two and a half years old - 8.27.2014

emery annabelle is two and a half years old! it's hard to believe!

we've had a lot of changes take place this spring and summer. starting in july, i (tiffanie) went back to working in the office after two years of working from home. emery now goes to day care four days a week at an in-home day care with a family/church friend. she LOVES going to Ms. Diana's house and begs to go. she spends time with two sisters ages 3 and 5 (also church friends) and twin (now) one year old boys. emery gets to play on a playground, learn and color, and socialize with other kids - instead of staring at the back of mommy's laptop while i worked at home. it's sad for mommy, but it's working out much better than anticipated.

this spring, emery's hair finally started growing longer, and the headbands weren't keeping her hair out of her eyes. so we tried clipping the hair to the side with a clip or a bow, but it didn't stay put. more recently, we started putting the top of her hair in a ponytail holder, and she's even sported her first set of pigtails, which she called "pink tails."

she likes to sing and she makes up songs and changes lyrics to songs she knows. they don't always make a lot of sense and sometimes they're just gibberish (do-dee-do), but it sure is cute. she also likes it when blake makes up silly songs about any and everything.

she knows upper case letters and can identify most of the lower case letters too (sometimes mixes up t and f, but seems to do fine with b, which i find surprising). verbally, she substitutes an "f" sound for "sp" words, creating things like "fider," "farkle," and "frinkler." she also continues to replace "l" with "y," creating things like "yook, over there" and "yet's go."

we've been amazed at her ability to not only verbally spell her name, but to place letter magnets together to spell her name. she can also spell fox, and sometimes mom and dad. she asks about lots of new words and wants to know what they mean.

emery understands the basic pattern of counting, though sometimes she skips certain numbers or says twenty-eight, twenty-nine, twenty-ten (and would be more likely to say "forty-ten" than "fifty"). but generally, she can count to near fifty (with guidance) if she can keep her attention focused on counting for that long. sometimes we count in the car while we're driving, but it usually ends up being: 37, 38, 39, ooh, look a bird! she can also count by tens to 100 (but leaves out sixty), and can count backwards from 10.

a few weeks ago, i told her that our street had a name (wind fall road). i told her every street has a name, like emery has a name. what's our street's name? "emery fall road." haha. and last week, she learned our house number, so now she actually knows our address.

just like her daddy, emery likes to run. she ran a whole lap (400m) around the track at WS this week. she wanted to keep going, but mommy couldn't keep up.

we started potty training early in the spring. however, initially, my attempts just made her frustrated and she refused. we took a break for a while, and a little more recently, she's exhibited more of an interest to try again, though we have yet to be successful. she just doesn't seem to be physically ready or able - even if she (and we!) wants to be. we'll keep working on it.

this summer, she has begun to show more emotion and opinions. and of course when she's tired, these exaggerate even further. at times, she will burst into tears easily if she doesn't get her way. she'll even pretend to burst into tears. i guess this is what being 2.5 is all about.

this summer we took emery to the pool a few times. she did a great job in the toddler pool. one day she said: "i want to go to the pool so i can swim like a monkey in a tree." hahaha.

emery has a floor puzzle (2' by 3') with 24 pieces. we've done the puzzle A LOT of times, and now she can do it all on her own. she can do many of her puzzles/games/coloring on her own, but she also likes to remind us that we can play with her.

we love the little girl our baby has grown into. she has personality and character and beauty. she likes to laugh and make us laugh.

 she put the purse on her shoulder and said: "i'm the babysitter!" it's so fun that she's starting to play make-believe too.