Well, we are so close to 2 yrs that I have stopped asking Emily to tell me she is "one." We are now working on saying, "I'm 2" and showing the right number of fingers. Gotta practice for the birthday party! By the way, holding up two fingers requires a lot of manual dexterity that I don't think we are going to master in 2 more months. However, she can pretty much tell people on cue that she is two, so I'm happy with that.
Emily is FULL of personality. She cracks us up every day. I think I say that every age is my favorite, but there is really something special about when your baby is learning to talk. Lately, she loves to talk on the telephone. She has a little "Elmo" cell phone that she carries on quite a conversation with in her carseat, but she doesn't need a cell phone to talk. Nope, she can jabber all day in the back seat to herself or me or the birds or whomever. Her jabbering is probably 10-20% actual words and 80-90% filler. Here are a few of Emily's latest and greatest:
1) Naming people: We've had "Mommy and Daddy" down for months so we've moved on to other family members. No offense if your name isn't mentioned, I'm just writing what she says most often. "Nan and Pop" is heard daily since we got back from vacation usually accompanied by whining to go see them, "Nan and Pop house." She loves her babysitter and her children. Amanda is "minnie", Jordan is "Jorney", Nathan is "Nana" (pronounced nay, nay), and Greta is "geta." When she sees them she gets so excited, waves to them, and cries if we don't stop by their house when we see them. (They are our neighbors). She is having a hard time saying "Grancy" so Grancy has become "Dinkney." She can easily say "Poppy", but sometimes shortens it to "pop" and I am trying to remind her to say "Poppy" instead. She gets so excited to see them and runs to them as soon as she eyes them. As far as other family members, she knows "lala", "Stephen", "Coopney", Hootney", and "Jenny". She calls Elizabeth "baby."
2) Making silly faces. Emily has a hilarious "surprise, silly face" that she makes when she does something new or likes something a lot. She also can do a "sad" face on cue (when she is in the mood) and it includes the best pouty lip you've ever seen. She also says, "cheese" a lot when we ask her for a happy face or ask her to smile.
3) Conquering the playground: Emily has gotten really good at climbing on playground equipment, including ladder type steps and sliding down slides without having to be coaxed or encouraged. This week she also let me push her in a swing at the playground. She has always tolerated the baby swings with the full back and harness strapping, but she never liked the baby swings at the parks that were more open. She finally let me push her pretty good in one of those type swings without doing the "scared face." I know some children like swinging much earlier than that, but every time we would try, she was SO scared and cried and cried so we didn't push it. I can see a difference in how high Will can toss up Hunter and what Emily will allow Jeremy to do without looking like she is scared to death! Maybe this is a girl/boy difference?
4) More sentences. "I wanna see that." "Emmy go poopoo." "I swinging." "I swimming, running, driving, etc." "I want milk." (pronounced like "melk" spoken with a long, slow, Southern drawl." Gosh, she talks so much that I may have to edit this post later and think of some more fave phrases.
5) Prefers Mama--A LOT! Emily has a laughing love affair with Daddy. No one can make her giggle as much as he can. However, she really prefers her Mama to get her in the mornings and to put her to bed--so much that she will tell her daddy, "no." I hope it doesn't hurt Jer's feelings too bad. We both take turns doing bath, story time, etc. and most nights we are both in her room for story time, but if she knows I am in the house, she will cry for me to put her to bed instead of Jeremy. I think that having a strong maternal attachment is a good thing and I know that if I'm not at home, Jeremy and Emily are fine and can handle it.
6) Becoming more picky about food. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with Emily's variety of food for a little 22 mon. old. However, she is becoming more picky as she develops food preferences. She definitely prefers fruit and cheese to almost anything else. She still won't touch meat of any kind unless it is really small and she doesn't notice the different texture.
7) Pretend Play. Emily is really a good mother to her baby doll now. She gives her a bottle, a paci, pushes her in a stroller in the back yard, wraps her in a cover and sleeps with her every night. Sometimes we read with Emily sitting in my lap and the baby doll in Emily's lap and the book in front of baby. I guess we need to name baby doll since she has become part of the family, but Emily doesn't really call her anything and I just tell her to get her baby. So creative! However, she also loves to push around cars. I feel bad that she doesn't have very many because she obviously loves them. I think her boy cousins need to hook her up with a cool truck for her birthday!
Can't believe she is almost two!
