twenty-three months - 01.27.2014

there is only one more month until emery annabelle is two years old! it's hard to believe it's been almost two years since this little sweetie made us parents. we're so blessed by her everyday!

emery often surprises us by spotting a shape or the shape of a letter or number. she noticed that the corners of the church sanctuary look like triangles, the ceiling tiles are squares, and the lights are circles. last week, she put wide blocks on top of skinny blocks and said: mommy, i made a "P"! she picked up the strap of blake's bag and - besides hanging it on her shoulder like a purse, of course - she held it up with two hands and said: "look mommy, i made a 7!" then held it straight up and down, and said: "i made a 1!"

emery knows all the letters and the numbers up to at least 12. most of the time when she's counting quickly, she'll still say: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10. so we try to jump in and shout SEVEN! and of course that has become a funny game. when she gets it right, she counts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 yay! 7!

emery speaks in fairly complete sentences. this afternoon, after a brief trip upstairs, she gave me our agenda: "wah yeh hee-an, go dawn sears, eat go-geh cah-cuh, wah bickey mou!" (wash [our] hands, go downstairs, eat goldfish crackers, watch Mickey Mouse).

we bought a small potty that she's tried a few times, though she hasn't actually successfully "used" it. she talks about it sometimes, so i let her try, but she (and i) are not ready for full time training.

emery still only has 12 teeth, but we think she's getting at least one or more of the four incisors that have yet to come in, and perhaps the molars are coming too. in the last couple of weeks, she's started to put her hands in her mouth frequently and her sleep has been disrupted.

she loves to color, and i've noticed she's started to color individual objects in the pictures more intentionally. certainly not in the lines, of course, but scribble the cloud, scribble the tree, scribble the flower, etc.

she definitely colors better with her right hand, but i think she often eats with her left hand.

toddlers are repetitive. ever since we were in texas and my brother's friend, jon, asked her what color her eyes were, emery loves to talk about eye color. every.single.day. "mommy hah brow eyes, daddy hah bee-you eyes, ah-wee hah bee-you eyes, unca por cha hah brow eyes, ma-ga hah bee-you eyes, pa-pa hah brow eyes" (mommy has brown eyes, daddy has blue eyes, emery has blue eyes, uncle pork chop [brandon] has brown eyes, gramma has blue eyes, grandpa has brown eyes.) every.single.day.

 i said: emery, can you smile? maybe we need to practice more in the mirror!

emery's hair is growing in slowly. we're starting to see a bit of wave in the body of her hair, but it seems that the longer it gets in the back, the less organized the curl gets. yes, i said, "curl" singular. there's only one.