Animal Love... Sept 15, 2009

Emma has gotten into this new routine where she plays with our cat Vinny every morning. I am not sure who enjoys it more. You can observe their love for each other. She is speaking in Polish and says "Vinny really likes Emma".

Emma's First Zoo Trip - Sept 5, 2009

On Saturday Sept 5th, 2009 we took advantage of Corporate Days at the Bronx Zoo which gives certain corporate employees free zoo admission. We too the 1.5 hour ride down to the Bronx and it was well worth it. Emma really loved the trip a lot. To this day she talks about the animals we saw there and when we read her zoo book, she says Emma saw the giraffe, Emma saw the lion and so on...

Oh what big ears you have....

Emma's favorites were monkeys, all types, especially when they had their babies on their back.

Don't I make a cute Bumble Bee?

Emma and Grandma's First Mini-Golf Game - Aug 30, 2009

On our last day of camping the weather finally improved and we were able to catch a game of mini-golf before we left.

Here is Emma taking an aim even if her club is facing the wrong way...

Here is Emma deciding it's easier to just put the ball in the game rather than hit it!

Let's see what else I can do with this club...Oh yeah ride it!

Emma is too tired to finish the game, the heat and the lack of nap finally wore her out. It is 18 holes after all! She observes how Grandma does.

Emma's final sentiment over the game...

Emma's Second Camping Trip - Aug 27-Aug 30, 2009

On my birthday we decided to go on our second family camping trip to camp Odetah in Connecticut. This is Emma's Second camping trip. Her first was almost a year ago on Labor Day. We were also joined by Emma's grandparents. It was Grandma Jasia's first camping trip ever at the ripe age of 61. They both did great despite the fact that we had heavy rain for most of it. On the really bad day we went to Mystic Aquarium so we were able to enjoy the day. We still cooked our own food, had fires and marshmallows every night. Emma also did a much better job sleeping at night than she did a year ago and she didn't take any naps...

Here is a photo of Emma camping last year.


And here is a couple from this year that are similar. What a change a year makes...

Here are some family photo shots. The first is of Grandpa Antoni and Grandma Janina with Emma, and the second is of our little family.

Here we are enjoying some ice cream time at the lodge after some dancing...only grandpa and mom participated. Dad and grandma refused...I guess they forgot their dancing shoes.

Here we are enjoying the fire.

Grandma gives Emma some knee rides that Emma calls "Hopsa-Hopsa".

Emma gets her groove on in Jamaica

Here are some older videos of Emma during our Jamaica trip.
I finally figured out how to add my digital photo camera videos to YouTube. Who knew Picasa did that for you?

The first video is of Emma dancing the night away during an after dinner show courtesy of Sesame Street at the Beaches Boscobel.




This second video is of Emma showing off her musical talent during an impromptu performance during dinner. I am not sure if you can see it but her shirt actually say "Call My Agent"...

Gardening and poop oh my!

The potty training is not getting any better. Still doing great with number 1. Getting no where with number 2. She still poops in her underwear and even pooped in the bathtub the other day. I guess she would go anywhere besides the toilet! Believe me I tried everything I can think of. She is at least doing much better with the constipation. Going every other day so hopefully this means no more horrifically painful episodes. This should help with the training. She did go #2 in the toilet once and I made this BIG deal out of it. We cheered, clapped, sang, called Daddy, got stickers but unfortunately this did not help her continue to do this. I was sure that once she went at least once this would break her but no. I am still being hopeful it will happen soon.

Yesterday we did some much needed yard work. I have had no time to tend to the garden or weed the flower beds so we had a whole bunch of crab grass, weeds and spent flowers to clear out in addition to trying to get the vegetable garden in a semi-decent state. We removed the old salad mix, the dill, and weeds but the garden still doesn't look that well. We have had so much rain and cool weather followed over this past week and a half with very hot humid weather that our tomato plants are huge and so heavy that they bend the heavy duty tomato cages and bend the bamboo sticks we tie them to. The cucumbers all now balling up due to the hot weather and we also got rid of the yellow ones we didn't have time to pick when they were still good. A lot of our large tomatoes got in-rot do to the wet summer- I hear everyone in CT and surrounding areas is having similar issues. Emma really enjoyed eating the cherry, grape, and pear tomatoes and she had no red blotches from them at all. They are much less acidic than the big tomatoes so that may have been why. She loves eating things from the garden. She even tried to bite into an eggplant! Cucumbers and snow peas are still her favorite though. I think next year we will reduce the amount of vegetables I plant because I don't have time to tend to them and pick them when they are ready and a lot of it ends up not being eaten.

Weekend Update

Adam's cousin Monika came with her husband to visit us this past weekend. It was good to see her since months have past since we last saw each other. She liked the new colors of our kitchen, e. On Saturday, we also made a quick hour stop at our friend's the Finns. It was baby Mia's baptism that day. The party was fun but we only stayed a short while because we had to go put Emma to bed. Emma took a mini-nap before we got home since she refused to take her nap that day despite of being in her crib for over an hour. But she went to bed without any problems. living and play room. On Saturday we just talked, had dinner, and caught up on things. During this time my uncle, my mother's brother, came to visit us unannounced from Rhode Island. I have only seen him twice in my life; my wedding and Emma's baptism. We keep in touch by holiday cards and the like so it was really good to see him and his wife. He showed us pictures from his visit to Poland. I hardly know anyone from my mother's side of the family so it was nice to see who there were even if it was just on pictures. We must go visit my uncle in RI sometime.

This weekend was really hot and humid so on Sunday, we went out to breakfast and then to my friend's Ula's house to have some fun in the pool. It took a bit of coaxing but Emma finally went in and once she did she did not want to come out. We were there from 11 AM to 6 PM and Emma spent most of that time in the pool! She again missed her nap and gave us a really hard time at night. I guess there is a such a thing as being overtired; too tired to sleep. In fact I think I may have slept a good 3 hours. Finally at around 2:30 AM we took her to bed with us but she was still scared. She held my hand, would drift off to sleep, and wake up screaming for mama. I would shush and reassure her I was there and she would drift off again. She did this on and off until 4:30 AM when she finally fell asleep for good as did I. Adam transferred her back to her crib before 6 AM and she slept until 8:15 AM that morning. The next night she woke up twice, once for a half hour and the second time she went right back to sleep. Last night she slept all night long without waking up so I hope she is getting back to normal because we all need our sleep.

The dangers of balloon play!

You know how every young child loves balloons and loves playing with them and you think to yourself "what's the harm, the worse that can happen is that it will pop and scare the child". Yeah I thought the same thing until this weekend when we went to Emilka's baptism. Emma was playing with a regular balloon that was not blown up with helium but by human lungs. The first one she played with popped and it scared her a little but not enough to curb her desire to have another one to play with. After bouncing the balloon back and forth a few time, the balloon fell on the ground and Emma lounged for it and that is when it popped. This time it did more damage than just scare her. She laterally got branded by the balloon. She has a perfectly formed J imprinted in the crook of her arm. It swelled up red and puffy and it must have hurt something awful because after calming down from crying after an ice application, she wanted to go home when the party was still in full swing.



This picture was taken right before bed after most of the swelling has gone down. You will notice the perfectly shaped J. So the next time your child wants to play a balloon just remember that they are not as harmless as they seem.