32 month update

It’s unbelievable but true, my baby will be 3 in just a few short months.  Here’s a little of what she’s been up to recently…

* Emilia is crazy about one of her warm-weather faves, blowing bubbles.  We have tons of bubble blowing stuff in the house now and we spend tons of time outside blowing bubbles.

*It’s the start of ‘birthday season’ around here.  Over the past few weeks Emilia has/had birthday parties to go to just about every week.  It’s craziness but she loves it.  She loves to see all her friends (currently we’re in a wave neighborhood friend’s birthdays) and of course the cupcakes aren’t to shabby either.  Of course the other day she did stop to ask “Mama, whens my birfday?”  Oops.

at Mari’s (neighborhood friend in polka dots) birthday party.  As you can see, she was the youngest and the shortest.

with Xander, another ‘hood friend at the same party.

* She’s all about books right now.  Our story time has morphed from a couple of stories before bed to reading stories from the moment she’s done with dinner until Papa comes home, and then again before bed.  Current faves are of course, Curious George, The Peter Rabbit series, Strawberry Shortcake stories, and Skippyjohn Jones.  What’s so funny is she’ll pick up on a phrase from one of these books (like ‘rodeo cowboy’ from George) and use it all the time in her everyday speech. (Mama, I is a rodeo cowboy) – of course she has no idea what that means, but it’s HILARIOUS the stuff she comes up with.

*The girl is ALL about ‘gol’ classes with Papa (her little weekly soccer practices in the hood).  Much to Marcus’ chagrin she INSISTS that the two of them wear matching jerseys and that the practice every night.

* The bilingual thing has really kicked in.  It’s pretty clear that Emilia knows exactly when we’re speaking in English vs. in Spanish.  She’s also getting pretty good at knowing what language she should be speaking in which setting (ex: we had Spanish-speaking friends over a couple of weeks ago and she knew she should be speaking in Spanish, yet at school she speaks almost exclusively in English).

*She recognizes the letter ‘e’ as ‘her letter’ (but if you ask her what her name is she still answers “Emi Puchis Pu” – oops.

*She’s still obsessed with her babies, especially Baby Jesus (holy humiliating – especially when she starts screaming “BABY JESUS – WHERE ARE YOU!!??” she sounds like a Pentecostal Christian at a tent revival.  I blame it on the Christmas Eve nativity we went to.

*She makes up stories now – about her friends at school, about us, about the dog, everything.  It’s hilarious.  It’s also a little tricky because you have to take what she says with a grain of salt.  (Example: When I picked her up from school the other day Ms. Susan relayed a story Emilia had told her about me being mad at home because Chola has peed on the rug.  Never happened).  The girl’s got an active imagination.

* On Fridays I try to take Emilia out for a special treat, inspired by my friend Anne.  It doesn’t happen every Friday but more often than not it does.  As a result Emilia has discovered a LOVE of red velvet cupcakes and I have to say – they are AWFULLY tasty.

*Food-wise Emi’s pretty hit-or-miss right now.  Some days she’ll plow through everything we give her.  Other days I think she survives on water.  I try not to stress about it too much and offer her what we’re eating and that’s it.  I refuse to start being a short order cook for her in order to get her to eat.  She’s big on fruits and veggies though so the real issue is getting some protein in her.

Two not-so-nice traits…

* The nail biting.  It’s incessent and disgusting and I’m at my wits end.  I swear she’s going to lose the little bit of nail she has left on her index finger.  The pediatrician says there’s no real remedy but at this point I’ll take any and all suggestions before I start calling child psychologists in the area.

* The tantrums.  Oh LORD the tantrums.  They’re more sporadic as we allow her to be a bit more independent in some things, but the other day was BAD.  She was irritated because she wanted to drive the car home (um, yeah, you’re two and can’t reach the pedals).  Then when I strapped her in the carseat she fully flipped out.  It was awful and oh-so-scary.  She carried on like this for 25 minutes (I timed it).  She was SO worked up and upset that by the time we got home I had to give her a drop of Benadryl to calm her down and to even be able to get close to her.  Eventually she let me pick her up and then she collapsed sound asleep in my arms.  Whew.  I hope we never experience another tantrum like that again.

you guessed it – another birthday party.  This time at Alara’s.  Emilia licked all the icing off the cupcake and left the cake.

our artist.