Emma at 14 Months

Emma is growing by leaps and bounds!  Just the other night when I was rocking her before bed I couldn't help but notice that her little bare feet seemed longer as I cradled them in my hands.  She is a girl on a mission most days and unless she is tired, hungry or teething is very content to do her own thing.  No one can make her laugh quite like her big sister Lucy, and lately she has taken to giving Lucy hugs throughout the day for no reason at all except that she adores her "Ooo-See".  Maybe the adoration has been helped along by Lucy sharing her juice box with Emma, as Mama and Daddy don't let her have any yet.

Or maybe it is because they make beautiful music together.

Or even just the fact that Lucy helps Emma get down from the various ledges she gets stuck on.  This is very useful for me because Emma gets stuck hanging on the window ledge in the below picture multiple times a day.

Or maybe Lucy is just a sweet big sister, and any little sister would be lucky to have her to play with and look out for.  We took Emma out in the bike trailer for the first time this past month and if it wasn't for Lucy cuddling her the entire time I'm guessing we wouldn't have made it out of the drive way.  Emma definitely was nervous sitting back there, but she did it because Lucy held her hand.  Will got slightly annoyed with me because I kept having him stop so that I could take a picture of their sweetness - the way the helmet strap pushed into Emma's chubby cheeks and the way Lucy kept patting Emma's knee and holding her hand just melted my heart and filled me with such mom-joy.  It's moments like this that make all of the many challenges of motherhood worth it.

With all that aside though, Lucy sure does have fun toys that she usually wants to keep all to herself.  I found Emma in the closet the other day secretly feeding Lucy's doll Simone.  Emma knows that Simone is off limits and when the camera flashed, Emma jumped in surprise and skee-daddled out of that closet faster than you can say "Caught ya!"

Emma learned how to feed herself with a spoon all by herself this past month.  It is a messy endeavor but I keep reminding myself that the freedom of only putting a spoon in my own mouth is worth it.

It does help that we continue to eat outside as much as possible.  After the first week or two of chasing Emma around while trying to eat, we went out and bought a highchair that clips on to our picnic table.  Best $30 ever!  Now our al fresco dining is much more relaxing.

Speaking of relaxing...

When Emma isn't relaxing outside in a lawn chair or eating a Popsicle, she can be found working hard leveling all of the ant hills on our driveway.  I think she may benefit from a sand box.

Emma also loves to go down the slide.  This past month she learned how to do it all by herself too. 

 I still prefer to stand next to the slide just in case, but she can climb the ladder, swing her feet in front of her and off she goes.

Emma is starting to enjoy coloring.  She has moved past eating the crayons and only uses them to color paper and every once in a while to apply a coat of color to her lips.

 Emma has also been busy growing more teeth, bringing her total molars to three now.  Only one more to go and hopefully we get a break before those canines come in.  She has been growing her hair too, and I can finally put a pony tail in it.

Emma's vocabulary continues to grow.  Here are the highlights:

-she yells "STOP" when Lucy is in trouble (hmmm, wonder where she gets that from)

-she says "Thank You" in a really cute, little and soft voice at the appropriate times

-when she is thirsty she says, "dink"

-while she is eating she says, "yum mmmmmm"

-when I flush the contents from her diaper down the toilet she says,"Bye bye" while waving

-this may not be a new word, but Emma sniffs her nose when we say "Kleenex" or "flowers"

-she now pronounces Dora with two syllables instead of one - "Da-Ra" and is excited whenever she sees Dora, especially while shopping in a store.  It reminds me of when Lucy was this age and would spot Elmo.  Emma is very loud in the shopping cart though and when she isn't busy spotting Dora and yelling her name loudly, she talks in a loud, excited and almost angry tone as we push the cart down the aisles.  We just aren't sure what she is saying.

-Emma can now say her own name.  At first I thought she was saying "Mama", but she is definitely saying "Emma".

-Emma's favorite word of the month is HOT.  She says it in all of the appropriate places and repeats it if she hears someone say it during conversation.  The other day we were at Home Depot and when we passed the grill section, she started pointing and yelling "HOT!"  It took us a second to make the connection, but then we laughed when we realized that all of our warnings in the backyard while grilling had made an impact!

All of this activity (and teething wrapping up) has led to some great sleep from Emma.  She is sleeping the best she has ever slept and besides getting up super early, she takes two great naps a day and sleeps about 10 hours at night.

Finally I understand the saying, "sleeping like a baby."  Until now, that description always alluded me and my children!  Or in the above picture, sleeping like a star fish.  Either way, I can never take enough pictures of it!