a few Kai Lan videos about China, some bath toys, a view finder and a wooden recorder.  At one point, Emma was blowing out her fake cake, by blowing into the recorder.

We took Emma to Entertrainment Junction to look at the massive train displays for the first time with her Great Grandpa Bob who also enjoys rains.  She rode up on Dad's shoulders most of the time so she could get a good look at the trains then played with the Thomas The Train set in the gift shop.  We went to Bob Evans for lunch and all this activity apparently made her starving.  She woofed down half my garden omelet, fruit, pumpkin bread and a slice of toast with jam.  Emma is currently napping right now, approaching her 2nd hour of sleeping.  Trains and food wore her out!

Tonight, just the 3 of us are going to cook on the grill, then have cupcakes.  Emma's cupcake will have a red candle for her to blow out in honor of her China Mommy, whose sacrifice made such a special day possible.  It is also our 10th Wedding Anniversary today...9/14/11 is all kinds of special!

Professional Gum Chewer

Emma was born to chew gum.  We use the gum as a "treat" to calm her down when she is looking nervous/anxious or when we need her to stay awake in the carseat.  She knows not to swallow the gum and will tell us when she is done with it or go and spit it out all on her own.  I know, it's crazy to give a 2 year old gum, but if you saw how relaxed Emma looks, chewing her gum and watching Barney in her carseat, you would be tickled.  Plus, Emma's already chunky cheeks and pouty lips get even larger when she is concentrating on chewing her gum...we hope those extra large cheeks never disappear!

What a Pony looks like

A Pony

No, Emma is not getting a pony for her birthday, but she might be wearing a Ponytail; the stick up straight from your head, sprout-like style on her big day.  The kid loves her "pony" and asks for one before she is out of her crib in the AM.  Emma also likes Momma to wear a ponytail and will try to bunch my hair into one if I'm not sporting a pony when I grab her from the crib in the morning.  Last night I had my hair in a ponytail and I was seated on the floor below Emma, while she was watching Barney; Emma stroked my ponytail for about 5 minutes, even though her eyes were glued to the T.V....I stole a glance of Emma and she had a very relaxed look and smile on her face as she watched Barney and played with my hair...too cute. 

Emma also likes barrettes, but must have two, not one...her demand, not momma's.  I put one barrette in and she asks/signs "more".  As far as hair doodads go, she really doesn't have the volume or texture, so all day long they slide out, she gets concerned about the sliding and we readjust..all.day.long.  I am grateful that Emma will tolerate the hair doodads as her bangs are growing out though because I know a lot of kids are like, NOWAY and yank them out, along with the hair that isn't very abundant to begin with.  The hair in her eyes makes me insane, but doesn't seem to bother her.

When we were in China, I was "given" advice several times to shave Emma's head to make it grow in thicker and faster...apparently that's what they do in their culture.  At the time, I wasn't willing to cut off the amount of hair that had grown in since her referral paperwork, it seemed like so much, but now, I look at the pictures and crack up...she didn't really have hair and I should have shaved it.