It's been a super busy time for me - learning how to my job, going back to the crazy working mom life, the exhausted evenings. I wish I could've done a better job updating this blog, but a recap will have to do.
For the past few weeks, Emily has been SO MUCH FUN! Emily is developing so much and so fast!
1. Talking: Emily talks SO much! And I am absolutely loving it! She really imitates everything she can. One of my favorite new memories is that Emily loves to watch Little Baby Bum on Netflix. And there's this one song about shapes, and she tries to imitate it as best as she can! She imitates the words: square, circle, triangle, rectangle, star, heart, oval. She gets stuck on hexagon and pentagon, which cracks up me and Sy. Haha! She has learned more that objects have names and she calls out those objects and points to them. She says bbin = hair pin; buh = bird, puh = plane, cluh = clock, she's getting close to saying "light", she mispronounces yangmal (socks) as meymee; mee = mool (water), etc. I can't even remember all of the words she can say or tries to say. All I know is, she is a mimicking machine. Once Sy yelled out Dang! and she yelled out da! and then we switched to Man! and she went mahh! If we go Shhh, she'll copy us. If we whisper, she'll whisper. Watching her learn how to talk has been so much fun. And the fun part is that she's getting her cousin Carol to talk more too bc she wants to do what Emily does. Haha!
2. Walking: Emily has been getting pretty good at standing up on her own. She stands up, smiles really big and is so proud of herself for being able to do it by herself. She's starting to take a few steps too. She can do about 2-6 steps on her own as she goes to you with arms outstretched. The cutest part is that she closes her eyes a little while she walks. Probably bc she's a little scared. But she's still so excited to do it and does her steps with a big smile on her face. I feel like she's going to start walking by the end of the month. I can't wait to see her accomplish this fully! Yesterday, at church, she actually took a few steps walking AWAY from us. and Sy and I were so proud of her and also stunned by her bravery! So crazy and exciting to approach this milestone!
3. Cognitive skills: If we ask Emily where's her nose, she can point to her nose! She's not as good at pointing at her eyes and mouth. But at least she's mastered nose. Haha. And we have a book full of vocabulary words with pictures. And she can identify things! At the picture of string cheese, she'll say ch. And the picture of bananas, she says nana. At the picture of a baby - she says baby. Haha. She also calls every child a baby. And we have to remind her that SHE's a baby! Emily also now understands that diapers are dirty, and she likes to throw out the diapers herself! We hand it over to her, and she crawls her way over to the trash can and throws it in while we hold down the pedal to keep the lid open. It's pretty fun to see her "help" out. We also taught Emily how to do "geedo sohn = prayer hands" before meals. She'll clasp her hands, we'll say a prayer, and then she claps when we're done and is learning to say amen. It's so cute to see. My mom especially is loving this video. That said - Emilyhas also learned how to clap! She really loves clapping to If you're happy and you it. So she loves to clap - especially when we sing that song. When we go get her from the crib, she calls out "kkuh" = turn it off, to shut off her humidifier and sound machine. It's so funny. And nowadays, she's realized that she can kind of say her own name - and she pronounces Emily as emeeyah. She also knows that the wooden sign over her crib says Emily, and she points to it and say emeeyah. Oh, she also has learned over the weekend who she is. So when we say where's Emily? She points to her chest. haha! We learned that Emily knows who everyone is as well. If you ask her where's hamee (grandma) - she'll look in her direction. And we tested her with everyone: grandma, grandpa, adam, carol, aunt, uncle. It's pretty amazing!
4. Car rides with emily has gotten hard again. My suspicion is that she now feels super restrained in there bc all she wants to do is crawl around and explore. So for a while, I tried to give her toys to keep her entertained. But then she would throw the toys to the side and then cry super hard bc she couldn't reach them. I tried singing to her in the car, but that only worked for maybe 10 min at a time. The best solution I then found was to give her a piece of bread. she would slowly munch on that and stay quiet in the car until she finished her bread, and then cry super hard again. (AND it would leave me with a car seat full of crumbs. smh). BUT, we have now found the perfect solution. We discovered that Emily's favorite Little Baby Bum was available on youtube, and we found that if we streamed it over bluetooth, she was happy as a clam to listen to her favorite songs. It's been a miracle godsend. And now our long car rides to and from Long Island are way more tolerable for her and for us.
5. Food: Emily's eating has totally gone back to normal and she eats really well again. Granted, she still doesn't like tofu nor eggs. But she loves to eat other food. We gave Emily her first taste of jjajjangmyun - and she loved it. We also have been letting her eat croissants - which she loves as well. She definitely loves carbs. People always marvel at how much she eats - especially for her size. But I'm super proud of her eating skills. And yes, she's a little picky, but she's still a pretty great eater. In terms of milk, Emily is slowly starting to drink more milk now. We still can only give her milk int he morning and night bc she really doesn't like to drink milk with anyone else but me. But hey - we're getting close to 7 oz per feeding. That's pretty amazing according to Emily's history. I'm finding Emily's smartness to be so endearing. Every time it's time for milk or meals, she always asks for her "bi" for bib. If she sees me in the kitchen preparing her food, she tells me we need to get her bib. Same for milk time. And when she drinks milk, she always has her favorite position - head in the crook of my arm, her leg draped over my leg, bottle cap in one hand, her pluto doll at her feet. She's a creature of habit. But it's pretty darn cute. Teeth-wise, Emily has gained new teeth. She now has almost 4 bottom teeth, 3 on top, and 1 on the side back. It's so nice to know her teeth are coming in and soon she'll be able to bite things better. I am looking forward to when we can slowly stop spoon-feeding her.
6. Child-care: In big news - we have hired a nanny for Emily. Our nanny search was pretty tough. We had a lot of no-shows, weirdos, people that just found other jobs fast, etc. I was pretty stressed for a while. But we've hired someone finally. She doesn't have any direct babysitting experience, but she's a retired hakwon owner who is a friend of a friend's mother. I've been spending the past 2 wednesdays training her via half days. I just don't think Emily can handle being left alone with her without any form of time to build a relationship of trust. So despite how awkward it can be to spend 4 hours a day with this woman, I'd rather endure that than to know that Emily will be scared out of her mind being left with a stranger. I'm hoping that after 3 sessions, Emily will be familiar enough with this woman and it will not be a disastrous day of crying. I hope that this woman will grow to love Emily like her own grandchild and that Emily will grow to love her too. But man, it is still terrifying to entrust a stranger with your child. We've been lucky to have Sy's parents watch Emily. At the end of the day, they are her family, and they love her to death. But a stranger is a stranger. I really, really pray that Emily will do okay with this woman and it will be a fairly smooth transition.
It's been quite the month since I last updated. I hope that I'll be able to update a little more frequently. But in the meantime, our little baby bloomed into a toddler, and I feel like she's become cuter than ever. It's crazy how you can continue to grow and grow more in love with your child. =D
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