Emma at 13 Months

The other night while Emma was running around upstairs in her birthday suit, Will and I looked at each other and decided that one is a really fun age.  It brought back memories of Lucy at this age and we feel very blessed to experience it all again.  What a bonus!  The utter joy on Emma's face as she ran around diaper-free made us laugh so hard it hurt.  I could watch her all day long, running around naked.  Or at least until I had to clean up the carpet.

The following is the clothed version of what our little one year old has been up to this month.

Emma is very active and is constantly on the move.  She loves spinning around and around to music and she loves throwing and chasing after a ball.  She loves chasing and being chased with Lucy.  In case you are wondering, Emma is holding a fake knife from the play kitchen in the below picture.  She was chasing Lucy while brandishing the knife over her head, but by the time I found the camera, the tables had turned and Emma had turned into the chase-e, even though she was still holding the weapon.  Yup, when subsequent children run with fake knives, we take pictures.

Emma loves climbing.  She can climb to the top of the slide in our backyard, can climb up the heating register to look out the window while she clings pull up style to the window sill and she also loves climbing on top of the Little Tikes picnic table as well.  Here she is below, after she climbed into Lucy's new doll wagon.  Seconds later she started jumping in it, the wagon started to move, and she fell out.  She tends to curl into a little ball when she falls though, and usually falls, rolls and then springs back up.  That is of course if no one saw her - otherwise she will sob uncontrollably while hiding her face out of embarrassment.

Emma loves reading simple board books on our lap.  She has a handful of favorites that she always brings us to read and it is fascinating to me that she picks out the same couple of books every time from a very large selection.  She also is really enjoying the new bookshelf Will built her for her birthday as it is just her height.

Emma's food pickiness has decreased ever so slightly.  She has tried several new foods this month that she has previously refused including chicken and shell-shaped pasta.  She ate one or two bites of the pasta before she discovered it was more fun to put them on her toes.

Note to self - try spaghetti next time.

Emma has also developed quite a sweet tooth and knows the difference between a vegetable and a dessert. The difference is she refuses to try the vegetable, where the dessert she will shove in her mouth faster than you can say childhood obesity.  She swiped a juice box for Lucy out of my hand the other day and drank it so fast she started choking.  Even when the juice box was gone, she refused to give it to me and even fell asleep holding it.

She also swiped a sucker Lucy had left on the picnic table outside.  By the time I realized it, she had already fallen in love and sticky drool was everywhere.  Lucy has been telling Emma, "Swiper, no swiping!" which some of you might recognize from Dora the Explorer.

Speaking of Lucy and Emma.  Besides Emma's constant swiping, they have been playing together better this month.  Emma adores Lucy, and wants to do whatever she is doing.  Here they are below checking out some worms in our flower bed.

Monkey see, monkey do.  As many of you know Lucy adores running around with bags of all shapes and sizes filled with toddler treasures.  It seems Emma has developed this habit as well this past month.  Here she is below toting a purse.  She kept running over to me whenever it fell off of her tiny little shoulder and would then indicate that she wanted it put back on.

To me, the biggest development this past month besides her fourth bottom tooth and an upper molar popping through is her level of comprehension with the world.  We can almost see the wheels turning in her head, and the connections being made.  The other day Will found a frog in the yard and put it on the driveway so the girls could see it better.  Emma ran off while we were looking at the frog and came back with a plastic toy frog.  She proceeded to set it down next to the real frog and then went on her way.  It was like she was saying, "yup, I know what a frog is!"

She understands simple directions now like "Go get your socks" or "Put your spoon on the table."  She can give high fives when asked, and even blow a kiss.  I swear she said "Banana" and "Jane" (for Aunt Jane of course!) but hasn't repeated it so I can't say it is official yet.  She hasn't yet learned that she can defy our simple directions, and I think that is one reason why I love this age so much.  When I say, "Emma, lay down it's night-night time" she immediately drops to the mattress.  That of course doesn't stop her from popping up 10 seconds later but I attribute that to a short attention span, and not defiance.

Ah, the sweetness of a freshly turned one year old!  Look at my little cuddle bug snuggling with me.  Oh, I love my baby!

Lucy is Three!

Usually it takes a while for my mind to catch up with the reality of time and my babies growing up.  For some reason though, it feels like Lucy has been three for a while now and the calendar has finally caught up!  Maybe Lucy claiming during her first week of officially being three that "I can do anything, now that I'm almost four" has helped me come to terms with three.  Either way, three she is and as my friend's pediatrician told her,"Three is just like two, only with a bigger vocabulary."  True that!  I like the term "threenager" a relative of mine coined for her three year old daughter.  The sass that is coming out of our little threenager's mouth is shocking at times.

-Me: "Lucy, please sit down."  Lucy: "No, YOU sit down!"

-Me: "If you don't stop that right now we will not be going to the park."  Lucy: "No, if YOU don't stop that right now, YOU won't be going to the park and I won't be your friend anymore!"

-Me: "Lucy, it's time to go now."  Lucy: "I will spit in your face and be naughty if I can't stay and I'm not going to like you anymore!"

-Me: "Lucy, what are you doing?" Lucy: "I'm not being a good listener, and I'm not sharing!"

That's probably enough to give you the general idea of our girl's budding vocabulary.  Most times I am at a loss as to how to respond to such sass, but we have had many a conversation about "sweet words" versus "rude words" and are really trying to use positive reinforcement techniques on the "sweet words".

Fortunately, Lucy isn't all sass and still says some pretty cute things as well.  The other day she found our swim bag that we take to the beach and emerged from the bathroom wearing a pair of goggles and asked me if I liked her "Googles".  Some of you might remember that for the longest time she called Will by his first name instead of Dad which really bothered Will.  Well, now she refers to him as "Big Guy" so I'm not sure if that is an improvement or not.  In other news, she now calls me Liz if I don't respond to Mom in a quick enough fashion.  Her favorite exclamation is "oh boy!" and when we get into the car to go anywhere she says "On the road again folks!" as we pull out of our driveway.  She has also begun to determine the difference between boys and girls and has even taken this new knowledge and applied it to what Will and I can and cannot do.  For instance, only ladies can read "lady books" (where the main character is female) and only daddies can read "man books".  If I am singing a song by or about a man she will remind me that the song is a "man song" and not to be sung by me.  I was informed that "Do you know the muffin man" has to be sung "Do you know the cupcake lady" if I am going to sing it.

Lucy has gotten a little bit more adventurous with new foods - we're talking ground beef and mangoes - not sushi and tabbouleh.  But any attempt on her part to try foods she had previously banned is exciting for Will and I.  One evening however, Lucy was picking away at her plate and when I asked her if she wasn't hungry, she told me, "I want the chickens to have it Mom."  The chickens do love Lucy's table scraps that is for sure.

Lucy's had her hands pecked a couple of times, so now when she plays with the chickens, she keeps her hands in her pockets.  The other day she was in their pen bossing talking to them while I was watering the garden nearby.  All of a sudden I heard the most horrific screams.  I dropped the hose and ran for the pen expecting to find the chickens pecking her to death.  Instead, I found the chickens going crazy on a bracelet Lucy had dropped, and Lucy freaking out screaming, "My BRACELET!!!  My BRACELET!"  Imagine my relief!  I recovered the bracelet and removed Lucy from chicken territory, only to find Lucy minutes later chewing on the exact same bracelet!  Double ew.  She does love the chickens though, as long as they stay away from her jewelry and has named several of them so far.  The names are kind of new agey: Friendly, Stone, Daisy and Dandelion.  She is still thinking up names for the rest of them.

Lucy has become quite a little helper around the house.  She can put a new garbage bag into our kitchen garbage can very efficiently, and has also taken her job of watering some grass seed we planted very seriously.  She received a kit for planting wild flowers from her Aunt Jane for her birthday and has been taking care of them all on her own.  Here she is below planting the seeds.

Lucy and Emma are interacting more with each passing week.  Since Emma's birthday came first this past month, it was like Lucy had two birthdays - Emma doesn't yet understand the law of possession, and Lucy takes full advantage.  Here Lucy is below "sharing" Emma's new dollhouse by letting Emma play with her.

Emma also received her own "Simone" doll for her first birthday from Grandma T. just like Lucy received Simone for her first birthday.  Unfortunately, Lucy now believes she has "twins" as she told us and just today she named Emma's new doll Annabelle.  We have been trying to enforce the fact that it isn't Lucy's doll but have decided short of putting the doll away until Emma understands it is hers, we don't stand a chance.  The first night after Emma got the new doll we were tucking Lucy into bed and she kept trying to speed up the routine.  Will and I kept exchanging glances and raising our eyebrows at each other because it was like Lucy was trying to kick us out.  This has NEVER happened before and usually it is all we can do to get out of her room in under a half hour as she thinks up every trick in the book to make us stay.  We thought this was very strange until we caught her taking a peek under her pillow and saw Emma's new doll hiding under there.  We decided to ignore it and take advantage of our ticket out.  The next morning, and every day since, Lucy will secretly bring Emma's doll downstairs in the morning and then bring her upstairs at night and hide her in her bed.  Will and I have decided to pretend we don't notice, because it makes bedtime a breeze.

Sibling rivalry is alive and well between these two.  If one has a toy, the other one won't rest until they have it.  If my lap is occupied by one, chances are good that it is just a matter of time before the other one realizes and needs to sit in my lap as well.  If Will picks one girl up, he better be prepared to carry two.

 They really can be sweet together though, and I love that they have each other to learn conflict resolution with.

The other day when I was checking pockets as I put Lucy's dirty clothes into the washing machine I kept finding cheerios.  When I asked Lucy why she was putting cheerios in her pockets she told me, "So that I can feed them to Emma when I need her to do something."  This left me speechless.

All throughout winter we've talked about the things we can do when spring gets here.  One of them was to ride the new carousel at the Detroit Zoo that is put away during the winter.  Here Lucy is below on her first ride of the season.

 Another spring event we looked forward to was flying a kite for the first time.  In the picture below, Lucy and Will are flying a kite that is so high you can't see it.  We've had super windy weather this month which has been perfect for kite flying.

 And of course the number one spring time event that Lucy has been looking forward to was her third birthday!  She received the Golden Book "Nurse Nancy" that created the theme for her gifts.  The book was probably written in the 50's and is about a little girl who loves playing nurse with her dolls and uses a toy wagon as the ambulance.  Lucy loves playing nurse with her dolls, so we thought this would be perfect for her.  We got her a Fisher Price doctor kit and a Little Tikes doll wagon to go along with the book.  As I was tucking her in the night before her birthday I asked her what she wanted for her birthday.  That was a big mistake, because she then listed several items which we didn't have for her.  Will was promptly sent out for a late night shopping trip that included several different stores as he tried to find the "Dora stuff", gummy bears and suckers that Lucy requested.  We also got her a big girl swing that we are hoping to be able to hang from our tree.  Otherwise, Will is going to have to move up his swing set plans by a year or two.  Finally, we got Lucy a Lego Duplo Chicken Coop set.  I can't forget to mention that she kept dramatically yelling, "Don't look at me" out of pure excitement as she ripped open her presents.

Here Lucy is helping me decorate her Dora cupcakes that we served at her and Emma's joint family birthday party.

 And here Lucy is below with her Dora Cake on her actual birthday.

Happy Almost Fourth Birthday Lucy Anne!  We love you and are so happy you are a part of our family!