Week of November 5 - Words, Words, and More Words - Added: 3 Photos

Let's begin this weeks post with a photo of Emily sitting on dada's lap reading. Note that this is not quiet reading....this is very noisy reading as Emily loves to vocalize each thing she sees on the page, and want's dad to do the same. Which of course leads us once again to the ongoing debate between baby and dada as to what word is associated with what item on the page. :)


This last week has been very much a time for new words, and even some short phrases from Emily. We can add "please" (pronounced pease) to the list, along with "butterfly" (pronounced baafa, with very deliberate association with butterflies). "Flower" is now very much in vogue with Emily as she points out different flowers to mom or dad through out the day (pronounced fawah) Note once again the complete absence of the "L" ...even though she can sing on and on and on the tune lalalalalaaaalaaalaaaaaah :) There is still some silly word for "bird" that Emily uses when she points to birds, pronounced something like "juhjuuh", though Nancy tells me that Emily can now say the Mandarin word for bird (it's not juhjuuh, but I don't recall what it was as my Mandarin really sucks).

Funny baby phrase of the week... and Nancy is my witness on this one: I was teasing Emily as she wanted me to lift her up on to our bed....so I said to Emily, "say please"...to which she paused for a minute and then grinned and said "peaze". Well, after I lifted her up and on to my lap, she said (remember now, Nancy is my witness here), "bad bad dada". Nancy and I both looked at each other and I asked "did she just say bad bad dada???" Nancy laughed and said "that's the same thing I heard!". This is probably one of those hear it once, never hear it again, but I'm sure my little girl just said it things..... but we know she can pronounce bad and dada...so it certainly gave us a chuckle.

Emily now has "supervised" free run of the first floor of our house and just loves trotting around in the kitchen, dining, living rooms Since she learned to walk on thick pile carpets, hoofing around on the tile floor area is a breeze for her now. We have to watch her pretty closely though as she will dart across the dining room and head right for the stairs and promptly start crawling up. She's pretty fast on those stairs now too!.....I'm just not comfortable with her going up those without one of us with here yet. I'll be unpacking our second child gate this weekend. :)

This last weekend we went shopping for some new PJs for Emily. I was a happy camper as it was an opportunity to shop for some new vests and pants for Emily, much to mom's angst as dad shopping for baby clothes causes wrinkles for form on her forehead. I just love vests for Emily as they keep her warm, yet she can have freedom to move around without a heavy sweater or jacket on since the grandparents insist that she be dressed warmly 7/24. Anyway, we scored two great new little vests, a new pair pants and a couple of blouses + the PJs. Yay!! Mom just sighed and relented...mumbling something about not asking me to go on the next shopping expediton. :)

Emily is prgressing well on an expanded diet of soft chewable foods. She will eat just about anything we offer, especially if it comes from our food plate. But for her main meal of the day, I have started making batches of chopped carrots, broccoli, and peas simmered in chicken broth and packed up in small containers for the freezer. That way I can pull them out as needed to add into Emily's lunch when I prepare it in the mornings. A typical lunch will begin with one of the popular Gerber stage 2 dinner entrees to which I then add scrambled egg, or steamed salmon along with the veggies to make a nice yummy meal so she can chew as it suits her fancy. She loves peas and likes to savor them by taking an especially long time chewing and then swallowing them. Since Emily loves warm cereal for breakfast we have started to wean her toward oatmeal, mixing and preparing oatmeal and then adding in some of her regular multigrain baby cereal and some chopped raisins, all mixed and prepared with milk. Sometimes I put some chopped banana into that as well since she is very much a "nanna" monster (it is one of her favorites). "Nanna" (for banana) is not to be confused with "nahnah" (baby Mandarin for Milk, but most often pronounced with emphasis of demand as nahNAH!!!). In fact, the common morning chatter from Emily's room while she waits for one of us to come get her goes along the lines of: baby chortals and giggles with her stuffed puppy for a while, followed by mama, dada, nahNAH, dada, mama.... and then rinse and repeat (louder each time) until we come get her :)

And when it comes to eating food, if Emily tastes something she really likes she smiles and say "mmmmmmmm" to let us know she approves and wants more. Emily is quite the food mooch too, and will not hesitate to let you know she wants some of whatever mom or dad is eating. As evidence I submit the two following photos for your enjoyment. If it's good for Moms tummy, then baby want's some too...be it punkin pie or dad's homemade congeee. The way I see it, there is a food tax applied by baby on anything Mom is eating :)

Mouth wide wide open....MMMMMMMM....PIE!!!

And of course the ever favorite of little girls from China....MMMMM.....Congee!!

This last weekend was Emily's first experience with fresh made cornbread, and for that I received a very enthusiastic "MMMMMMMM" and that look that says it all, "more!"