Gong Xi Fa Cai! (Happy Chinese New Year)

2013 is the year of the Snake.  We have spent the last two weeks talking about Chinese New Year, decorating the house, reading stories, making lanterns and even had a play date to show Emma's little friends what Chinese New Year is all about.  Today is the official New Year and the 3 of us celebrated with noodles, dumplings and Spring rolls.  Emma is banging her Chinese drum in the other room and we are getting ready have our final reading about New Year...she has story time mats all set up and making D. sit on a doll blanket...might as well be sitting on a napkin, lol.

On our toes...

To say that Emma keeps us on our toes, is quite the understatement this week.  We went to her first Lollipop Symphony and she loved the music...but she loved the snow outside more....halfway through the concert, the luster of the music wore off with Emma and her little buddy Sophia...they wanted to get moving beyond the dancing and conducting they were doing from their seats.  Her snow excitement grabbed the attention of a local newspaper photographer when walking into the Symphony and we now have this great photo to remember the moment.  Her snow excitement also got her in some trouble when leaving the Symphony...one minute she was holding my hand and kicking the snow, the next she let go of my hand to run into the snow beyond the sidewalk, but ran into Elm Street...thankfully police had cars held back a few hundred feet behind us at the crosswalk.  I still don't exactly recall how I got her back in my grip and pulled her back to the sidewalk I was so panicked!

Emma is now over 40 inches tall and can reach everything she wants to...she is helping herself to snacks, pulling chairs over to counters, getting drinks from the refrigerator dispenser etc., so we have entered the next level of childproofing.  The cats are also on the run from her...she put bedding in a drawer, shoved Sport in the drawer, then closed the drawer..  As I'm typing right now, she ran by me carrying Sport and tried to shove him under the sofa cushion (I'm shaking my head as I type this).  The poor cat is 16 years old and probably asks the cat gods everyday to "take him" when she is around.

With all this increased activity (RUNNING everywhere) comes a lot of boo-boos...this week we have skinned knees, cut fingers and she even came home from preschool with a gash in her head...I'm not sure the school knows she even cut her head, because it had to be cleaned up at home.  Emma claims she didn't cry and  I'm assuming a head cut like that, the teacher would have contacted me if she knew.  Emma said she was running in the gym and fell into the door.  Hmmmmm.

Emma is loving preschool, but she has asked not to go a few times over the last week, says she just wants to stay home.  There are days she does not want to leave the house at all and we have to bribe her to run errands.  It's been really cold over the last month, so there are days I don't want to leave either!