Emalyn: Five Months in our Arms

Oh, Emalyn!  Where do I start?  Her personality just continues to come through.  She is the funniest, sweetest and most helpful two year old I know.  She loves to run and get anything you ask her to find.  She is also very resourceful...for example, if she can't reach something, she goes to get a stool.  She is also very polite.  She is constantly combining her request with "please"..."help please", "shoes please", "more please" and she loves to say "thank you".

Her language skills have grown rapidly over the last month.  She is using so many words, I can't even list them to count them.  She is starting to combine words to make phrases, too.  In addition to putting words together with "please", she is learning that putting two words together helps her to communicate what she wants us to know...most recently she came running in the kitchen and announced, "Adair hit".  Big sister better look out!  Adair's ability to hide behind Emalyn's lack of ability to tell on her is quickly coming to an end.

Poor Emalyn is also a bit accident prone.  I don't mean that she is clumsy, but things just seem to happen to her.  Most recently, Hank went to pick her up with one arm and in protest she leaned backwards and fell right out of his arms so quickly that he couldn't catch her.  Poor thing landed right on her face and the result was a huge goose egg-turned-bruise on the center of her forehead, a split open cleft surgery scar and two black eyes.  Thankfully, there shouldn't be any lasting damage and she was herself again within the hour, but it was very scary for all of us.  On top of her broken arm, constant climbing, slipping and falling, and this, I want to create a padded bubble for her to exist in.  So far, we have been lucky, but I fear the day she sustains a more severe injury.

Notice Emalyn's bumps and bruises

She is waking up in the mornings now and playing happily in her bed for a few minutes and then will start to call out "up".  This is a big step for her attachment.  She trusts that we are nearby and that we will come when she calls us.  She no longer wakes up with a panicked cry. 

She is also willingly going to the nursery at church and happily playing with her friends until we come back to get her.  She is usually so happy to see us return that she bursts into tears, but thankfully she fully trusts that we will come back.

We have been trying to teach Emalyn how to drink from a straw since her cleft surgery and much to our dismay, it wasn't working.  One day I missed her and when I went to look for her, I heard her messing with something in the laundry room.  When she came out, she had helped herself to a juice box.  She opened the package, removed the juice box, pulled off the straw, opened the straw, and put it in the box all by herself AND she was drinking from the straw.

She also loves to mimic us.  During quick trips to the grocery store lately, I have been taking Emalyn and
Myla Grant in the stroller and shopping with a basket on my arm.  One day, I noticed Emalyn "shopping" the same way with her babies.

Emalyn is always entertaining us.  She loves to chase the rainbows from the kitchen prism and cannot figure out why they appear on her hand when she goes to grab them.  She also is enjoying dressing herself...not only in her clothes, but in doll clothes as well.

Perhaps my favorite new thing Emalyn is doing is telling us that she loves us.  Of course, any parent's heart would be warmed by those sweet words, but this is a huge milestone for our little monkey.  She probably hadn't heard those words prior to entering our arms and now she understands what they mean and is proudly and meaningfully uttering them on a daily basis to her mommy, daddy and two sisters...not to mention hearing them over and over and over every day. Months ago, I started telling her I love her by pointing to my eye, then placing my hand over my heart and then pointing to her while saying "I...love...you!".  She still loves to mimic that every night at bedtime, but now she lovingly responds with "luv you" anytime we hug and kiss her and tell her you love her.

It's really hard for me to believe that my next post devoted to Emalyn will be SIX months in our arms!  Time is really flying by.  I must find a way to slow it down!