Emma's 20 months update

On Wednesday this past week, our little girl turned 20 months old.  It has been an incredibly busy month for me at work, which sadly means that on weeknights when I'd rather be blogging, I have had to bring some work home! :(  So I'm getting quite behind on the blog, but wanted to be sure to capture some of the cute memories and milestones with Emma these days.

Firsts:

-Fast slide all by herself

-Sitting on the potty

-Putting on her boots by herself
-Blowing her own bubbles

Language:

Emma is really talking so well.  I am impressed with the large number of things she has figured out how to say and she has strung together phrases on her own accord, as well as repeats ones she hears from us too.  She also uses inflection a lot in her voice now to make a simple phrase sound more like a question.  Recent examples of inflection:

--Last night was treat night and so on the car ride home from daycare she kept saying "treat night?" in this high pitch angelic and super cute voice.  

--After dinner the other night I needed to clean her face and told her I'd get a paper towel, so she started asking "paper towel?" over and over again.  She got all four syllables figured out and everything!

Examples of other phrases Emma says:
I'm done
Oh gosh
Look at me mommy
Bye bye daddy  or (Bye bye Evan or Bye bye mommy)
Love you (pronounced "luv foo") daddy or Evan or mommy
Have a safe flight ("afe fite")
Thank you mum ("dake you mum")
Bib off
Shoes  on
Call nanna

You hurt me

She doesn't have perfect pronunciation, but for many of the things she says it's hard for me to figure out how to spell what it sounds like, but I have done that above for a few.  One of her funny mispronunciations is Violet (her LeapFrog talking/singing dog toy), that sounds like she is saying "butt".

A little peeping to see the puppy dog next door

Growth and Development:

Emma is doing a great job learning how to mimic body movements that Evan does or that are on the dancing game on the Playstation.  She also is trying to do a lot of things by herself, like the fact that she put her own rain boots on by herself yesterday! (She sat them up and then held onto the cabinet while putting one foot in at a time!)  She can do the stairs up and down by herself, though I do still like to be there to "spot" her just in case.  She wants to jump so badly, but hasn't managed to get both feet off the floor at the same time yet.  It's pretty cute watching her try.

She is very interested in using the potty, but so far has not actually done anything in the potty.  Nonetheless, over the past few weeks of her asking to "go potty" she has gotten more and more patient with it, meaning initially the moment you sat her on it she wanted off, but now she'll sit for quite awhile.  I can't wait until she actually has a little tinkle in the potty...we'll have to break out the old potty dance again! :)  She is learning her manners very well, given she says thank you and sorry a lot.  If I give her something she'll say "dake you mum" and if she hears me say ouch or sound like something went wrong she'll come over and say "sorry mum".  However, if she gets in trouble for pushing her brother or the like, she interestingly will not say sorry then.  (Pride starts young!)  She's also started saying excuse me ("scoose me") after she toots, and I swear I heard her say bless you ("bess you") after I sneezed the other day!  She also won't let anyone blame their toot on her...just the other day at bedtime the whole family was snuggling and someone let one rip and Emma knew who.  She said "daddy tooted".  LOL.

She still wears the same size of everything (18-24 month clothes, size 4 Pampers diapers, size 5-5.5 shoes).  No new teeth, so she's still missing her canine teeth both top and bottom.

Pig tails (for a minute), and a smile

Play time:

Emma is getting very adventurous, and rough!  She went down the "steep slide" at the nearby park last weekend all by herself. [See post from when Evan did this too with photos of this slide] The first few times she had me hold her hands, but then on about the third time she pushed me away and said "no!", and then went by herself!  She just zoomed right down and so I just caught her at the bottom.  She then did it over and over and over.   She loves to wrestle with Evan now too, and will push him and roll around with him and get pretty rough!  Just yesterday at daycare we were told she pinned down a girl about her age (but that's lighter than her) by laying on her.  Eeks.

"Cheese!" and "Ta da!" ...she thought sitting on the soccer ball was quite amusing and kept saying "soccer ball!"

She loves to explore outside in the backyard, with the rocks or whatever she finds back there, and seems to always get herself wet playing with the water table.  Most of the time it's a combination of rocks and water in that table.

Dislikes:

Her hair being touched (she even pushes me away now when I just try to stroke her sweet, soft hair and says "don't touch my hair" (not perfectly pronounced though),  us brushing her  teeth (though just the past few days she has let me after I bribed her by saying she can walk on my feet afterward...what a crazy bribe but it's working!), chicken (most meats), many of her vegetables, milk (barely drinks it still), going to bed, getting her face wet in the bath/shower (this is a new dislike that I hope is a phase, because she never was bothered before).  Probably the most common thing I hear her say now is "no!"

Favorites:

Current books we read a lot:  Snuggle Puppy ("nuggle puppy"), Goodnight Moon,  Play Baby Play,  Look Look,  Spot visits his grandparents, If you're happy and you know it (Aussie Edition)

Toys/loveys: Her giraffe that she took with her everywhere (even to daycare and to bed) got dirty from when she threw up at nap time a week ago, so her blanket is what she snuggles at bedtime now. (I'm really hoping we can get "Raffy" clean again though!), piggy bank toy, blocks.

My lil cutie pie (with pig tails for a few minutes!)

I typically call Emma my little cutie pie and she has recently also started saying that as well (sounds almost like "cookie paw").  I love her smile when she sees me first thing in the morning, then the hug and snuggle she'll give me.  I love her independence and ability to entertain herself with her toys.  I love her eagerness to be more grown up and learn to do things that her brother does or we do (especially when she copies me doing things...less so when she copies Evan doing something naughty).  I hope that soon she'll let me do her hair more, as it's getting so long and looks so cute in pig tails.  I am so looking forward to this summer with my sweet little girl!

Getting to be a big girl...