I meant to write an update when we hit Emily's 2nd birthday, but time has just flown by again!
Emily is now a little past 2, and her developments continue to astound me!
Talking: Emily is such a little chatterbox! At our 2 year doctors appointment, I asked my usual question of what milestones should we be on the lookout for. And our doctor asked if Emily was speaking with sentences with 2 or 3 words yet. And I was proud to say that Emily uses sentences with 4 to 5 words! He was happy to hear of her speech development and I'm glad that she's a little ahead of the curve! What shocks me is how Emily's storytelling is getting so good. She not only remembers memories from weeks ago, but she recounts these stories in pretty good detail! Here's an example:
About a month ago, Sy was pulling out a tupperware from the fridge and he accidentally dropped it, causing it to shatter and we had to clean it up. This is Emily's version of this story:
Us: what happened this morning?
E: appa dropped mama!
Us: then what happened?
E: umm, glass was everywhere!
Us: what did appa say?
E: appa said stay on pink mat! don't come to kitchen!
Us: why did you stay on the pink mat?
E: appa have to vacuum!
She loves retelling this story all the time. It's cute (and sometimes tiring. haha)! It's also funny how she's learned to say "umm" and sometimes she'll go "hmm" if she's thinking. She also loves to ask "what's this?" Sometimes it's genuine bc she wants to know what it is, other times it's just her way to get us to ask her what it is so SHE can tell us what it is. Haha. I guess she's proud to flaunt her knowledge of stuff. What cracks me up is when she mimics the sounds of things she hears. She'll say things like "blowdryer goes woooooooooo" or "humidifer goes waeeeeee." Her imitations of things are so funny and accurate. She's even learned how to imitate her cousin trying to poo on the potty. She clenches her fists, and pretends to push imaginary poo out. Her face gets a little flushed from the physical exertion, and she grits her teeth and bares them as she pushes. Haha, cracks us up so much!
Games: It's crazy how Emily's interests have changed more into toddlerland. She recently has learned how to play with a princess magnetic dress up kit. She enjoys putting the shoes on the princess. She also constantly wants to show her bunny stuff. She'll read books to her bunny, or she'll have bunny touch stuff, she'll have bunny watch her brush her teeth. It's super cute. Emily is enjoying her Peppa Pig playhouse a lot more now. She has them pretend to take baths, or eat food, or watch tv, or go to bed. When we go to other people's houses who have play kitchens, she puts ingredients in pots and pretends to make soup and drink from soup spoons. Even her doctor play kit, she knows how to extend her pretend play - and she'll just use random spoons to feed me medicine, put imaginary lotion and bandaids on me, etc. I'm so proud that she is developing such an imagination! Emily also has learned how to hide - well, so she thinks. When she hears us coming, she'll say "Hide!" and then she'll just bury her head in a pillow or something. We can fully see her, and she's pretty much unhidden, but to her, she's hiding. She's a terrible hide-er. She also gives herself away by giggling uncontrollably, and also by answering questions we might say. For example, if she's hiding, I'll say, "Appa - Emily is gone!" And he'll say, "Is Emily in the kitchen?" and she'll say, "noooo." Hahaha. She really doesn't get that she's a terrible hide-er but it's fun to watch. When she plays with her cousins, they do a better job to help hide her, but she still always gives herself away. It's hilarious.
Food: Emily's love for sweets continues to grow. Now that her cousin Carol is potty trained, she gets a lollipop everytime she successfully poos in the toilet. The problem is that now, Emily also gets one whenever she gets one. So Emily is always wanting lollipops. Hence, she also likes to tell the story of how she got a lollipop when she went to the doctors office. Haha! Emily also really loves chocolate. For some reason, she now must have some kind of chocolate after every bath. So we have to give her bites of candy bars now. SMH. Perhaps it's bc her cousin gets to eat more sweets than she does, but she loves chocolate pocky sticks, those coffee chocolate sticks (pirourettes), chocolate chip cookies, and ice cream. We have a lot of leftover ice cream cake from my birthday, and every few days, she'll ask for cake. Haha! She also loves donuts (particularly those from Doughnuttery), and she loves ice cream. Even though she is a big salty-snack lover, I do believe she has my love of sweets as well. Thank God she is a skinny baby. I don't know how I'd be able to say no to her cute face if she were on the overweight side. On an interesting note, I recently made her a pea pesto pasta, and she absolutely LOVES IT. She constantly asks to eat the green pasta, and while she often gets sick of eating the same food for multiple days, when it comes to her green pasta, she can eat it forever. It's really great that she loves this super healthy food! Emily's been really big on grapes these days, and going to the supermarket is always tough bc we can't pass by the grapes section without her wanting a bag, and for me to feed her grapes the entire supermarket session. She's also recently learned to like chicken fingers - which makes going out to restaurants easier bc that's almost always available for kids menus. Similarly - she loves juice so much. Haha. And the sad thing is, she loves full-sugar juice more than kid-friendly juices that are healthier. She loves orange juice, and she loves drinking from mini juice boxes and pouches. But flavor-wise, she does not prefer the HonestAdes of the world bc they're simply not as sweet as a Tropicana. I have created a monster. Emily's fickleness when it comes to snacks can be frustrating. She is a snack machine, and yet, she is so picky about her snacks. She'll stand in the kitchen and reject every snack until we get to one she's in the mood for. For me, that means I try to stock up her snack pantry with all kinds of snacks, but then Sy disagrees and that she should just not get a snack if she doesn't like what I give her. I see his point, but it's so hard for me to say no to her!
Sleep: Emily's sleep is normal for the most part. The interesting thing is that i've noticed that emily occasionally sleep talks! There was one night when she was "crying" in her sleep and she shouted, "nooo! emmy-kkuh!" which translates to "that's mine!" and sy and i just laughed as we realized that she must be dreaming about her cousins taking stuff from her! Hahaha! The stressful dreams of a toddler... so funny. Overall, she's become a bit more whiny in her sleep. I think she really must be dreaming. On a side note, Emily is a very fearful child. As she gets older and older, she becomes more scared of things. She gets scared of scary looking animals on tv - wolves, dinosaurs, bad guys, etc. She also gets scared by unknown sounds - a lawn mower in the distance, etc. She even gets scared of scary events she sees on tv - like a fire scene in her cartoons. So my guess is that she must have anxious dreams too in her sleep. Maybe they haunt her in her dreams too. I wish that she wasn't such a scared child, but what else can we do? We do our best to tell her that things aren't scary, but I understand that you can't help what you're scared of. On the flipside, it's incredibly sweet when she cuddles up close and clings to your arm when she's scared. She trusts so much that she's in good hands if we hold her.
I have lots of other updates to write about, but I think I'll save them for my next entry, which will cover a different topic. But for now, here's what's been going on!
