A Little Bit of Emily

She sleeps with books like other kids snuggle with stuffed animals. She literally cuddles with them and won’t go to bed or take a nap without one. She also reads them by herself when she wakes up, and then we read them together immediately following her diaper change.

Putting her finger in her belly button is a comfort like sucking a thumb is for some children. She has to have access to it always. We discovered five days ago that if we leave her pajamas unzipped so she can get to it that she sleeps through the night. Which means for the first time since before my pregnancy I’ve slept five nights in a row without waking up or getting out of bed. This is the stuff dreams are made of – thank you belly button!

Tears are shed about not doing the dishes. We do some together every day, which then turns into mopping the floor, cleaning the counters, and a bit of a shower too. I should be thrilled we get so much cleaning done with one event. I am grateful for her example and enthusiasm – I have washed a lot more dishes after the meals thanks to her.

Baths are the worst thing in the world right now. She screams, hysterically, from start to finish. I think this started around last November and has only gotten worse. I don’t know how we went from asking to play in the bathtub to this, but I hope it switches back soon.

Hats are still a thing. She loves trying to put them on and wears them off and on all day.

She is also a big pretend phone talker and she often shares her phone with me to say a few words until the key phrase, “oh, you’d like to talk with Emily? Here she is.” at which point she yanks the phone back to her ear.

She is getting the hang of some fine motor skill activities. I made some cardboard pieces with punched holes and she is pretty good at threading yarn through. I’m impressed with her patience. It is still very much a mother daughter activity.

Emily loves loves drawing. She spends many hours of the day either drawing or asking to draw (with the sign). She loves sharing her pencil with us every few seconds so that we can draw together.

I thought with her love of drawing she might enjoy trying out painting. We just used water and construction paper. It was cool for a few minutes, but then drinking and dumping the water trumped painting.

Emily’s signing is really taking off. She is starting to combine signs like “where gorilla”, at which point she runs to her books and locates all the gorilla pictures. Actually any animal that is mentioned is followed with “where said-animal” and a dash to the books. She has mastered “draw” and “book”. If she hears the word baby she emphatically begins signing baby and then we find her baby and its bottle. She is really good at feeding and burping her baby, a skill she figured out in Utah as she watched everyone with Ariana. She waves “bye” to say goodnight and goodbye. She signs “thank-you” often without being prompted (inside our home; she doesn’t sign much around other people). A few times she has thrown in “mom” or “dad” with the thank you.

We think it is only a matter of time before she takes off talking. Twice after we said prayer she jumps in with “AMEN”. Yesterday after she signed “all-done” for awhile she said “ALLDONE”. The words usually come out really loudly and clearly, but they are single occurrences.

She is a trooper and drinks green smoothies with me. Actually we both them and she also loves the straw she gets to drink out of.

She is beginning to add “no” with a head shake into our every day life. We try really hard to respect her negative responses when we can. It is really cute to watch her respond and she decides between a yes or no.

We have returned to putting fingers under the door while I’m in the bathroom. It has morphed into a game of rubbing her hand or returning objects she shoves under to try and curb the accompanied tears. Yesterday she shut herself in my bedroom and her solution was to put her hand under the door so I could see her.

I love my sweet Emily!