The Little Things

On Friday Emily and I had some purposeful, uninterrupted mother daughter time.  As we read books, played chase, danced a bit, cooked, and cleaned together, it hit me how much this girl has grown and how much she has learned in the last few weeks. Here is a sampling of little things that make me love this girl more and more each day:

Emily now identifies the elephants in Oh the Thinks you Can Think,  and immediately follows with raising one arm up and making a pretty impressive elephant noise.  She will also make elephant noises with her arm if we just talk about elephants.

Thanks to Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? all clocks are called “tick tocks” by Emily, which is hilarious because most of them are digital.

Every once in awhile we stumble upon something that just tickles Emily’s funny bone.  I was trying to find a spot to hang our Christmas wreath temporarily and tried to place it on the door stopper at the top of the door, not realizing it was a spring. The wreath fell down and the door stopper vibrated and Emily belly laughed.  She now loves to be lifted up to touch the door stopper.

She has recently discovered a love for necklaces, which is usually one of Andrew’s vivint lanyards. We made fruitloop necklaces at playgroup this week and she loved wearing that one too.

Last week Emily tried to climb into the bathtub in the middle of the day.  I figured there was no reason she couldn’t take a bath so she played in there for awhile.  She is a big fan of pulling out the stopper but then quickly realizes the water is draining and hands it to me to help put it back in, a bit panicked. We repeat this game until the water is all gone. When I was taking this picture I said, “Say Cheese” (which I never say) and she started signing “cheese” and was ready for lunch!

Andrew introduced Emily to jumping about a week ago and she is starting to get the hang of it.  She loves being held while we jump and signs “again” to keep us jumping.  She is starting to figure out how to bend her legs to jump, but doesn’t get any air yet.

Emily LOVES being chased, caught, and tickled and will sign “again” and “more” until we grow tired of the game. I hate being tickled – really hate it – and do not understand her love of this game at all.

She is getting the hang of eating with a fork and spoon, but often hands it to us to load it up and then takes it to put into her mouth or just grabs the food off with her hands.

We have a book about jungle animals and Andrew and I were making zebra noises, which she though was hilarious.  Look up the sound a zebra makes and try to mimic it without being hilarious.

Emily is becoming a huge help with cleaning.  If we don’t throw a diaper away immediately, she’ll throw it away for us.  She puts her toys in the cupboard at night. She also picks clothes off the floor and puts them away in her drawers with a little help from us (because they are too high) and then closes the drawers.  When she is done reading scriptures with us at night she puts the book away, even if we aren’t technically done. She also hands me all the little crumbs, pieces of paper, lint, or sand she finds around the house so I can throw it away.  When she started handing me the sand out of her bed I knew it was time to do a deep clean, especially now that we shouldn’t be playing in the sand every day this winter.

When she is ready for bed or a nap, she signs “milk” and “bed”.  This one is really convenient.

We have a big cardboard box that we thought she would love to play in.  Not so much, but after a week of us trying to get her to play in it she will sit on the edge of the flap and eat her snacks or read, and once when she was really tired she laid down in it.

We’ve been signing “toilet/potty” to her any time we go to the bathroom or we catch her going to the bathroom.  Yesterday we asked her if she was ready for bed and she signed “potty” as she was going to the bathroom, and then “milk” when she was done and ready to go upstairs for bed.  I think this is our first multi-sign communication with a bit of give and take.  Exciting!!!