Emmy is learning so much at daycare. She can recite numbers from 1 to 10 (and sometimes up to 14, which is how many steps we have to get downstairs). She also knows at least a few colors. And she can sing her own version of several songs. She sings twinkle, twinkle, little star; Baa baa black sheep; the Sesame Street theme song; and now, the ABC song. Her version of the alphabet goes like this: "A B C D F I K, LMNO(this is just mumbling, and not the actual letters) Q S T XY."
If you start singing too, she'll stop you by saying, "No no no," because you'll sing it differently than she does.
Last night, in the car on the way home, she was jabbering away, and the only word I recognized was "mingo" (her word for flamingo, which is, at the moment, her favorite animal). So, wanting to reinforce her attempts at language, I asked her what color a flamingo is.
She paused for a moment, saying "Uhhh," while she thought about it, then she said, "Pank!"
Oh my. Clearly Mom and Dad were not the ones who taught her that color.
She also calls her sippy cup a new word. She calls it her "drank." This morning, when I made her put her coat on, she had to put her cup down, and she whined at me, "My drank!" (At least it wasn't Mah Drank.)
Anyway, I got a video of her singing the alphabet song last night. I'll try to get around to posting it this weekend.
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
I thought I had Halloween in the Bag...
I'll admit to some procrastination when it came to choosing a costume for Emmy.
A lot of that was because it felt weird to be imposing my taste on my daughter, but, at the moment, she can't really tell me what she would like to dress up as. Also, I'm fairly certain she wouldn't understand the concept even if she did have the words to tell me.
Tom and I are pretty sure that the Princess Leia outfit would still fit, but we thought that we would look like bad/lazy parents if the photos indicate that we repeated a costume.
So, I looked around online for some good costumes. I don't really like the cheaply made ones you can find at places like Party City and the Halloween sections of Target and Walmart. Especially since they are never as cheap as they look. I found a cute Little Red Riding Hood costume on Etsy, but as I'd waited so long to start shopping, I was concerned it wouldn't get here in time, and plus, the seller never answered my questions.
I also found some cute ideas for homemade costumes. One was for a Hermione (Harry Potter) costume, which seemed like it should be easy, since you just get a school uniform and add a tie in the appropriate colors. Unfortunately, even if anyone made school uniforms for children in size 18-24 months, it would be prohibitively expensive to buy all the pieces. (Gray uniform skirt, gray sweater, white button down, tie, knee socks, wand)
So, I gave up on all those ideas. It was looking like Princess Leia was going to be it. But then, Emmy's daycare introduced Emmy to pumpkins. When I went to pick her up, there was a picture posted of Emmy in the "pumpkin patch" and she was given a tiny pumpkin to bring home. Emmy hasn't stopped talking about her pumpkin. A couple of days later, she dragged me out to the area of lawn where the pumpkin patch had been (all that was left was the straw they had laid down). She dug around in the straw for a minute, and I reminded her that there weren't anymore pumpkins there. "Where they go?" She asked me.
Every night, at home, she takes her pumpkin all over the house. It's been in the bath with her. It's been beside her when she watched Sesame Street, and it's been on the table while we ate dinner. Every time she sees it, she says, "Pumpkin!" and runs over to pick it up.
And now, every time she sees a pumpkin anywhere, she points to it and tells me that it's a pumpkin. We got a Halloween card from her great-grandma Kelshaw, which, yes, had a pumpkin on it. She grabbed the card and held it up. "Pumpkin!" she said.
And so, I suggested to Tom, that since she seems to like pumpkins so much, maybe a pumpkin would be a great idea for a Halloween costume. I found one online, with the option to pay extra so it would arrive in time, and I bought it.
It got here on Wednesday, and I showed it to Emmy, asked her what it was, and she told me, "pumpkin." So, I asked if she wanted to put it on. I had her step into the legs, and then pulled it up and tried to velcro it closed in the back. That's when the trouble began. "NO, No No," she said. She tugged on the front and cried. "No pumpkin." So, we took it off.
Later that night, after bath time, we tried again, with just her diaper (so it wasn't so tight). "No pumpkin," she didn't like it, but she was at least willing to sit in it while Daddy read her bedtime story. Then she tugged at it again until I took it off.
Thursday night, we tried again. "No pumpkin." Although, she does seem to like the hat. Friday night, she wouldn't even sit in it. She just fussed and tugged at the neck until we took it back off.
Saturday, we went to a petting farm near my parent's house, so we took Emmy to visit after we were done petting goats and picking out pumpkins. While she napped, we went shopping. We stopped in four different children's stores, looking for a new costume. I knew that I shouldn't expect anything, with kids already trick or treating at the very mall where we were shopping.
However, we were able to find something cute. Unisex, but cute. We found a little khaki shirt that said "zookeeper" on the patch. Since our intention was to go to the trick or treating event at the zoo, we thought this costume was especially fitting. And since it was just a shirt (the pants were way too big), and it could fit over her regular clothes, we thought (foolish foolish new parents) that Emmy would tolerate this one better.
Sunday afternoon, we got her up from naptime and started getting dressed for the event. I put on her pants and a fleece jacket, socks, and then Tom tried to put on her new zookeeper shirt.
She freaked out. She started crying. Legitimate tears. We ended up in the rocking chair in her room, with her curled in my lap, getting tears and snot all over my shoulder. So, we gave up. I took her downstairs and turned on a Halloween movie starring Shrek. She calmed down and just watched. A few minutes later, Tom came down with the shirt and she passively let him put it on her, never taking her eyes off the TV. We grabbed a sippy cup and got in the car.
And we had a nice time. Emmy tugged at the shirt a few more times, but for the most part, she didn't seem to care. She figured out the trick-or-treating after about ten minutes and then she was running up to the volunteers to grab the candy. But she always said Thank you. We were a little late, and it got dark pretty quickly, so we didn't stay very long, but I think Emmy had a good time. She also got to see her favorite zoo animals, the 'mingoes (flamingoes), who were actually pretty active at dusk (more active than when we usually visit), but they may just have been excited about all the people.
All-in-all, it was an educational Halloween. And I still don't know why she hated both of the costumes, especially since the reaction was the same for both of them. Maybe she just hates cheap fabric.
A lot of that was because it felt weird to be imposing my taste on my daughter, but, at the moment, she can't really tell me what she would like to dress up as. Also, I'm fairly certain she wouldn't understand the concept even if she did have the words to tell me.
Tom and I are pretty sure that the Princess Leia outfit would still fit, but we thought that we would look like bad/lazy parents if the photos indicate that we repeated a costume.
So, I looked around online for some good costumes. I don't really like the cheaply made ones you can find at places like Party City and the Halloween sections of Target and Walmart. Especially since they are never as cheap as they look. I found a cute Little Red Riding Hood costume on Etsy, but as I'd waited so long to start shopping, I was concerned it wouldn't get here in time, and plus, the seller never answered my questions.
I also found some cute ideas for homemade costumes. One was for a Hermione (Harry Potter) costume, which seemed like it should be easy, since you just get a school uniform and add a tie in the appropriate colors. Unfortunately, even if anyone made school uniforms for children in size 18-24 months, it would be prohibitively expensive to buy all the pieces. (Gray uniform skirt, gray sweater, white button down, tie, knee socks, wand)
So, I gave up on all those ideas. It was looking like Princess Leia was going to be it. But then, Emmy's daycare introduced Emmy to pumpkins. When I went to pick her up, there was a picture posted of Emmy in the "pumpkin patch" and she was given a tiny pumpkin to bring home. Emmy hasn't stopped talking about her pumpkin. A couple of days later, she dragged me out to the area of lawn where the pumpkin patch had been (all that was left was the straw they had laid down). She dug around in the straw for a minute, and I reminded her that there weren't anymore pumpkins there. "Where they go?" She asked me.
Every night, at home, she takes her pumpkin all over the house. It's been in the bath with her. It's been beside her when she watched Sesame Street, and it's been on the table while we ate dinner. Every time she sees it, she says, "Pumpkin!" and runs over to pick it up.
And now, every time she sees a pumpkin anywhere, she points to it and tells me that it's a pumpkin. We got a Halloween card from her great-grandma Kelshaw, which, yes, had a pumpkin on it. She grabbed the card and held it up. "Pumpkin!" she said.
And so, I suggested to Tom, that since she seems to like pumpkins so much, maybe a pumpkin would be a great idea for a Halloween costume. I found one online, with the option to pay extra so it would arrive in time, and I bought it.
It got here on Wednesday, and I showed it to Emmy, asked her what it was, and she told me, "pumpkin." So, I asked if she wanted to put it on. I had her step into the legs, and then pulled it up and tried to velcro it closed in the back. That's when the trouble began. "NO, No No," she said. She tugged on the front and cried. "No pumpkin." So, we took it off.
Later that night, after bath time, we tried again, with just her diaper (so it wasn't so tight). "No pumpkin," she didn't like it, but she was at least willing to sit in it while Daddy read her bedtime story. Then she tugged at it again until I took it off.
Thursday night, we tried again. "No pumpkin." Although, she does seem to like the hat. Friday night, she wouldn't even sit in it. She just fussed and tugged at the neck until we took it back off.
Saturday, we went to a petting farm near my parent's house, so we took Emmy to visit after we were done petting goats and picking out pumpkins. While she napped, we went shopping. We stopped in four different children's stores, looking for a new costume. I knew that I shouldn't expect anything, with kids already trick or treating at the very mall where we were shopping.
However, we were able to find something cute. Unisex, but cute. We found a little khaki shirt that said "zookeeper" on the patch. Since our intention was to go to the trick or treating event at the zoo, we thought this costume was especially fitting. And since it was just a shirt (the pants were way too big), and it could fit over her regular clothes, we thought (foolish foolish new parents) that Emmy would tolerate this one better.
Sunday afternoon, we got her up from naptime and started getting dressed for the event. I put on her pants and a fleece jacket, socks, and then Tom tried to put on her new zookeeper shirt.
She freaked out. She started crying. Legitimate tears. We ended up in the rocking chair in her room, with her curled in my lap, getting tears and snot all over my shoulder. So, we gave up. I took her downstairs and turned on a Halloween movie starring Shrek. She calmed down and just watched. A few minutes later, Tom came down with the shirt and she passively let him put it on her, never taking her eyes off the TV. We grabbed a sippy cup and got in the car.
And we had a nice time. Emmy tugged at the shirt a few more times, but for the most part, she didn't seem to care. She figured out the trick-or-treating after about ten minutes and then she was running up to the volunteers to grab the candy. But she always said Thank you. We were a little late, and it got dark pretty quickly, so we didn't stay very long, but I think Emmy had a good time. She also got to see her favorite zoo animals, the 'mingoes (flamingoes), who were actually pretty active at dusk (more active than when we usually visit), but they may just have been excited about all the people.
All-in-all, it was an educational Halloween. And I still don't know why she hated both of the costumes, especially since the reaction was the same for both of them. Maybe she just hates cheap fabric.
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