February 19, 2007

November 11^th – signing “all done”

November 18^th – blowing kisses

November 23^rd – telling dogs “no” when they bark

November 25^th - Pretending to give food

November 25^th – learn sign for “book” and begins to use it

November 18^th – Pretending to sneeze

November 27^th – Making car sounds (vroom, vroom!)

November 29^th – Boogies to Red Hot Chili Peppers

November 29^th – Points to and says “Eye”, will point to her nose or your nose if asked about a nose

November 30^th – Opening drawers

December 3^rd – can feel first molar coming in on bottom, right.

December 9^th – signs and says “more”

December 11^th – can feel bottom right tooth coming in. Total teeth = 4 bottom, front, 4 top, front and one bottom, right molar.

Christmas – all of her molars are now in. Total of 12 teeth!

End of January – began linking two words together.

February 3^rd – Emma is 16 months old!!

Emma is now wearing 12-18 month size clothes and size 4 shoe and weights 22.6 pounds. I’m loosing track of the dates that she is doing new things. There are a lot to keep up with and little time to write them down!

Emma can say her own name, as well as Lisa, Abby and Katie. She knows all of her facial features and most of her body parts. Her new words are: elbow, Elmo, on, knee, shoes, toes, eye, Yum-yum, down (which means down OR up), pee pee, more, moon, Pooh (for Winnie the Pooh), ouch, boy, cow, moo moo, choo-choo, toot-toot (for train whistle), car, tree, puppy, me, you, and baby.

Emma began linking two words together at the end of January, which is a speech development milestone. She will say “hi” or “bye” and then the person or object’s name. She says hi and bye to our dogs and to Elmo as well. She will also say “no” and the whatever she doesn’t like or is missing. For example, she asked for a ball and I told her we didn’t have a ball. She said, “no ball.” She’ll ask about the moon when outside at night and if we can’t see it, she’ll say “no moon.”

She is eating new foods such as bran muffin, brown rice, broccoli, cauliflower, green peas (IF they are pureed – she does not like anything with a waxy skin), corn and black beans. I’ve also slowly started tying the Gerber Lil’ Graduates side dishes. She likes the carrot and chicken ravioli but NOT the broccoli mashed potatoes. I’ll try the spaghetti this weekend – I try a new item every week or so. With new things I give her a day or two in between for I never know if it will give her “toxic poop,” which then leads to bad diaper rash. Like me, she has a sensitive tummy and lower digestive system. Most of the foods we give her are plain (a little pepper added) and she doesn’t get a lot of dairy.

Brushing her teeth has become an occasional challenge. Some evenings she is all about it, others not at all. We did find a toddler toothbrush that is soft, so we are no longer using the infant toothbrush that fits over our finger.

Emma continues to LOVE books and she has quit biting them (yippee!). She has her favorite books and will bring a book over to either Jared or I, sit in our lap to have us read to her. There are times where she’ll get up from our lap and go get several books in one reading session. She still will sit and “read” them on her own.

She pretends to talk on the phone, which is really funny to watch. If she doesn’t have a toy phone to talk on, she’ll “talk” with her hand up to her ear. She will walk around the house chatting it up on the phone. During her phone conversations, she will whisper and then get all excited and talk really loud. Last weekend, Grandpa Choo Choo would put his hand to his ear and pretend to talk with Emma. She would respond by putting her hand to her ear and listen and then talk back. They were sitting across from each other in the living room.

Emma notices music on the radio and the television A LOT more. We have to be careful what we listen to and watch with her around. She likes Red Hot Chili Peppers, Black Eyed Peas and Jack Johnson a lot – she dances or wiggles in her car seat when she hears their music. She will point out and say objects she knows when the t.v. is on and she will ask for her movie (Baby Einstein) to be played.

She is still into cleaning things with her sock (still blows her nose on her sock, as well), used dryer sheet or wet-wipe. She will also take a wet-wipe and clean her face and wipe her nose. Once she wipes her nose with it, I ask her to throw it away, and we walk to the kitchen to throw it in the garbage can under the sink that pulls out. She really likes throwing things away in that garbage can.

Emma is full on running now and with great skill. She is also big enough to get up onto the couch without the assistance of her chair. She will get up on the couch and just run back and forth along it. Emma also likes to fall backwards onto the pillows at the far end of the couch and just lay there.

Emma LOVES going to the park and swinging on the kiddy swings and going down the steep slide with me. She will watch other kids that are there and if they are young enough, she will go up to them and say “hi.” If the kids are older, she just watches them. With bigger kids, say 6 years plus, she will just watch and won’t engage them. She knows they are just that much older and not so much of a playmate. If she sees a group of kids playing with a ball, she wants to play with the ball also. Not play WITH them, but with the BALL. She LOVES balls of all kinds – her favorite seems to be a soccer ball.

She still loves getting tickled, being jumped at from behind the furniture to be scared and being chased. I doubt she’ll out grow any of those any time soon and I hope she DOESN’T anytime soon (smiles). Emma also likes being tossed up into the air and turned upside down.

Eating with a fork has become very frustrating for Emma. Her brain knows how it SHOULD work, but she can’t get it yet. She gets frustrated and will often bite the fork in frustration or throw it. I now give her a utensil when I’m feeding her so she can try it out, but I hold the plate/bowl and feed her. She doesn’t get frustrated when we eat that way and she still gets to practice. Her practicing right now is hitting her food rather than scooping it, which I show her each time I feed her. I think she is trying to stab it with a fork (or spoon) for that is what she sees us do when we feed her. She’ll get it when she’s ready to get it. She has also started drinking from a big kid cup. She wears a lot of water that way, too, but she doesn’t seem to care, so why should we.

Emma has begun using her right more often for tasks than her left. Her hair is getting curlier and it gets longer (see pics below).

*************** UPDATE ON JARED & RENEÉ ***********************

Emma and I are still in Sacramento until we can figure out exactly how, when and what we are doing with respect to our house. We’ve not put our house on the market yet. We are seriously looking at renting it and have started that process. More to follow on that.

Jared continues to like his job at MRL and is getting settled in. He comes home on Friday nights and leaves Monday morning. I am working for a company in a position I can do from home. In fact, everyone who works for Sunlight Communications, Inc. work from their home office. Emma is still in daycare full-time, for it is not a job where she can be home with me and it is a regular 8-5 type of schedule.

My new job is a combination of my job at AT&T and my most recent position with WebEx Communications. Sunlight is a reseller of both AT&T (among other carriers, Qwest, Verizon, etc.) and Raindance (web-based audio and video conferencing) products and services. Raindance has been recently purchased by InterCall, who in turn is a reseller of WebEx services. So, I do sales, installation coordination and provisioning of both AT&T and Raindance products and services. I’m on the phone and the computer all day and have customers all over the US.

Jared finished his physical therapy last week and his knee continues to heal and gain flexibility. He was going to physical therapy once a week in Sonora. He still walks with a limp and has some stiffness and is occasionally uncomfortable with some pain/ache. It will be a long road for him, but he is doing great.

That about wraps it up for now. Click once on the pictures below for a larger image. Then, hit the “back” button to return to the webpage.

Take care!

R’