Monday, April 20, 2009

Eye Hurts, Nanny B, and other fun.

Emily's vocabulary is growing rapidly and we are having more conversations than ever before. Here's a recent one from a few mornings ago.

Em: Mommy, dis huwts. (Said while patting her stomach.)

Me: Oh, Emily, your tummy hurts?

Em: Yes.

Me: Does your tummy hurt because you're hungry?

Em: Yep.

Me: Then I think maybe we should go get some breakfast and fill your tummy up.

Em: Otay!

--- FAST FORWARD TO A FEW DAYS AGO ---

Em: Mommy, eye huwts.

Me: Oh, your eye hurts?

Em: Yep. Num-nums.

(In other words... her eye hurts because she's hungry.... hmmm, something's wrong with that theory, but amazingly her eye stopped hurting after she ate!)

- - - - - - - - - - -

Another not so fun story -

With April being child abuse prevention month, Emily and I pass a new bulletin board several times a week. The bulletin board depicts a close-up of a little girl crying and it really bothers Emily every time she sees it... to the point that she recognizes that billboard from the front or the back.

I recently asked Emily about it as we drove by. She told me, "Baby cry. Nanny B ows. Hurt." And then she showed me the sign that she uses for scared. Let me break it down for you. If you remember a few weeks ago I wrote this post. It's about Emily's most recent traumatic visit to Children's Hospital when Dr. B aka Nanny B was a little less than comforting to Emily. Tell me my mom's heart shouldn't break every time we drive by that sign and Emily's face turns from smiling and content to sad, scared, and sympathetic for that little girl on the billboard. I know Emily replays her doctor's visit over and over in her head whenever something reminds her of it. She also doesn't like to take off her shoes, socks, or roll up her pants for physical therapy because they asked us to do that at Children's that day as well. The last time we drove by the sign, I tried to see if I could help her think of other reasons why the baby might be crying... we talked about things like maybe her brother was mean to her, maybe she fell down while playing and scratched her knee, etc., etc.

- - - - - - - - - - -

This one doesn't involve Emily, unless it counts that she was in the car when I saw this.

We were driving by a produce stand last weekend and the sign out front said:

OPENING MAY 36 & 37.

Is there something I'm missing?

- - - - - - - - - - -

And I'll end with this one tonight:

We ate at the Hong Kong Buffet a few weeks ago. Not that I believe in these things, but Emily's fortune cookie read, "Before the beginning of great brilliance, there must be chaos."

That explains A LOT. 'Nuff said.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Have a great day and be blessed! (There's another new post after this one.)
-jenni

Easter, Church and Early Birthday Party

I was going to put together a post for Emily's Easter with the family, but my sister did such a GREAT job with the pictures that I'm just going to send you to her blog to see the fun time we had. ;-) Enjoy, but be sure to come back when you're done!


While typically on the other side of the camera,
this particular mommabeast was caught with
a deer-in-the-headlights look while doing
"something" at church on Easter morning.


The past weekend was quite a bit of fun. On Saturday afternoon, Emily helped me bake cupcakes for our family get-together.

Okay, bake might not be the right word...
Our little ragamuffin watched me mix them up
and then helped clean out the bowl
after her "num-nums" went in the oven!


On Sunday, after church, we had Tom's side of the family over for a cookout/late Easter/early birthday party. Grandma Hypes was kind enough to bring bubbles for the kiddos to play with.

Emily was happy to show everyone how her bubble gun works.


I would say it was a successful training!



We took a few minutes to celebrate an early
3rd birthday while the family was with us.
(Can anyone guess what's wrong with the picture above?)
Em was pumped about having "ta-tot ice reem"
(otherwise known as chocolate icre cream).
And she was singing "Happy, Emmie. Happy, Emmie."
over and over again in the car on the way home from church.


It was a great weekend! We all had a great time and it was fun catching up with everyone again!

Tuesday, April 07, 2009

We Had an Altercation OR Atta Girl

You get to pick the title for today's entry.

Last week, I was met at the door by the babysitter (we'll call her D) when I went to pick Emily up after work. As usual, Em came running at me shouting, "Mommy!" and then D was quick to fill me in that there'd been an "altercation" earlier in the day.

An altercation? Hmmm, interesting. My gears started turning... Who was it this time? Certainly it wasn't my little angel.

D is very good at telling us about things that happen throughout the day. She understands our kids very well and knows that they "talk" about their day with their parents and that they might not always get the facts straight... especially when the aforementioned kids don't have a good grasp on vocabulary yet... especially Emily who uses a combination of words, signs and pantomiming to get her points across.

Yeah, yeah, you don't care... you just want me to get to the point of the altercation, don't ya?

So, back to my story. D informed me that she and the kids were reading books and the kids were taking turns getting books and bringing them to her. Emily had gone to the shelf, picked out a book and a little boy (we'll call him J) not only took her book from her, but pushed her to the ground, sat on her and then proceeded to scream at her in his very high-pitched scream (which he knows scares her). D said that Em was shouting at him and saying, "No! No! No!" and when he wouldn't stop or get up, Em hit him. During all of this, D was trying to get the little boy to stop and to get off of Em and was also trying to get other kids and books off her lap so she could go split them up. She said as soon as Em hit him, she had a look of panic, that she knew what she did was wrong... but D didn't feel right punishing Em for defending herself.

The little boy did get disciplined and Em sat on D's lap and they talked about why it wasn't nice of J to do what he did and she asked Em if she knew that it wasn't nice to hit. She said that Em absolutely understood it but that it definitely stressed her out and she was more intraverted the rest of the day.

The next morning, Emily went to speech therapy and as we were pulling away from there she kept repeating, "D's, no. D's, no." until I figured out what she was referring to and asked if she was afraid to go to D's. She said she was and when I asked if she was afraid of J, she said "yes" to that as well. I talked with her for the next 5-10 minutes as we drove to D's and told her some things to do if J was acting mean. (Go to D, play with someone else, play in another room, etc.) She was still pretty clingy when we got there and I stayed with her a little longer than I normally do. Before long she was back to playing with the other kids like she normally does and all seemed well with the world again.

Overall, I think Em handled herself pretty well and did the only thing she could do at the time. She seems to be over the initial fear of what happened, but over the weekend while reading some new Dr. Seuss books with Tom she seemed to be overly obsessed with the "mean fish" in "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish". She wanted to keep talking about it, wouldn't let him turn the page, wanted to show me the mean fish and wanted me to talk about it.

One thing's for sure and we've seen this with so many other situations with Em. She's fairly quick to forgive, but she doesn't forget... ever.

Grandparents

A cute email I received a few days ago regarding grandparents...

1. She was in the bathroom, putting on her makeup, under the watchful eyes of her young granddaughter, as she'd done many times before. After she applied her lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, "But Gramma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper good-bye!"

2. My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62. My grandson was quiet for a moment, and then he asked, "Did you start at 1?"

3. After putting her grandchildren to bed, a grandmother changed into old slacks and a droopy blouse and proceeded to wash her hair. As she heard the children getting more and more rambunctious, her patience grew thin. Finally, she threw a towel around her head and stormed into their room, putting them back to bed with stern warnings. As she left the room, she heard the three-year-old say with a trembling voice, "Who was THAT?"

4. A grandmother was telling her little granddaughter what her own childhood was like: "We used to s kate outside on a pond I had a swing made from a tire; it hung from a tree in our front yard. We rode our pony. We picked wild raspberries in the woods." The little girl was wide-eyed, taking this all in. At last she said, "I sure wish I'd gotten to know you sooner!"

5. My grandson was visiting one day when he asked, "Grandma, do you know how you and God are alike?" I mentally polished my halo and I said, "No, how are we alike?'' "You're both old," he replied.

6. A little girl was diligently pounding away on her grandfather's word processor. She told him she was writing a story. "What's it about?" he asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I can't read."

7. I didn't know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, "Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these, yourself!"

8. When my grandson Billy and I entered our vacation cabin, we kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. Noticing them before I did, Billy whispered, "It's no use Grandpa. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights."

9. When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, "I'm not sure." "Look in your underwear, Grandpa," he advised, "mine says I'm 4 to 6."

10. A second grader came home from school and said to her grandmother, "Grandma, guess what? We learned how to make babies today." The grandmother, more than a little surprised, tried to keep her cool. "That's interesting," she said, "how do you make babies?" "It's simple," replied the girl. "You just change 'y' to 'i' and add 'es'."

11. Children's Logic: "Give me a sentence about a public servant," said a teacher. The small boy wrote: "The fireman came down the ladder pregnant." The teacher took the lad aside to correct him. "Don't you know what pregnant means?" she asked. "Sure," said the young boy confidently. 'It means carrying a child."

12. A grandfather was delivering his grandchildren to their home one day when a fire truck zoomed past. Sitting in the front seat of the fire truck was a Dalmatian dog. The children started discussing the dog's duties. "They use him to keep crowds back," said one child. "No," said another. "He's just for good luck." A third child brought the argument to a close. "They use the dogs," she said firmly, "to find the fire hydrants."

13. A 6-year-old was asked where his grandma lived. "Oh," he said, "she lives at the airport, and when we want her, we just go get her. Then, when we're done having her visit, we take her back to the airport."

14. Grandpa is the smartest man on earth! He teaches me good things, but I don't get to see him enough to get as smart as him!

-and my favorite -

15. Grandparents are funny, when they bend over; you hear gas leaks, and they blame their dog.
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