time out

Emilia had another dance session last night - the girl loves to move...


showing off her trademark hip moves.

So I've decided to take a "time out" on the whole potty training deal. She's done pretty well - only a few accidents when she's wearing her big girl underwares - but it's stressing me out too much. Emilia's Grandpa (my dad) is coming in to town this week through Easter and then we'll be heading up to DC so it just doesn't seem like the most ideal time to be worrying about accidents. We'll still keep talking about the potty and trying to go, but we're keeping the diaper on for the time being.

BIG weekend

Warning: This posting contains "graphic" content. Reader discretion advised.

Perhaps because it has rained for about 10 days in a row, I decided this was the weekend Emilia was going to learn to use her potty. While at Barnes & Noble on Saturday (presumably for storytime, though we never actually got to hear any story) I picked up a book called "Once Upon A Potty" about a little girl, Prudence, and her potty. We came home, dusted off Emilia's potty (which hasn't seen a whole lot of action other than her sitting on it every once in a while, fully clothed), stripped her down, closed the bathroom door and read the book twice. Halfway through the second reading we had SUCCESS!

Her first peepee in the potty - yes, I'm aware it's gross that I took a picture of it - but it's a milestone.

So proud of herself.

Since then she's managed to tinkle about 6 times in the potty, though she does have some trouble staying seated on the potty while waiting for the "action" to occur. We've also had to go back to BabiesRUs to buy a potty for the second floor - running up and down the stairs with our one potty was beyond annoying. By no means do I think she's potty trained, nor are we ready to get rid of the diapers, but we're definitely making forward progress.

exhausted - presumably from all the peeing?

naptime friends

After naptime yesterday Emilia kept pointing at her basket of stuffed animals and didn't want to get out of bed. Clearly she wanted them to join her. The result was the following: with pat the bunny - she was making her bunny noises.

kitty cat

cuddles with the cat MamaMama made her.

afterwards.

Then there was a little singing.

the picture she was pointing to in the video.

rockin' the crocs

view from my lap - sitting reading a story.

Inspired by pals Kyrie & Aston, Emi is now rockin' her very own pair of Crocs in the "Mary Jane" style. They are great little rubber shoes - a perfect prelude to the pool/beach season which, hopefully, will be here soon. Even with socks they look cute (if a little nerdy). I think she loves the fact that she can pull them on and off pretty much by herself.

Striking a pose - and yes, they're hot pink.

way late on the 18 month stats

Note: This is a rush posting - I know I'm forgetting tons of stuff and this is probably full of misspelled words, but she's almost at 19 months and I'm only now doing the 18month stats check-in!

Height: 31 inches

Weight: 24 pounds (lost a pound from Hand-Foot & Mouth illness)

Head Circ.: 19 1/2 inches

Emilia had her 18 month checkup with Dr. Walker last week. Overall she's in great health. Dr. W. is still stumped by her milk sensitivities - hives with greek yogurt, but okay with some amounts of string cheese and CheezIts (a new fave she picked up at Aston's house) - so we're just keeping an eye on it and charting what seems to bother her and what doesn't. We're going to stick with the soy milk/cheese/yogurt for the most part. She got two shots (the first MMR and her last Hib vaccine so she's extra protected for Ecuador this summer) and, amazingly, didn't shed a single tear. Brave, stoic girlie of mine (and awesome nurse with the shots!)

Vocabulary: It's a mish-mosh of Spanish and English and she still doesn't have the same number of words as her playmates, but that's to be expected. Some of her words are: "gagi" (galleta/cookie - good for any crunchy thing savory/sweet), hello, adio (adios), gabye (goodbye), yo (yo-me), wow (park/playground), 'chu (achoo), 'shu (shoe), 'ato (zapato), do (door), Emi, gol (goal - can you tell her Papa wants her to be a soccer fan?), go go (let's go), woah joe (from MT classes), meme (not sure what this means actually), 'ugo (jugo-juice), yoowoo (yogurt), gai (crayons), my (mine), mame (dame-give me), pee pee, caca, bye (car), Nana (nana), Tima (Tia Marga), Lo (Tia Lo), FaFa (Farmor), Wewe (Abuelo), Gpa (Grandpa), Abi (Tio Eric), 'yrie, MoMo, 'ate (kate), Mimi (Maisie), Aty (Aston - I think she's trying to say Addie or Asty), 'ey (MamaMama). She can also put two words together, what are called "word collisions" like "Mama agua" (pointing to my water bottle), or "bebe" and then sign the word for sleep for sleeping baby.

The Physical: She's quite the climber now. She's figured out she can pull the kitchen chairs out from the table, climb up on them and get to the table. She can also get on to the sofas pretty easily as well. She loves to go to the park particularly enjoying the tunnels and slides, and loves to play games (boo! is a favorite word). She likes to try to kick the ball with Papa and play in the dirt with Mama planting stuff (or trying to). Her new fave is of course riding on the back of my bicycle. The carseat however, is quite the struggle. Sometimes she'll sit in it without any problems... other times you have to perform a wrestling move to pin her into it long enough to buckle her in... not fun. She'll tell you when she has pee pee or caca in her diaper, but not in time to get her to the potty (this is the month though.... right?) and is usually correct.

Foodwise: She's gotten kind of finicky. Old faves, like meatballs, are not so interesting anymore. She doesn't like pasta (!) or ranch dressing (!!). We're moving away from having to have all our veggies purreed (successfully eats green beans and green peas... sometimes) which is a relief.

Misc: Loves to dance to all sorts of music (beatles & carlos vives are big faves as well as her Music Together cds) but is not interested in listening to classical music for the time being. Loves to put on a dress, especially "everyday" dresses (something I must do more of - I hate wearing dresses so I always put her in pants... shame on me), and loves anything sparkly or shiny (bracelets, little necklaces and her purses - so girly). I blame her love of the bling on MamaMama. Loves to eat at her little table in the kitchen though we need to work on not wandering around when we're eating.

sunday in the park

Enjoying a "gagi" (galleta - the word for cookie, but she uses it for anything crunchy - sweet or savory).

It was a quiet weekend around here, so we took advantage of the nice weather and hit Freedom Park for a little picnic and to test out the bikes. Emilia really hadn't gone for a proper ride on her new bike seat so it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I was really nervous about having her on the back of my bike, but she LOVED it. She talked the whole time, pointing out the "da"s or "woo"s (dogs), "cuac cuac"s (ducks), and "bebe"s (babies - all of whom, according to her, are always sleeping). The best was having her reach up and pat me on the back saying "Mama, Mama, Papa" and, eventually, trying to tickle my back. Best day ever.

Sharing a gagi with Papa.


Trying to convince her to keep her helmet on. It's a little big, so it kind of droops into her line of vision, but the 1 year old helmet was too small. She eventually cooperated, but wasn't happy. I guess she wants to feel the wind in her hair?

Ready to ride.

The ride home in the car - sans pants, shoes and socks. She was awake for approximately 2 minutes before she fell asleep.

post-nap #2

Someone woke up in a funny mood after her nap yesterday afternoon...


Interestingly enough - she doesn't seem much interested in a nap right now...

ian's party and biker chick

Saturday Emilia was invited to Ian's first birthday party. Since it was so close to St. Patrick's Day you can imagine what the theme was. She had a great time seeing all the babies and playing with all the toys. However, she HATED the clown and wanted nothing to do with her.

Since it was a miserably cold and rainy Sunday we spent the afternoon finally getting Emilia's seat on the back of my bike. We actually bought the bike seat last week, but we needed a different bolt to affix it to my bike (which took 3 trips to Lowes and a whole lot of cursing), and both of us were needed to get it on the bike - it was a whole lot more complicated than the 10 step directions would lead you to believe. We finally got it on though and Emilia was all about sitting in her seat and ready to go for a ride. I thought for sure she'd see it and want nothing to do with it. She wasn't thrilled about having to wear the helmet though, so I foresee that as being a struggle. So, with that, we're truly set for Spring. Hopefully this week we'll go for our first ride around the 'hood.

ready to go
her first ride - from the front door, into the rain, and into the garage. i'm kind of freaking out about riding with her on my bike - especially since it's an added 30 pounds!

post-nap

reading in bed

After her nap the other day Emilia decided to have a little "DEAR" time (DEAR stands for Drop Everything And Read - it's a school thing).

She was sitting in the chair meant for her raggedy ann doll, which is why she's so squashed in there.

weekend pics, take two

a new fave - Saturday baths in the garden tub in our bathroom.

Emilia supervised her Papa as he worked in our now ivy-free backyard.

Since she was still on the mend, Emilia got a popsicle as a treat. She ended up wearing most of it (hence the lack of leggings - fortunately the top is long-ish).

We even broke out the water table. This, combined with firing up the grill means Spring has arrived - even if it will be 40 degrees by Friday.

weekend pics, take 1

It was a glorious weekend here - sunny, warm and just beautiful - so of course I've got a million pictures to download, but I wanted to put a couple of them up quickly just for an update.


I kept Emi home from school on Friday. She didn't have a fever in the morning but it hadn't been 24 hours since she'd had a fever, so it was for the best. Since it was a beautiful day we had lunch on the deck wearing her new Spring jacket from Grandpa.

loves to reach for the camera which makes taking her picture extra challenging.

not-so-well visit

Today Emilia was scheduled for her 18 month well visit, but instead it was switched to a sick visit. Yesterday morning when I picked her up from the Y Miss Jean noted that she was looking rather under-the-weather. When I looked at her, sitting next to buddy Kate, Emi clearly was feeling ill. When I brought her home her temp was a whopping 101.9. By the afternoon it was up to 103 and at 7 pm she started shivering uncontrollably and her hands were purple because they were so cold. So after bundling her up in jammies, sleeping sack, poncho and wrapping her up in a blanket (this for the child who doesn't like to wear her coat outside) I called the doctor's office. They were worried about the shivering but it stopped after about a half hour. She went to bed at normal time but was up at 11 pm and was inconsolable which means she got to sleep with Mama in the guest bed. She was up again at 4 am asking for water and got another dose of Tylenol since her fever had gone back up and at 9 am we were at Dr. Walker's office.

She's been diagnosed with hand-foot-and mouth disease which produces nasty little blisters on the roof of her mouth (which she already has) and the most horrific rash you've ever seen. The virus lasts about 3-5 days - fun times! (She had this once before about a year ago which led to my worst parenting meltdown to date as I sobbed uncontrollably at the Elizabeth Pediatrics doctor's office on a Saturday morning because my child was so sick I thought she was going to die. So embarrasing. The doctor just kept handing me kleenex). Hopefully I won't have such a meltdown again. Obviously we won't be going to school on Friday. So, it'll be lots of smoothies from Smoothie King and some Backyardigans and cuddling until we're back on the mend.

It just wouldn't seem right to have a posting with no picture. Taken a year ago today. WHO IS THIS BABY!?!?!

snow day #2

Oh no there's snow on my mitten!

It snowed overnight and we actually got some accumulation here in Charlotte. It actually started snowing around 6 last night so when Emilia was going to bed we turned the porch lights on and left her blinds open so she could see the snow falling. It was really beautiful and she kept saying "oh wow!" In our excitment that Emilia might actually see some "significant" snowfall, we ran yesterday afternoon to Blackhawk Hardware to get an inflatable saucer for her to slide on. I even dug out the snowsuit for her. After dropping Marcus off at work, I got her all dressed up and took her outside. Needless to say, she hated every second of it. She started saying "all done" pretty much the moment her feet hit the snow. When her mittens got covered in snow it was really all over with. She much prefered to watch Xander and Graham (a couple of little boys from the neighborhood) sliding down the hill from the "safety" and warmth of the living room windows.


Please note the snowsuit has a pocket for a cell phone!!!


Much happier to be inside (marshmallow from her hot cocoa in her hand. She only ate a bite of it. She just liked holding it for a bit).

Watching the neighborhood go by while sipping a little cocoa.