You Be Emma…

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That’s the name of Emma’s favorite game these days.  She loves to role play and will ask me, Elena, or her Ela (Abuela) to “be Emma” and she will “be the Mommy”. She will say, “Can you be Emma?”. It’s her way of saying, I want to be in control. She is quite the control freak. Once she assumes that role, she will act out real life events that have transpired in her life. She will tell you, “Emma, you are sick now because you put the dirty toys in your mouth.”. Or “Baby, you can’t go to ballet class today because you were being disrespectful.”. She loves to act things out and pretend, and clearly a lot of it is a verbal reinforcement of things we tell her. Right now it is pretty much the only game she asks to play daily.

It’s not all bad and reprimand, she also likes to take care of her Emma. She will take your temperature, change your diaper, and give you vitamins to nurse you back to health.

To keep things interesting, Elena and I sometimes mimic Emma’s uncontrollable fits and tantrums to see how she responds to the situation, which gives her a new perspective on her own behavior.

Booster City!

For the last three weeks Emma has been sitting in a booster chair instead of her high-chair. She is really excited about it and will sit in it any chance she gets. She will even watch TV in it. We are starting to look more like a family now with everyone sitting at the table for meals.

Emma’s high chair has not been put into retirement yet as it is still a good place for her to play with her Play dough.

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut!

Emma is quite the comedian. She really has a good sense of humor for a child of her age. Here she is trying to make us laugh wearing Mrs. Potato Head’s glasses. If that doesn’t make you smile I don’t know what will.

Diapers! We don’t need no stinking diapers!

Emma has been doing really good about using the toilet to poop for about a month now. As a result, Elena has allowed Emma to wear “big girl underwear”. Although she has had a few “pee” accidents, Emma seems determined to get it right and will run to the toilet whenever she has to go. We also remind Emma and have her sit on the toilet once an hour so that she gets used to properly answering natures call.

That’s My Girl!

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I know it’s been a while but as they say, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”. Elena, Emma and I have been really busy with our business and have had very little time for personal endeavors. As a result, it’s been really difficult for me to get around to posting updates to this site. I hope that by doing so now I can somehow get back into the habit of making regular updates.

Emma is growing up so fast. She talks a lot now. She enjoys watching “Diego”, “Word World” (Which is a great show by the way!), and “Little Einsteins”. She also loves to sing and play in the park. A couple of weeks ago I went to the park with Emma and she really wanted to climb the “big kids” wall. I instructed her on where to place her hands and feet and how she should always have three of her appendages secured before attempting to grab a new foot-hold. She climbed to the top twice and was super excited about being able to accomplish this. I can’t believe how far we have come. It seems like it was just the other day when all she could do was lay on her back and poke at the mobile dangling above her. I believe Elena’s commitment to taking Emma to the “Little Gym” is paying off. Emma is quite the gymnast.

Everybody Poops

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Emma turned 23 months yesterday and in one short month she will be 2 years old. It’s quite amazing how quickly time flies. Developmentally Emma continues to amaze us with her ability to communicate and comprehend our conversations and instructions. She can also chain single words together to convey concepts to us like “drive”, “balloon”, “bye bye”, “Abuela”, “string”. This sequence tells the story of what happened to her balloon while Mommy was driving the car. Mommy opened the sun roof, the balloon got sucked-out of the car, and Abuela was left holding the string.”.

Elena purchased a toddler toilet seat for Emma a few months back but there was way too much going on in our lives at the time with our move and sale of our home for us to devote the energy required to provide consistency in the training. So we intentionally postponed that effort until a later date. During the second week of September (this month) Elena decided to start the training process. Her strategy has been to place Emma on the toilet two to three times a day (morning, night, and afternoon) and to encourage Emma to poop. If she completes her “mission” Emma is rewarded with a sticker, which she promptly places on her calendar to mark her progress (One for each poop and pee she does in the toilet). That and the festive praise and fanfare her mother and father provide as we excitedly gather around the toilet singing praises of encouragement for a job well done. I believe Elena’s system is working because in the last three weeks, Emma has only pooped in her diaper once. On several occasions Emma has even requested to go to the toilet to poop which is a really good indication that she gets it. I don’t know how long it will take to get her to use the toilet exclusively but I think we are headed in the right direction. We’ll keep you posted. 🙂

Stubborn or Determined?

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Don’t let those pouting brown eyes fool you. Or that inquisitive stare make you believe for one second that this pint-sized cutie is all sugar and spice. Emma packs quite a personality into that little frame of hers. And when she doesn’t get her way it’s tantrum city. Elena and I continue to work on softening her sometimes rough edges but she is determined to have her way. In some cases it’s a good thing, like with potty training. We (or I should say more accurately, Elena) has started asking Emma if she needs to “poop” and then sits with her for 20 minutes at a time while Emma reads books on the commode. Elena has been doing this for about two weeks now and Emma is starting to request it on her own. With every sitting Emma is determined to “complete the task”, which earns her a sticker on the calendar.

Emma also insists on feeding herself which can be both a blessing and a curse, depending on how careful and tidy she is.

Emma will push your hand away from her if she is trying to do something and you dare lend her a helping hand without being asked. And when meal-time approaches, Emma refuses to be placed in her high chair. Instead she prefers to climb it on her own, seat herself, and then lock herself into her five-point harness. She’s a tough little cookie that Emmalicious.

Emma The Great!

dsc08077sm2.jpgSo as you can see Emma has fully recovered from the ankle injury she sustained while leaping over the bars of her crib a few weeks back. I guess that’s what kids do, they hurt themselves, and then bounce right back. She looks like a little bad-ass in this picture. I look like a happy, proud, albeit nervous parent. This picture was taken the day Emma turned 22 months (August 21st, 2007). Emma enjoys badness. If she shouldn’t be doing it, it must be fun.

Pizza?

dsc00058.JPGSo on two occasions in the last month or two, Elena and I stood around the kitchen during dinner time and asked each other the age old question, “What do you want to eat for dinner?”. We like Pizza around these parts and we had grown particularly fond of Papa John’s Hawaiian Pan Pizza, so feeling adventurous we decided that we would call in a carryout special. This means that we have to get off our butts and pick it up ourselves, but the pizza comes out significantly less expensive, plus we had business to do in the area so we figured we would kill two birds with one stone and eat our pizza in the car picnic-style. Elena is always good about making sure we have everything we could possibly need. She typically packs napkins, paper plates, plastic utensils, soda, etc. and off we go. Emma seems to like the change of scenery as well.

In any event, we literally did that twice in the course of a two month period. Today during lunch we wondered aloud what we should eat for lunch. Our neighbors have raved about a local pizza joint so we decided that we would go try it out. Within minutes of our saying the word “Pizza”, Emma proceeded to dig through our pantry and prepare her to-go plate. She then approached her mother who was otherwise distracted and said, “Pizza?” Elena was stunned to see that Emma had collected the same items (paper plate, napkin, and plastic utensils) that Elena normally prepares for us. She is one smart cookie that Emmalicious.

Look Who’s Talking…

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I’ve been putting off updating the website for quite some time now because I want to accurately describe all the momentous events that have transpired in our lives over the last few months. Of course with each day that passes there are more things to report and so I am running this endless conveyor belt called life and loosing ground quickly. Bare with me as I hope to do a proper update soon. In the mean time I need to list all the new words, you heard me right, “words” that Emma is saying these days. Thirty-nine in all by our latest count. Here they are:

  • Bubbles
  • Down
  • Me
  • Ice
  • Please
  • Nest
  • Turtle
  • Mommy
  • Mom
  • More
  • Daddy
  • Pablo
  • Mickey
  • Minnie
  • Push
  • Broke
  • Yes
  • No
  • Abuela
  • Moon
  • Deer
  • Peepee
  • Tree
  • Boo
  • Milk
  • Milky
  • Caci
  • Pititi
  • Vicki
  • Boots
  • Duck
  • M&M
  • What’s This?
  • Cracker
  • This
  • Cheese
  • Boogie
  • Cookie
  • Owl