Quick Update

Sorry, no pictures today. I have to add the newest ones from home now, since they're on my "big camera." It's a hassle to drag the whole thing in to work with me, and evenings have been rather full lately, hence the lack of communication.

Emma's walking is improving, and she now tries to run....but it's the herky-jerky walk that makes me hold my breath, anticipating that she's going to get herself going too fast and wind up doing a face-plant on the pavement. Ugh. Hasn't happened yet -- at least not with disasterous effects.

She LOVES to be outdoors. Yesterday it was absolutely beautiful, so I took off two hours during the afternoon, kidnapped her from daycare, and took her to the park in the neighborhood adjoining ours. They have a much nicer playground set and also some swings. We slathered on the sunscreen, changed into shorts and a tank top, slapped on a hat, and away we went. Unfortunately, the slides we too hot to go on, but on the other hand it's really hard to let her on the slides when I'm the only one with her. We really need someone up top with her, then another at the bottom to catch her as she comes down. The swings freaked her out a little, even though she's been in one before, so we didn't stay long on that. She really had fun watching other kids, climbing up and down the steps, and wandering around in the wood chips. I was starting to worry that we'd been out in the sun too long, and that I may have missed spots when applying the sunscreen, so we headed home to get a snack and then came back to the church. I had a meeting at 4:30, so I dropped her back at daycare, then got her again at 6:00. (Jon had to work late last night) As we got out into the parking lot we encountered a mom and her two kids who we haven't seen in quite awhile. All of our kids took off for the little daycare playground, and we ended up staying there for nearly 40 minutes!!! After finally getting home and eating supper (her, not me), we went out for a walk in the stoller and encountered several neighbors and their children. Emma conked out in the stroller before we got home, and woke only long enough for me to changer her diaper and give her a bottle. I couldn't bear to keep her up for a bath, so she went to bed with sunscreen on and her hair still up in a ponytail. Jon gave her a bath this morning. To emphasize just how tired she was, she slept until 5:45....a full hour longer than normal (as of late).

We've made friends with a little girl down the street -- Hannah -- who is almost 3. Hannah tries to hold Emma's hand, or hug her, and it's funny to watch Emma react. Sometimes it doesn't bother her, while other times she seems to not want to be touched, and she gets the furrowed brow. She got to sit on Hannah's Dora bike yesterday, as well as perch on her little John Deere "gator". Fortunately the battering was inside charging, so I didn't have to worry about the thing taking off at a touch of a button! Hannah is a very outgoing and generous kid. EVERYTIME we see her, even from a distance, she yells hello and tries to come to us. She called Em her "sister" yesterday. ::grin:: I'm excited to be meeting the moms of the neighborhood kids.

Otto, one of the little boys in daycare with Emma, also lives down the street. We're going to have Otto and his parents over for dinner on Saturday night. I hope after that we'll be able to invite him over to play occassionally on the weekends.

Words Emma has picked up on recently...
Elbow
Bubbles
Keys
Up
Down
Walk
....and she understands Playground and kicks her legs in excitement.

I guess that's it for now. Hopefully there will be new pictures with the next post.