Week of December 31 - Happy New Year!! 2007

Hard to believe that we are into a new year already. Nancy was reflecting on 2006 over the weekend, and kept saying what a wonderful year it had been. Just about that time, Emily would come running up and give her Mommy a snuggle, or a giggle, or even climb up on the couch and give Mommy a little nose kiss. Indeed! a very good year.


I won't share a lot of photos today, since I'd rather write a bit about Emily's continued development. But you have to admit, the photo above is a cutie isn't it? The outfit is still slightly large for Emily, so we will probably put it away until spring, but she seemed to really enjoy dressing up in formal coat and hat a lot, and she always looks so good in purple. :-P

Emily's physical and cognitive development continues to advance well.

As I predicted earlier a few months ago, Emily is a runner and a natural explorer. When we went outside the other day, she promptly started walking off down the drive as if she had a mission, knew where she was going, and actually had an appointment of some kind. I followed her until we got to the end of the private drive that leads to our house and then had to put the brakes on and try to turn her around. She laughed and giggled, and tried to convince me we had to head on down toward the mail boxes. But I prevailed and back home we went. Emily is indeed very mobile, loves to trot from place to place, likes to run after Daddy (always a popular and fun sport around the island in the kitchen), and will readily climb up and down the stairs now as well if we let her.

I have started the process of safety latching all the cupboards in the kitchen now. Though Emily is very good about following instructions and will stop and back away from something if we tell her "no", it is impossible to supervise her all the time, so some precautions are needed. She has a real eye for detail and can pick even the smallest piece of lint from the carpet and will bring it to me to dispose of. I don't know how long that will go on before she starts putting stuff in her mouth, but happily she has never been prone to do so, not even her fingers. Fingers in the nose on the other hand is a recent new habit that we are still working on convincing her to drop :)

Emily's speech and comprehension continues to progress well. She is beginning to put short sentences together on her own now and use them of her own choosing rather then mimicking us. Just yesterday, Emily was upstairs with mom and looking down into our family room from above upon seeing me said "hi dada" while waving and smiling down at me. Her long time favorite "ahhahh" for food has progressed now to a more favorite "nummynummy" when she see either one of us eating something and wants her fair share.

When we go shopping to the store, Emily will very often point out favorite food items in the store well before we even approach them. She made an emphatic pointed finger to "nanah" while the bananas were still a good twenty feet away. Same thing for "nana" (yes different spelling for different toning for a different food item) every time we were opposite long aisles from the milk coolers (over and over again). If she sees something on the shelf she thinks she likes, but does not know the name of it, she simply reverts to "nummynummy" to let me know that I should consider adding it to the cart.

For New Years eve (daytime) we traveled as a family to a Korean Tofu restaurant for a family meal. Emily had been here once before so we knew she loved the food and of course we already have learned of her love for spicy food. So we ordered up the traditional hot tofu soup dish and a hot rice dish with all kinds of goodies to stir into it. The meal was great and Emily gobbled up more then her fair share along the way I might add too. We order the dishes "mild spicy" which is roughly equivalent to typical Mexican food level of spicy. Emily (naturally for a Hunan girl) loves the spicy and will eat and eat. Not to mention the fact that Emily very much loves going out to eat (since she does this once or twice a week on average with grandparents) and is almost always a pleasure to dine with. This time around, Emily developed a real love for picking apart a small sheet of roasted seaweed Mommy gave her until it was little tiny bits (Emily loves find detail work of all kinds).

Things we are still working on with Emily: 1) trying to encourage her NOT to bring all of her toys into the kitchen, and if she does to put them back in her toy box. She is however actually pretty good about putting her toys away when you ask her to, and sometimes will do so even without being asked. 2) trying to help her understand that saying please (pronounced "peeze!") does not automatically guarantee that when she asks for something that she gets it just because she included "peeze!" 3) helping Emily to understand that when "peeze!" does not work, escalating to a full on cry won't work either. I will also note that Emily knows that she needs to sit down in her chair or on the floor and do nothing until she has decided that she is done crying. At which point when we engage her again, she will pat her chest with one hand to let us know she is finished and is ready to be picked up and cuddled. 4) boundaries are something Emily loves to test. She can be pretty playful about it, and has even developed an early ability to play the "what?" "who, me?" cards in the process too. Suffice it to say, she is very smart, very clever, and as with all little kids wants to see how much she is permitted to do. Boundaries of course will be a work in progress for many years to come and in a certain sort of way, I am really enjoying this part of parenting.

Anyway, as you can see we are having a blast with Emily, even though we have challenges like all parents do. She is almost always sweet, playful, happy, and engaging. But if she is going to draw the line with us on something, well she can be very stubborn, temperamental, passionate, pouty, and will even hold a grudge for bit too sometimes :) Bless here little heart, she is adorable and we love her very very deeply.

Happy New Year to all our family and friends! Thank you for joining us in our continuing stories and photos of Emily, and we look forward to continuing through 2007.