Week of March 11 - Exploring (Part 1)

With all the warm weather here, Emily has really been able to stretch her wings and go outdoor exploring more. And what we have found is that she really really enjoys it. Over the last week she has been back to the park a few times and has developed a real appreciation for the back yard as well. In fact, Emily has quickly learned how the sliding glass door and screen work and has started to work on them in her quest to get outside more. This of course led me to fix the lock on the screen door and also I need to get a dowel in place for when the glass door is open to make sure Emily does not slide it shut on her little fingers somehow. It is a challenge to keep up with Emily as she continues to figure out how things work and start working them. She worked out the door knobs upstairs back in December and now pretty much has control over opening and closing doors up there, but it is a safe environment upstairs that was long ago child proofed. Downstairs continues to be an expanding challenge though :)

Anyway, back to the subject of exploring. I have way more photos of Emily adventures then I really handle in one post, so let's just say this week we will cover part 1 of Exploring, which will be a visit back to the park, and then next week we I can continue with the further adventures of Emily as she takes ownership of the backyard :)

So in these first two photos, Emily is once again exploring the playground area at the park....but a totally new outfit this time complete with ribbons on her pant cuffs, turtleneck blouse, and I notice she even has a pair of her favorite shoes on here.....


And you cannot truly say you went exploring at the park if you did not stop by the swings for some swing time. The higher dada pushes the swing, the more Emily likes it too, as you can see in this next photo where Emily totally giggles about how high she is swinging. Note: Mommy is usually a little freaked by the high swinging, but Emily and Dada love it and have a blast so Mommy just has to watch and cope :-P Besides, it is a completely enclosed swing harness, so nothing to worry about unless we try to lap the bar (not gonna happen though).

Now, here is a really rare sighting....two photos of Emily with her Dada! These tend to be rare simply because Dada is usually on the wrong side of the camera :-P


Personally, I much prefer this next photo as it shows the two most important people in my world, my wonderful, adorable, beautiful wife and daughter, as they are strolling toward the great "duck hunt".

As you can see in the next two photos, Emily takes duck hunting seriously in that she is ready and willing to stomp into the "rough" of leaves and branches to get to where the ducks are hanging out.


Later in the day, after Emily had her evening bath, it was time to relax on the couch in the family room and curl up under her blanket and enjoy her evening milk.

With milk time out of the way, Emily is not pleased to see that Dada is watching MSNBC again. Emily prefers to see Nina and company on the Goodnight Show on the Sprout Channel. Ever the resourceful child, and with remote control out of her reach, Emily decides to improvise by using Mommy's Calculator to get the TV to the correct channel. After all, it has buttons and it can be aimed at the TV. So why doesn't it work?
A couple minutes later, Emily walked over to Mommy, handed her the calculator, and then proceeded to express a long chatter of complaint and appeal to Mommy to fix it. If you have ever met my daughter, then you know how chatty she can be, and Mommy got a pleasant but prolonged earful on this one, complete with pointing at the calculator and pointing at the TV. I kid you not, that is exactly what she did!! I am pretty much a pushover where my daughter is concerned. Since Emily had to go to bed in about a half hour, and was so exceedingly clever and persistent with the calculator, I sacrificed my desire to watch the news and changed the TV to the Sprout Channel. I guess the calculator does work after all, just in a less direct manner then a real remote control would. ROFL

Stay tuned for Part Two of Exploring next week.