How waz your day?

Last night at dinner, Emma asked D., "How waz your day Daddy?".  We both nearly fell out of our chairs in laughter.  Of course because we laughed, it turned into 5 minutes of asking both of us again and again.  Every morning while Emma is on the potty, I ask if she slept good and she now asks me every morning if I slept good too. 

Emma is 100% potty trained and even stays dry most nights.  What a blessing this is for a 29 month old to be potty trained so easily, definitely not the norm for most toddlers.  I was mentally preparing myself for a battle and dreading the process, but it has been a dream.  She is so proud of staying dry all night and as soon as I walk in the bedroom, Emma says, "I stay dry mommie!".  The first couple of times I didn't really believe her.

The weather is warming up abnormally early this year, so we have already had a few days outside and D. took her for a ride in the jogging stroller yesterday.  A day in the outdoors usually comes with the price of sneezing and drippy nose, for both of us, so I'm thinking she definitely has some outdoor allergies.  Her eczema is under control, but only because of due diligence with no fragrance washes/lotions; allergies and eczema usually run hand in hand, but not something we can investigate until she is a bit older.  Our home is surrounded by trees and the allergies I thought I outgrew returned when we moved into our home.

E's last 2 year molar has surfaced and is pushing through very slowly.  Hopefully once this tooth has pushed through, the night crying will subside for good.   At bedtime, stalling is definitely in her toolbox now, which usually results in prayers being said 4-5 times, plus numerous other tactics like going to the potty and throwing microscopic dirt from the floor into the kitchen trash can.  Emma says, "now I lay me down to sleep, amen".  She can say the whole prayer, but now refuses since the luster of it all wore off; Daddy is not allowed to put his hands in prayer position, he has to hold them wide like a football goal.  If D. tries to clasp his hands, E. stops the prayer and says, "no, no, no". The last few weeks Emma is definitely a momma's girl and only wants me to put her to bed, but once D. gets her to the stairwell, she stops fighting the process and forgets about me.

Emma continues to soak in everything we teach her and she can say her whole name plus our names too.  A lot of the time, she will say her Chinese name is her first name vs. Emma.  As time progresses, I will not be surprised if she decides that her middle name is her first name.  She can also state the first number of our address and the street we live on.  Her language development continuously amazes us, when we take in consideration how many children from China usually need OT for speech.

We have been giving Emma little tidbits of her background from the very beginning, starting with keeping the photos of her in the orphanage on our refrigerator.  We will walk by them and I tell her that is when she lived in China.  Emma now tells us she is from China and that mommy/daddy flew on an airplane to bring her to the US.  We give her a little bit more each time we talk about China but only details that she can mentally process for her age.  When we talk about China, I can now see her little brain thinking about what was said and storing it for later.  We ask that no one besides us starts these conversations about China, unless she brings it up and to not makeup answers if she asks questions that don't have a real answer.