At Long Last

A new post after ages! I dare not try to catch up on what's been missed, so I'm just posting a few recent photos here, and going to attempt to load some videos at the request of Emma's Grammy-Great Shirley.

Emma is 18 mos. and more joy than ever! She's stringing together 3 word Tarzan-like sentences, remembering everything and now loves to tell stories. "Dada. Bee. (And points to ceiling)". Translation, "This morning, Dada killed the spider that was on the ceiling." She also likes to re-enact her boo-boos to let you know how they happened, which can be quite comical.

The big news is that she's POTTY TRAINED!!! Pee pee and poo poo! I take no credit for it- it just happened pretty much on its own! She's been poo-poo potty trained since 12 mos. (don't be too impressed- we did a slacker version of Elimination Communication which made this an easy progression.), and a couple weeks ago she took a swim diaper (like a pull-up) and tried putting it on herself instead of a diaper. This let me know she wanted to do undies like a big girl. I talked to some moms who've gone before on the potty-training journey and decided just to let her run around without a diaper one day. She went on the potty 6 times that day, including taking herself and informing me later while I was distracted (I verified and there was the pee pee in the potty!), and had only 2 accidents. Since that day, it's been nearly total clear sailing. She generally wakes up dry after naps and nighttime, and can hold it for an impressive length of time (one can not stop on the freeway to pee pee). I was impressed with myself for self-potty training at 20 mos. (just decided one day and that was that), but Emma's got me beat! This is a great relief... no more washing diapers, no more buying disposables (or far less... still diaper at nap and nighttime just in case...), no more changing diapers. And Emma is happy to declare, "Yay pee pee!" with pride whenever she goes and approves of her big girl undies. :)

Emma playing with dear friend, Nate. Nate's mom and I have been swapping babysitting one morning a week and that has been WONDERFUL! The kids LOVE it!

Emma is big into taking photos with the real camera. You can see here that she has an artistic eye and already gets the trend of taking pictures of one's feet.

Most mornings Emma and Dada sit together at breakfast and drink smoothies.

Emma loves to paint (with water on construction paper- looks real!). This day, she decided her penguin bath toy needed some touch ups. Notice the very serious concentration.

A little more paint is needed here...

After our watermelon picking wagon ride.

Emma requested that Uncle Mark take a "seat seat" (She calls him "Mike". All non-Dada males are "Mike" right now.).

Aunt Kiki visited for a whole week after we returned from TN (I'll have to post photos from my maternal grandparents' SIXTIETH wedding anniversary later). We loved having her here!

Emma loves to dance. Here she is impromptu dancing to her own music in her head, I guess. She's so joyful. Watch closely at the end of the 2nd video and you'll see her signature toy soldier marching dance move. Don't know where she got this, but it cracks us up.