Emily is just non-stop action all. day. long. She's like the Energizer Bunny, she just keeps going and going and I don't know where she gets all of her energy but every night when I put her to bed I go straight to my room and crawl into bed too. I am so exhausted from keeping up with her!
And really, I don't know how she has so much energy. She has the food issues that I already wrote about and her non-eating means that she doesn't sleep as long as she should at night because she wakes up hungry after no more than 9 hours. In the last few days she has been making some improvements with her eating. We have started eating at the table as a family and this has helped Emily tremendously. She likes that we are sitting and eating with her and she will usually sit in her chair the entire time that Denny and I are eating without fussing or wanting to get down. Plus, she is actually eating while she is in her chair and that is just awesome.
Emily is still a very picky eater and will not touch fresh fruit. The only way she gets fruit is through juice (and she gets a very limited amount of that every day), fruit and grain breakfast bars and smoothies. I have offered her so many different things so many times and she always just turns her nose up at it. I did leave a grape sitting on the table yesterday and she did pick it up after a few minutes and gnawed on it for a bit. She never got it down but at least she got it into her mouth.
Dinner time has become an added part to our bedtime routine. Emily now knows that as soon as dinner is over it is bath time. As soon as we put her down from her high chair she goes running to the bathroom, trying to strip off all of her clothes as she goes!
Emily is still very, very skinny, but she seems to be starting to catch up just a bit. At her 12 month check-up she weighed 17 pounds and was 29 1/2 inches long. Then a few weeks later she was weighed again and was up to 18 pounds, so she gained 1 pound in 1 month. I weighed her again yesterday and she is just under 19 pounds!
Emily still loves to take a bath as much as always, but she also still hates to get her hair washed. She just cries the whole time and she wants to get out as soon as it's over. Sometimes we wash her at the beginning of her bath and she will stay in the tub and play until the water is cold. And sometimes she will stay in the tub even after all of the water has been drained out. She doesn't care, she just wants to play!
Emily has got to be the sweetest girl in the whole entire world. She has recently learned how to make a smacking sound when she gives kisses and so of course she loves to give kisses just so she can smack! She kisses anybody and anything that she can and it is so cute to watch. The other day after she finished nursing, we were sitting on the couch together and she leaned over and kissed my tummy. So sweet! She also is blowing kisses now and will always blow a kiss whenever she tells someone "bye-bye".
But when she isn't being sweet, she is BAD. I thought that things would be easy until we got closer to two years old, but no. The ones are certainly not always wonderful. She throws food off of her tray onto the floor. She empties drawers and cabinets before I even know what is going on. She rips my glasses off of my face and she hits and scratches. She pulls the dog's ears and she picks the cat up by her tail. Thankfully she only acts this way when she is tired and there is an easy fix to that problem!
She had been taking two naps a day - one in the morning and one in the late afternoon - but we are transitioning to one mid-afternoon nap every day. So far we have done this for two days and she is sleeping a little bit longer at night. My biggest dream is to sleep past 8:00 every day (she usually goes to bed between 9:00 and 10:00).
She likes to share her food with others. Since we are having such nice weather here we have been going outside a lot during the day. Magnum usually hangs out on our porch and as soon as Emily sees him she will run over to him with whatever food she is snacking on. She loves to feed people too. She is constantly trying to feed me, her Daddy, and anyone else that might be around. I hope she always has such a giving, sharing spirit.
As always, she loves to be outside, and she would stay outside all day long if we would let her. If Denny or I go anywhere near the door and she isn't in our arms, she will get so mad and pitch a fit until we pick her up and take her with us - even if we're just taking out the trash. Her favorite thing to do outside is ride the golf cart and the four-wheeler. She also will climb into her car or into her wagon and "ask" for a ride. A few weeks ago Denny got a shiny new four-wheeler and Emily is obsessed with it. If it is out in the yard (and not under the shelter) she will run over to it and reach up as high as she can, trying to get on. When Denny takes her for rides she will put her hands on the handlebars and "drive" and she tries to move the gear shift. She thinks it is just the coolest thing ever.
A few nights ago I asked Emily if she was ready to go "night-night" and she shook her head no. It was so hilarious that she knew what I was asking her and how to respond. Denny and I just cracked up at her!
She recently learned how to climb on top of our coffee table. She will just get up there and sit like it is a big chair. She can also climb into almost any chair, but she can't get on the couch by herself yet. She also knows how to walk backwards and how to kick a ball.
When Emily doesn't get her way, she gets PISSED. She will fall on the floor and scream and squeal. She kicks and hits and then before you know it, she forgets all about what has made her so mad and she is completely fine. She is going to be such a drama queen, help me Lord.
I think she is going to be a girly-girl. She seems to like dressing up. She will get my clothes out of the clean laundry pile (that is always in a heap on our couch these days) and wrap them around herself and put her head through the holes. She puts on mine and Denny's shoes too, and tries to walk around in them. She never gets very far though. I think we are going to have to get her a dress-up set soon.
She has two new teeth in the top of her mouth, but they really haven't bothered her very much. She has been gnawing on her toys and she's been using pretzels as teethers lately, but she really hasn't had a lot of pain this time around.
She can now say apple, thank you, baby, Pop, baa (the sound that the deer makes - we have a deer in our backyard) and boobies. Thank goodness that her saying the word boobies sounds a lot like her word for baby otherwise that might get kinda awkward sometimes.
Speaking of boobies, Emily still nurses two times a day. Once in the morning as soon as she wakes up, and once at night, just before she goes to bed. It makes it so much easier to get out of the house and do things now, both with her and without her, but I am glad that she does still breastfeed. I am going to miss it when she stops.
And now, some pictures!
