Emma’s Web Page

Emma Turns Four!

Emma 12 days before her 4th birthday

Emma turned four years old last month. She is an amazing girl. I am always so pleased and happy at her development. She is confident, happy, healthy, ambitious, independent, and beautiful. I have always been a firm believer that you get what you put into your kids. I am happy to have married a woman who shares this belief and has committed herself to playing an active role in our child’s development. Elena, like most Mothers, shoulders the burden of child-rearing. She is the primary caregiver and the glue of our family. She makes sure the house is clean, food is purchased, dinner is served, and Emma is exposed to a diverse array of activities (without being over-stimulated). She is a kid after all and we want her to enjoy her youth.

Emma’s scheduled activities for the week consists of the following:

• Swimming (1 day / week)
• Pre-School (2 days / week)(4 hours each day)
• Gymnastics (1 day / week)
• Ballet & Jazz (1 day / week)

It’s a busy schedule on paper, but it is spread out throughout the week so that Monday though Friday she has something to look forward to. We intentionally make sure no two activities occur on the same day. Emma looks forward to each and every activity and will cry if we threaten to not do one when she misbehaves.

Emma’s 4th Birthday Gift

Now don’t get me wrong. Despite our most valiant efforts, Emma is no angel. She has a stubbornness that can be hard to deal with, and only recently (in the last two months) has she started reciprocating my affection for her. You see, Mommy and me like to give Emma lots of hugs and kisses but Emma has never liked to be held or kissed. She’s a cold fish that way and it is difficult for us to deal with because Elena and I are affectionate people. I had hoped that over time, Emma would change, and she kinda has for me in the last couple months as I eluded to earlier. I make sure that I keep my face well shaven, because Daddy has a scratchy beard and she wasn’t buy’n the “Porcupines need love too” argument that I have been making over the years. She has trained me in a way to go easy on the kisses (like a single kiss or hug once or twice a day). I know, she’s strict!

Elena, on the other hand, hasn’t been that lucky. Although it’s true, she has been getting way more love from Emma than I have throughout the first 4 years of her life, Elena is not where she would like to be in terms of reciprocated affection either.

Psychologists to this day still hotly debate whether a child’s personality is a product of their natural surroundings (“nature”) or the type and quality of care they are given (“nurture”). Some believe it is a combination of the two. My observations of Emma seem to support that it is indeed a combination of the two. In what proportions I cannot say. It is clear that when a child is born, he/she comes into the world with his or her personality already intact. That’s the nature part. Environmental conditions (i.e. the things your child is exposed to) can enhance or diminish your child’s ability to flourish. Love, affection, attention, involvement, interest, stability are some ways in which parents can improve a child’s confidence and feeling of self worth. Likewise, abandonment, neglect, disinterest, etc. are ways to negatively impact a child’s development.

If I do my job right Emma will grow up with the confidence of knowing that she has two parents that love her more deeply than words can describe. She will know this not through our words or empty promises but through our deeds as parents. I intend to make sure the hopes and dreams I have for her are modeled in my behavior and realized through experiences we share during our limitted time on this planet together. Any structure worth building requires a strong foundation. Children are no different. It seems way too easy in today’s day and age to make excuses as to why we don’t commit the hard work and effort required to lay that all too important foundation. Raising children is arguably the hardest job on the planet which is why I suppose so many people outsource the work through the use of daycares, nanny’s  and such. It is my opinion that if you can’t afford to raise your own kid you should not have them. I am writing this here not to condemn or pass judgement on others, but rather to articulate to my own daughter, Emma, my values so she knows where my head is at in the event I am not around to have this conversation with her later when she is older and ready to have children of her own. Understand that there may be mitigating or unforeseen circumstances that necessitate alternate care for your children. Just don’t make this the primary plan of action when you are deciding to start a family, as it is a poor one that will make your children feel abandoned and unimportant during the most impressionable and developmentally important time of their life. It’s the age old adage, pay now or pay later.

Emma Baking Some Muffins

As I’ve mentioned before, my little one loves to bake. Today we decided to make some whole grain banana nut muffins. Here she is mixing the ingredients….and being a little silly:0

Emma X 2

Today we spent a little time with Emma’s friend, Emma and her mommy (my good friend), Lisa. Emma really enjoys spending time with her. We walked over to their house and brought over Emma’s scooter which her Titi Lissy and Padrino got for her. She LOVES to ride it. She’s actually getting pretty good at it now.

Her friend Emma has a bicycle, tricycle and scooter, so she had a blast trying them all out. We had a great time!

Kids Museum = Fun!

Today we went to the kids museum with Emma’s friend Alex and her mommy (my good friend), Erica. We saw an Imax movie in 3D which was phenomenal, then we had a picnic lunch that we brought from home followed by playtime at the museum. The girls had a great time. One of Emma’s favorite things to do there is play with water. She also enjoys playing in the garden, climbing around the pirate ship and pretending to be a doctor.

There are 2 water sections- indoor and outdoor. The outdoor one had a new sculpture of bullrushes:) Isn’t that something! I just learned their name 3 days ago and here they are again. You can see the girls posing in front of them below.

Emma Goes To Preschool!!!

The day Emma has been waiting for for over 8 months has arrived. Today she officially began Preschool. She was so excited to finally start. She woke up with a big smile on her face and was eager to get up and go. Mark went with me as he had not met her teachers yet. She was happy as a pig in mud. Of course Mark and I stood outside peeking in to make sure she was ok. She really was, on the other hand, we didn’t know what to do with ourselves. We’ve never left her anywhere so leaving her in school for a few hours is a huge adjustment for us.

She is only going to be attending 2 mornings this year as we want to ease her in. I think it’s more of an “easing-in” for us than for her, but whatever works best for the “family” is what we have to do:)

As soon as she got to school, she washed her hands (school policy) and then settled in to do some art work. When we peeked in through the door, she was by her cubbie with one of her teachers. Her teachers this year are Ms. Emily and Ms. Anna. She was getting the painting she’s had made for them out of her cubbie.

Emma Painting

Emma wanted to bring in a special gift for her teachers on the first day of school so she drew a watercolor painting for each of them.

Here she is working on her art pieces:

Emma LOVES H2O

Emma is swimming again! Her favorite thing in the world is water. She absolutely LOVES it and is drawn to it like a mouse to cheese. Anytime she sees water, she HAS to touch it, she just can’t help herself. Because of her love for water and fearlessness, Mark and I want to make sure she can swim. We don’t want her to fall into a pool one day as she reaches to touch the water and then panic when she realizes she can’t swim.

We have taken her to the pool numerous times and we have even done two “mommy and me” swim classes- one in 2008 and one this past summer. However, as neither one of us has ever had swimming lessons, we wanted someone with experience to teach her proper swimming techniques and most importantly, water safety skills.

So, she has a wonderful teacher named Ms. Laura that has been in swimming teams most of her life and is also a preschool teacher. She is wonderful with kids and really challenges them. Emma had a great first day. She will be taking classes once a week for 8 weeks. After just one day, I feel like she is going to make a lot of progress with Ms. Laura. She is comfortable with her and I can tell she is really enjoying herself. Here are some shots from today:

Emmarella doing Laundry

I know most 3 year-olds are not into doing laundry, cleaning, and helping out around the house, but our little Cinderella, um I mean Emmarella loves it! She is always asking me if she can help me clean, cook, bake, etc. Today, she wanted to fold the clothes. She took the clothes out of the dryer, folded it and matched all the socks for me. She even put everything in little piles on the couch, the same way I do before putting it in the laundry basket. She is a very detail-oriented child. She notices everything I do, and then imitates me when she’s “the mommy”.

She is such a wonderful little helper! It’s true that sometimes, her help might slow me down a bit but most days, I am just so glad to see her excited about helping, that I encourage her to help out. She always impresses me with her determination. She truly makes me proud:)

Who Says TV is Bad For Kids?

You constantly hear how terrible TV is for kids, but you never hear that it can be good, in moderation of course. Tonight when I was reading books to Emma we came to a picture that was labeled “reeds”. Right away she told me, “They are also called bullrushes”. I am not familiar with the term bullrushes so I said, “birdwatches?, bullwatches?, birdrushes?, billrushes?, and as I kept guessing what she was saying, assuming she was mispronouncing the word, she kept saying, “No, bullrushes”.

When Mark came to the room, I told Emma to repeat the word to him. Same conversation as above occurred as Mark tried to guess what she was saying. Finally I said, “bullrushes?” and she said, “Yes, bullrushes”. That’s what she was saying all along but as neither one of us knew the word, we were guessing everything else but that. It’s not like any of my other guesses made any sense either, I was just trying to repeat what I was hearing:)

Now, Mark at age 40 and I at 39 have learned from our 3 year old what bullrushes are. If you knew….I’m proud of you too:)

Here is a picture for those who don’t.

A little “Maggie and The Ferocious Beast” never hurt anyone….and in our case, it’s helped to build our 3 year’s old vocabulary (and her parent’s vocabulary, too)!

Emmalina Ballerina

Emma began ballet classes this week. Although she isn’t 4 yet, she is in the four-year-old class as her previous teacher thought she was ready. She will be doing a little bit of jazz in this class as well. Her new teacher is Ms. Ashton. She is a beautiful young lady who is very sweet. Emma seemed to really enjoy her first day. Here she is following Ms. Ashton’s instructions: