beach vids

Pretty much self explanatory...

21 months young

Um... when did she get this old?

for some of us it was a long ride to the beach.

This post was going to be strictly about our beach trip (which was fabulous), but first I must acknowledge the milestone of Emilia's birthday.

New words: bap (bread), frio (cold), tite (stickers), flor (flor/flower), voy! (I'm coming!), oh baby!, sub (subir/go up), moco (mosco/bug), paya (playa/beach), goes (for George, as in Curious G.), hoja (leaf), hup (help), hummy (hummus), bus, cars.

trying on Papa's shoes.

Loves: buses and cars for sure. There was a kid at the beach who had the massive tonka trucks - I practically had to hold her back from wrenching them out of his hands. She loves to give five (her technique is really spectacular - must document), and can state her age (shows age simultaneously). Also, she's picked up counting in Spanish, but instead of counting "uno, dos, tres, cuatro" (1,2,3,4) she counts "uno, dos, tres, siete" (one, two, three, seven). Apparently she uses a base 4 mathematical system. Water is a massive fave now, most especially the beach. She really loved it this weekend - we practically had to drag her off the beach.

exhausted on the beach. she would lay down and close her eyes in her tent, but refused to fall asleep.

Travesuras: I can't really think of any new naughty things she's doing. Mostly her naughty-ness stems from the occasional tantrum (though I must say those have diminshed recently), and the occasional meltdown. She still loves to climb all over everything, but at least I've now turned that in to her climbing into her high chair for meals.

sheer joy.

the ride home - Emi loved looking at some books until she took a snooze.

the haps

It's been a busy week as usual around these parts... getting geared up for the summer with our first family vacay and our impending trip South o' the Border. A few milestones of note.

First, goodbye baby tub! Emilia has had an unnatural fear/phobia of the tub for as long as we can remember. She'll only get in our big tub if Marcus or I get in to it. Her fear of the tub was such that, in Virginia, we had to go out and buy her a toddler tub at IKEA and leave it there. Ridiculous. This week I decided enough was enough. She's now successfully bathed in the big tub all week and has discovered that a) it's not nearly as scary as she thought it was and b) it's a whole lot of fun because there's more water to splash.

Secondly, naptime. I've got Emilia so trained about when it's time for her to take a nap that it's almost ridiculous. At this point she'll pretty much start grabbing her naptime accessories (favorite blankey du jour, taggie, and baby) and start getting comfy. Today, she was quietly playing in her room just before naptime. When I walked in, this was what I saw...

her favorite 'bija (for cobija = blanket) is one that Tia Lo brought her from Costa Rica. Here she's trying to swaddle baby.

still struggling with the swaddling.

snuggled on her chair reading baby one of her alphabet books - the letter P.

We're off to Sunset Beach (on the border between the Carolinas) for the long weekend. Happy Summer to one and all!!!!

first and last

walking towards her future? gasp!

This weekend was way mellow - a little summer clothes shopping, a little IKEA shopping, a little vacation planning - nothing thrilling.

So, this post, is about a first. Two firsts, in fact.

Emilia has just completed her first year of "school." (I put school in quotes because, quite frankly, it's not like they're learning advanced trig or how to diagram sentences or anything at this point). Still, I feel like it's a little bit of a moment. I've already written my very first lunch note. (My Mama used to write a note on my napkin every SINGLE day she packed my lunch - which was always the exact same thing btw - complete with drawings of chickens and houses and faces). Fortunately, Emilia's got a much more varied appetite in terms of her lunchtime meals, though my pictures and notes do lack a certain creativity. I'm also fairly certain Ms. Courtney & Ms. Annete thought I was a total freak, but if they did, sweet women, they kept their opinions to themselves.

So, it's a first... and a last.

Friday was Emilia's last day of her first year of ever going to school. I only hope that she loves school as much as I always have. Part of the reason I became a teacher was because, quite frankly, I couldn't imagine doing anything else with my life. I mean, seriously, how do you have a life without having something of a summer vacation? It's the same reason why I tinkered with the idea of becoming a PA or going in to PT - I couldn't imagine not wearing a uniform. Too many years of Catholic school, I suspect, making my brain all wonky.

Anyway. Enough about me, on to the important stuff...

Emilia and classmates/pals Meredith and Domenic.

nothing sweeter than this sweaty neck.

the "A" word

So, our Pearly has it.

Asthma.

Totally bummed by the diagnosis, but can't say it was a complete surprise. The constant cough, allergies, congestion, and recurring bouts of reactive airway disease and bronchiolitis meant we were probably going to be headed down this route.

So now we're back on Singulair and I spent yesterday tracking down a nebulizer (which I've decided I'm going to let her decorate and cover with stickers or something) so we can help Emilia do two breathing treatments a day for the next month. We're taking her to go see a pediatric allergist/pulmonologist on Monday so we'll have more info then.

Emilia has to sit for about 10 minutes to do one treatment. So far, we have been wholly unsuccessful at getting her to sit still for that long. We've had to resort to using Backyardigans and Curious George to entertain her. Of course, so far, we haven't made it through an entire treatment.

Emilia decided Baby needed some breathing treatment as well.

sighting

So the other day (Tuesday maybe?) Marcus got home early enough to mow the lawn. Startled by this amazing sight, Emilia ran to the pantry, grabbed a bag of "paps" (puffs/cereal) and stood on the deck to watch the show.

sofia, anthony y emilia

Such a neglegent mother - I forgot to post these pictures from last Friday when Emilia got to hang out with pals Sofia and Anthony up in Huntersville...

dude, anthony - a little space!

attempts at a group shot - total nightmare.... like everyone's post-swimming attire?

after the ladies finally booted anthony off the futon.

Don't really know what to say about this video - there's some singing, there's some reading... good stuff.

splash!

First off, Mother's Day was delightful. I got lots of lovely gifts including a "Tryon St. bouquet", a delicious dinner at Upstream, and a flower that will last forever...
made at school with Ms. Courtney & Ms. Annete. if you can't tell, the petals are her handprints and the leaves are her footprints.

Today Emilia went with her friend, Kyrie, to the 7th rung of hell, alternatively known as Ray's Splash Planet for their toddler day. For $3 toddlers (under 4s) had the run of the place for 3 hours. The weather was rather icky, which I think contributed to the relatively low turnout at Ray's. Emi didn't care for the splashing so much, at least initially, but eventually warmed up to it and stayed in the water for over an hour. Purple, pruny and tired, I had to drag her out of the water and back home for lunch and a nice long (though not long enough!) nap.

kyrie (or 'yrie) was super adventurous!

chevere y mas chimbas

So, Emilia has fallen in love with her sunglasses recently - I guess she thinks she looks really cool...

making her "sonrisa" face - her fake smile

...and we are finally learning to keep our chimbas in our hair....

ready for the next to last day of school.

After our usual Thursday morning gymnastics class with Morgan and Kyrie we took the 3 girlies out to lunch. Later that afternoon (after a marathon 3 hour nap!) Emilia and I went over to Morgan's where she was invited to spend some time in the sandbox.

at momo's house playing in her giant sandbox - loved it.

still groggy from their marathon gymnastics-lunch-nap sessions, though not so groggy that emi couldn't steal morgan's snack.

Since Marcus had to work on Saturday, Emilia and I spent the morning emptying out the pots on the deck, getting ready for Spring. Then someone got a hold of the garden hose. Suddenly, it became a wet t-shirt contest.

first place winner of the wet t-shirt contest. also, it took 2 days for her shoes to dry out - oops!

addendum

The other day when I was doing my 20 month stats post I forgot to mention Emilia's singing. Now, she's been singing for a while, but now you can definitely tell the tune. A lot of times she's singing the "hello" song from MT class. I took this video of her singing in the bath the other day... see if you can tell what song she's singing (before getting distracted).


it's frere jacques btw