A kind heart

Today Emma surprised me. When she was playing at JumpBunch (an athletic program they have at daycare) a couple of children were having difficulties. Emma came over to them and help them do the activity. Later, a child was sad in class and she went over to them said "It's OK", gave them a hug and rubbed their back until they felt better. It made me feel really proud and really warms my heart. I want her to be a kind person and help those in need and it looks like she is on her way!
On a side note - on Saturday while getting ready for bath she sat on the potty without any prompting and actually went. She was really proud and showed off her accomplishment to me and Adam so much so that she went four times in a row. We had stopped potty training in the winter because all she previously wanted to do was sit on the potty and wipe herself with toilet paper (She is a clean freak after all!). I guess we may have to revisit potty training soon...

February Beach Day!

This winter has been very cold and very snowy. So when the temperatures hit 50 F on the first weekend of February we all took advantage of it. My mother invited us and my sister and her family to the Water Edge Resort for brunch. We all enjoyed the excellent brunch and also celebrated John's birthday (my mom's husband). After brunch we took the path down to the beach dogging bird poop all the way there. There was a nice breeze but the 50 F weather felt really nice after most of the winter being in the 20F or below. We spent almost 2 hours walking around the beach, running, drawing in the sand and just taking in the scenery. Emma was running around picking up sticks and shells. She had a lot of fun and did not want to leave.
The only part she didn't like was when Ashley (her cousin) took off her shoes to get better bearing to pick my mom up. Emma picked up her shoe and kept repeating "buty buty buty" which means shoes, shoes shoes. She is a shoe freak and does not like people going barefoot. I think we may spend a lot of money on shoes as she gets older. She already picks which shoes she will wear and even goes through my shoes in my closet and picks a pair of my shoes and insists I put them on. I am really glad we all enjoyed the weather because it left as quickly as it came and it is cold again....

Emma the Chatterbox

Emma is repeating almost everything we say now. Some words don't come out quite right (Polish is very difficult) but she is trying and learning new words all the time. She will be talking up a storm in no time. We are definitely in the midst of the word explosion I keep reading about. I have found that she uses English words for things she still can't pronounce well in Polish but as she becomes comfortable pronouncing the word in Polish she then uses the Polish word for it and no longer uses the English words. So hopefully our effort to keep her bilingual will be successful!

Emma Knows Her Colors!

I found out on President's Day (16th of Feb, 2009) that Emma already knows her colors but mostly in English. I was putting her to bed and turned on her turtle which displays the starts on the ceiling. She likes the amber/orange color but when you turn it on it defaults to green. She pointed at the turtle and said "green". I then switched it to blue and she said "blue" and finally to her favorite which she calls "orange". I had her repeat the colors in polish but when you ask her what color something is she still answers in English but correctly. She know the flowers on the kitchen table are yellow and that the leaves are green. I am quite surprised because I didn't realize she knew them. We read to her and point out colors all the time but didn't realize she picked them up until now. I knew she recognized colors because she tends to group blocks, etc by color. I do have to give credit to the daycare for this since we teach her everything in Polish. Considering her limited vocabulary I am quite happy with this new skill. Go Emma!

Wall or Legs? Which was is more fun- you decide!

On February 7th, 2009 while we were checking stuff out on the computer and didn't hear a peep out of Emma. Adam finally went to the bathroom to see what she was doing and yelled "Emma Nie Wolno!" Which means Emma you can't do that. I said "What?!" I come into the bathroom and Emma is very busy creating her wall art project. Apparently pantyliner wall papering is my daughters new found ability. Notice in the 3rd picture how she taped them in a nice neat pattern. Not bad for a 22 month old. I of course found this very funny and grabbed my camera to capture the moments. My husband was not as amused. I kept taking pictures as Emma decided that she wanted new knee pads and she started to peel them off the wall and tape them to her legs. Picture 1 captures this intense project. The first picture just shows pure joy at how well she tapes her legs. She was very proud of herself. Little does she know it will end up on this blog and probably embarrass her tremendously when she is a teenager....Sorry honey but it was too precious not to share. So which of Emma's art do you like better - wall or legs?

Emma Draws on the Wall with Crayons 02/01/2009

Big day for Emma today. Much to her parents dislike she draws on the wall with crayons. Thank God it was in the kitchen eat-in area where we have not painted since we moved in and not the newly painted foryer. As you can see from the picture, she was very good about cleaning it up. Another point-thank you Crayola for making washable crayons- parents everywhere thank you.

Emma's First Pig Tales 01/25/2009

Emma gets her first pig tales on Tata's 36th Birthday. Her aunt Ewa made them for her and who knew she had enough hair to even put them up? She looks adorable but won't keep them in. Based on this, however, we have decided to only cut her bangs and let the rest of her hair get long...