Week 24

SHE DID IT! Emmaline finally said "ma-ma". Granted, she only said it once, but we both heard it and therefore it counts! I doubt think it had any meaning, she was just mumbling it as we were in the car leaving for church this morning. She was also having fun just making the 'mmmm' sound. She also signed 'milk' before nursing this morning. And she slept through the night twice this week! Developments that I'm not thrilled about include discovering the litter box (and trying to eat the litter), throwing Dan's keys in the litter box, opening the lid of the new trashcan and throwing misc. things inside that. More positive developments: she is learning to follow directions. The other day I told her to come give me a kiss. She stopped what she was doing, stood up, walked over to me and gave me a kiss! She has been pulling books off her bookshelf for a while, but now she'll pick one and bring it to me. After I read it to her I can hand it back and tell her to put it away. And she does! (She takes it off again after she puts it up - but I'm still amazed.) Yesterday evening we were in the computer room which is right next to her bedroom. She walked out and came back with a book. She gave that to Dan and turned around and left. Then she came back with another book and gave that to me. After a couple minutes we gave her the books back and told her to put them away so she went back to her room and shoved them on the shelf. She has also become pretty helpful when it comes time to get her dressed or undressed. She will put her arm in if we hold the sleeve open. She sticks her legs out to put them in her pants/shorts/leggings/etc. She tries to pull the shirt/dress over her head if we have the arms out. And she loves putting on her shoes. She has been trying to put them on herself, but hasn't quite figured it out. It has made mornings much less frustrating!

If you can't tell, things have been pretty busy around here. All the things going on at home pales in comparison to the things at work! It was quite a week. I think I'm going to enjoy my class this year, but it's going to take a while to get them to stop talking! Right now it feels impossible, but I have to stick with it because I'm tired of coming home with headaches. This week is going to be even crazier! We have appointments or meetings pretty much every day. It is going to make it very difficult to stick to Emmaline's routine.

Things have been going well with just having 1 car now. I think it helping us communicate better since we have to make sure the other person knows exactly what we've got going on so we can figure out who should drive that day (basically, whoever can get to Emma the soonest after work is the one who drives). Most days I've been driving since Dan has bus duty after school until November, but on days when I have meetings he takes it. It's a pretty fun car to drive, especially because you always have the challenge of keeping the car on battery as much as possible. We compete to see who can do little things like make it up certain hills or accelerate the quickest without kicking it over to fuel.

With everything that's been going on, I haven't had much time to worry about Emma's weight. We started giving her lunch everyday at daycare in addition to the bottles/nursing. That seems to be going well, but she is a picky eater. It's not that she doesn't like foods, it's just that she only likes them in certain orders. We're discovering a hierarchy of foods and you have to work your way up. If she sees the 'better' food, she will refuse to eat what you've already given her. For example, tonight she was happy with mango.... until she saw the hamburger. Then she was happy with the hamburger (although she kept picking out the mushroom).... until she saw us eating corn. We hadn't planned on giving her corn tonight because she had it like 5 times this week, but of course we gave in to her whining. Usually we would just let her whine, but she was extremely cranky today and we just wanted to enjoy dinner.

The craziest thing is that it is less than 3 weeks until her 1st birthday! I've been trying to think about what I was doing 1 year ago. I know I was exhausted, my feet were ridiculously swollen, and my blood pressure was too high. I was miserable. A friend at work has the same due date that I had (Oct. 14). I watch her and I don't miss it one bit! I'm definitely NOT one of those women who say "I loved being pregnant". Heck no, it sucked! I am excited for her to have her baby though - Emma's instant BFF. I'm already planning to buy the girls matching outfits :)