Emmy's Accent

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.

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.

Why Having a Daughter is so Great

I was having a bad day when I went to go pick up Emmy today.  Nothing specific, just down in the dumps.

While loading her into her car seat, she was talking about Daddy, and starting to fuss, so I asked her if she could count to five.  She did.  I told her how proud I was and that she was very smart.  Then I stepped back to shut her car door.

And she said, "I love you."  I almost missed it.

So, I leaned back in, and told her, "I love you, too," and gave her a kiss.

Now I need a tissue for a completely different reason.

Full Sentences. Just Not in Front of Mom and Dad

When I pick Emmy up, I always try to talk to her teacher, and sometimes one of the other teachers will stop me to tell me a story.  Last week, I got two.

One teacher told me that Emmy was playing in the gym, standing with her head leaned on her shoulder and having a conversation on a pretend phone.  Most of it was Emmy's standard toddler jabber (no real words) but then she stopped and said, "I said no!" into her pretend phone.  (I wonder where she got that...)

Then, on Thursday, Ms. Debbie, her usual teacher, told me an even better story.  Debbie is very used to Emmy's pretend talk/jabber, i.e. her imitation of what talking sounds like.  On Thursday, however, Debbie told the kids to start cleaning up, which is what they do when it's time to move on to a new activity.  Emmy walked over to her and asked, "Debbie, where we go now?" She spoke slowly and carefully, enunciating each word.  So, Debbie stopped and told her, "We're going outside."  And Emmy, who clearly loves outside time, turned to the little boys in her class and said, "Boys.  Now."

So, all weekend, Tom and I asked her questions and tried to make conversation with her, but all we got were one-word answers.  No sentences for us.

On the other hand, she will sing for us (or rather, in our presence).  She sings Twinkle twinkle, little star.  (Her version is a little truncated)  And there's this song that Destiny's Child sang on Sesame Street that has a line that repeats.  (I've got a new way to walk (walk, walk)).  So, if you sing the first part, "I've got a new way to walk," she'll say, "walk walk."  Oh my goodness, is that adorable.  I'll have to get a video of it, but Emmy has a tendency to go silent when she notices the camera pointed in her direction.

I love you!

Emmy said "I love you" this weekend!

Now, I'm pretty certain she doesn't know what it means, but she knows that when she says it, it makes Mama and Daddy really happy.  Mama might have jumped up and down when Emmy said it the first time.  Mama might also have yelled to Daddy in the other room, "She just said 'I love you!'"

Emmy has recently gotten really good at parroting what she hears.  So, after naptime on Sunday, I was changing her diaper, and I asked her, "Can you say, 'I love you?'"  And she repeated it.

So, while waiting for Tom to come (he's really good about coming when I yell that Emmy just did something because he doesn't want to miss her doing anything amazing-- which, yes, does imply that he is less quick to respond when I am yelling to him to come about something that is not related to Emmy.)  I asked her to say "I love you, Daddy," and she happily obliged.

And Tom just happened to walk in at that moment, so he got to hear it.

She said it a few more times throughout the day, but only when prompted-- but it's only a matter of time until she says it of her own accord.  And that will be another jump up and down day.

Emmy and Consequences

So, Tom and I have decided that we won't be taking Emmy to any restaurants again (unless there is a very VERY compelling reason to do so) until she better understands consequences.

Right now, we're at a stage where consequences don't mean much.  That's totally normal, and I'm aware of that.  But an almost-two-year-old without any understanding of consequences or "punishment" is really difficult to control in settings where you can't allow them to have free-rein.

At home, we're fine, because all the things that Emmy can't touch are out of her reach or put away.  But when we're out, there are totally different sets of rules and Emmy just doesn't understand that yet.

The other night (and this is not the first time its happened, but it serves to illustrate the point) we were out at a Mexican restaurant.  Emmy was in a booster seat (so no straps to keep her in the seat) and she was squirmy, screechy, and as always, messy.

She kept standing up to look into the booth behind us, and I kept making her sit back down in the seat.  Finally, I sat her down, and put my arm over her lap to hold her in the seat.  She pushed my arm away --and then-- she swiped her arm across the table, slinging salsa all over (including mama's shirt sleeve).

I snatched her up out of the seat, and walked to the front of the restaurant and then took her outside.  I sat her down and asked, "Do you want to go home?" (This is the chosen punishment for not behaving while we're out)


She looked at me, nodded, and said, "Okay."


And that was the moment when it hit home that she doesn't understand consequences.  It doesn't matter to her if we're out or at home.  She gets fed regardless.  And though I think she understands that mama is disappointed when she misbehaves, she doesn't really have much concept about what behavior is acceptable vs. unacceptable, especially when considered acceptable at home and not at a restaurant (or grocery store, etc.).


So, I took her back to the table and we got through dinner, and when we got home, we decided that, for now, we'll avoid restaurants like the plague.  Which, I imagine, won't upset too many restaurant staff who have to clean up the disaster under the table after we leave.

Plans for the Rest of the Year

Things are going pretty well for the Watson household.  I started a new job (same employer, new position) on August 1st and Tom started a new job (entirely new employer) in September.  We are (happily) adjusting to our promotions.  The downside of the changes are that Tom is working farther away from the house, and I've become salaried, so Emmy is spending a little more time at daycare, which leaves me with a lot of guilt.

I'm pretty sure at some point, one of the *very helpful* articles distributed by one of the daycares that I was, at some point in the process, investigating, said that children who spend more than (I can't remember the actual number, but I think it was ten) hours in a daycare setting have trouble with bonding, or behavior or something that was absolutely terrifying at the time.  So, we're right at the ten hour threshold, and I am experiencing a lot of guilt.

*(The asterisks indicate my sarcasm)

That being said, it's really nice to suddenly find ourselves with leftover money in the monthly budget, and by the way, I'm really proud of us, however much that sounds like personal horn tooting.

I also just completed a 5k in a personal best time (we don't need to talk about what that time actually was, just that it was my personal best).  Tom and I have signed up for a half marathon in November, and even though I'm not up to running it, I'm still proud that I am voluntarily planning to walk/jog/occasionally run 13.1 miles that day.  We also both recently did the Warrior Dash, a 5k with obstacles!, a mud pit! and fire!, and that went really well for both of us.  I don't mind saying that my time for that was 59 minutes, which sounds terrible for a 5k, but seems pretty good considering all the obstacles included in the 5k.

I have also decided to participate in NaNoWriMo again this year.  As a reminder, NaNo is a personal pledge to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November.  I got to around 35,000 words last year before illness and Thanksgiving overcame my intentions.  If I achieve my goal and complete my novel, my reward to myself is a pair of boots at Land's End I've been eyeing.  (I don't know how to spell eyeing and the spell check says it is wrong.  Eye-ing? Eying?  Neither of those look right).

I will be offering to host Thanksgiving dinner again this year, so I have that menu to plan and prepare and after that, I have Emmy's second birthday party to plan.  Then there's Christmas, which isn't a big deal, right?

And that's my rough plan for the rest of the year.