I'm back!

I can't believe it has been such a long time since I've posted! We have been incredibly busy and grown SOOO much in these past few months!

Camila is now closer to 3 than 2 (her birthday is in September) and she knows most of her letters and some of the sounds that go with them. She can count almost to 20 perfectly (19 still trips her up somehow), and we're getting better at recognizing them. I'm hoping to teach her to write her name before she goes back to school. She's SO smart and soaks up just about everything you can teach her. The problem is she has figured out that once she learns to do something I stop doing it for her and occasionally she doesn't put much effort into things she doesn't care for.

But don't dare call her a baby! Even the other day, when I was carrying her and playfully singing "I'm Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee", she corrected me, "No, a BIG GIRL bumblebee!"

She takes great care of Emi, often announcing, "I'm teaching Emi new words!"

For about twenty minutes one day they had an exchange that went like this:

Camila: What's your name, Emi?

Emi: Name?

Camila: No, you say EMI!

Emi: Emi!

Camila: What's your name, Emi?

Emi: Name?

Camila: NO!

She has become acquainted with the term "get married" but doesn't know exactly what it means. I told her I couldn't go to the beach with her one weekend because my grandpa was getting married and I had to go to his wedding. Soon after that, her mother was trying to explain it was their wedding anniversary, not anyone's birthday, so she showed her their wedding album. A couple days later she announced, "I want to get married too." She pointed to a large white real estate office we passed on the road. "I'm going to get married right there. And I like purple. I'm going to marry Jeff." (If you don't know, that is the Wiggle in the purple shirt.) "And I'm going to do it all by myself!"

"Awww but you're supposed to have your friends and family at a wedding!" I pointed out.

"Okay, you can come. And Emi and..."she proceeded to list probably 10 friends from school.

"That sounds good, but I think you're going to have to wait a while. You're a little young to get married, and besides, everybody's not married. I'm not married."

"Awwww I'm sorry! You can marry Anthony!" (The blue Wiggle, my favorite)

So the plan now is to go to Australia one day and marry Jeff and Anthony. She tells people this, it's HILARIOUS!

Emi is doing well. She turned 16 months old this month and is our accident-prone little girl. They thought she broke her arm once, but it was just nursemaid's elbow. She got some get-well balloons out of it though. She thinks she's a big girl like Camila and keeps up with bigger kids (which is usually how she gets hurt), but has no objections to being babied still. She loves to snuggle in your lap and give kisses.

She is talking a lot too, parroting everything she hears. Camila has taught her one color: PURPLE! Camila loves purple, so that is Emi's favorite too, for now. We're working on our other colors, but she is less interested in these boring things than Camila. She loves animals though, particularly cats. I'm not at all fond of cats, but there are some around the corner that behave themselves, so we visit them on walks.

She does her animal sounds, but my favorite is "Emi, what does the little pig say?"

She goes, "Wee wee wee!"

She also, for some reason, LOVES bugs, snakes, lizards, and frogs. She tried to catch a roach for me once (as I was trying to chase it with the Raid...we've never had roaches but the drought drove a couple in). She begs for the snake at the pet store. Her absolute favorite toy at Walgreens the other day was a rubber "life-like" frog. I don't know what it is, but I will never understand it!

Of course, her biggest accomplishment so far was that this morning, she pooped on the potty! She has been telling me during or after the fact, but this morning she came to me before. She's so tiny I have to hold her up even on Camila's child-sized seat, but she sat there a minute and did it! I was so happy that she caught on and became VERY proud of herself. She walked around the house clapping for herself for probably 5 minutes exclaiming, "Potty! Yay potty!"

So sadly, we are getting farther and farther away from being babies over here. Mom has vetoed a #3 for now, though the rest of us are in favor. (I think she probably has the best reason to say no, though.) A baby brother would be a great addition, or even another sister. However they plan to move in approximately a year, and it would probably be easier with a 2 and 3 yr old than with a 2 and 3 yr old plus an infant...especially since I have no plans to go along. I hate the thought of letting them go, but I just don't feel led to go with them right now. It's going to be a hard thing though!

Here are a couple pictures just to catch you up....

Eating her cookie for going potty; so proud of herself!

They had to get rid of their dog, so Camila desperately wants a pet. I recently took in two guinea pigs. They've been more high maintenance than I wanted, but Camila is really enjoying them.

One local pet store has animals of every kind and many of them so you can touch. Today they took a ferret out for someone and let me hold one for her to see. She likes them better in the cage, but she loves bunnies and guinea pigs. One week she decided one of the bunnies was hers and begged me every day to take her to see her "little bunny fella".

In Sickness and in Health

While it's not true with all positions, mine should have come with a clause similar to a marriage ceremony. We have had some amazing good times lately, playing in the backyard and the new sandbox, going to birthday parties, and even just getting back to taking long walks.
Then there is the sickness. Week before last, Emi was running, fell, and cut her forehead on the window sill. I have never had to call their mom to come home before, but it was just big enough it needed to be looked at, though not severe enough for the ER. Sure enough, they put a coat of glue on it mostly as a safeguard.
Then this week, Camila has been spiking super-high fevers (105.3). They took her to the doctor and got antibiotics Monday, but today it still spikes every time the Motrin wears off. She's off to the doctor now.
Emi and I are here at home. Emi has been a good little sister through the last few days, hamming it up to make Camila laugh. Today, however, she is teething and maybe a little jealous, so keeping up with the two of them has been exhausting. (And not good for the housework...)
On top of all that, I was in bed with a bad sinus infection all weekend and since it's still hanging on, I have given in and gotten antibiotics for it. Supposedly it is working on the infection but in the meantime it is making me very nauseous. This could be pretty much our worst week ever.
However, I tell you all that not just to update you, but to set the stage. I have joined a nanny forum where I am enjoying the chance to meet experienced nannies and ask them questions. One of them mentioned that being a nanny is one of the things that led her to reconsider marriage. She did mean from observing different parent relationships (particularly the husbands), not from caring for the children. But it set me off on my own tangent of thought.
Lately we've had several crazy days which you'd think would lead me to reconsider being a mother. EVER. But there's so many GOOD moments!
Like the other day when I said something funny and Camila giggled and said, "You crack me up!"
Or like the multiple times a day I pick Emi up and she wraps her arm around my neck.
Or like yesterday when Camila laid her head in my lap, tired and feverish, and declared softly, "You're my friend."
Or like when Emi grins so hard it wrinkles her nose.
Or like yesterday when Camila was feeling well enough for a short walk and told me she was scared of raccoons. "It's okay, raccoons can't get you," I told her.
She looked up at me. "Would you save me from a raccoon?"
"Yes, I would save you from a raccoon or a snake or a bee or a rat or anything else that dared to try to hurt my babies!"
She seemed confident, but it was confirmed when her mother came home. She wrapped one arm around my leg and leaned her head into her hip and announced, "Baba saves me from raccoons!"
Or like a few days ago when we were feeding some neighborhood cats a treat. I held one out to a cat, asking, "Do you want one?"
Emi said, "Sure!" and before I knew what happened, had popped it into her mouth!
All these little moments make the sick times seem worse in comparison, but they also make them easier to get through because we have more good times coming!
(However, prayers are appreciated!)

Happy Birthday, Emi!

So her birthday was last week, but I have just now gotten around to uploading pictures. :( She had a big day on her real birthday and a blast at her party Saturday.

Today she is sick with a very bad cold. She's so miserable, taking 3 naps for the first time in months. She's been snuggling with me all morning, and I think we've read "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight" 10 times. (It's her new favorite book.)
Camila started the cold last week, but is fine this week! She enjoyed Emi's party almost as much as Emi did. She also has "How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight" memorized, so I can actually ask her to "read" the book to Emi! That is handy.

Some pictures:

The birthday girl with her gifts

Taking a cracker break

All dressed up for the party. Every time a new person arrived she'd announce, "It's cake time now!" She wanted some cake SOOOO bad!

I love this picture.

The little stinker herself. But you gotta love that face.

Double Trouble

It has been WAY too long since I posted! The girls have changed so much I don't even know where to start.
Though only eleven months old (how crazy is THAT?), Emi has officially crossed over into the Toddler Realm. She began walking two weeks before Christmas, and runs now! She is extremely opinionated, much more prone to fits than Camila was at that age, but Camila also never had a big sister there to consistently foil her plans. Overall, though, she is the HAPPIEST child you will ever see, and entertains herself easily. One of her favorite games right now involves a farm animal peek-a-boo book. The animals have their faces covered by a flap in the form of their "arms". She lifts the flaps, squealing, "Boo!" and giggles away until the next page.
Now that she has walking down, she is determined to master speech. So far she says "boo," "hi," "bye-bye," "go," "all done", "nigh'-nigh'," "up," "ball," "cat," "puppy," and I have a witness to vouch for me when I say the other day, she said "squishy". She tries to repeat other words but they aren't clear enough to really count. (Like when I try to get her to say "Up PLEASE", she will repeat the "p-p-p" sound but can't get the whole word out yet.) She also signs "more," "dog," and "eat". She blows me kisses when I leave. It's absolutely amazing how quickly she's growing.

Camila's growth is has slowed down physically, but mentally she continues to mature. For instance, last week I was teasing that I needed her blanket or something, and she firmly informed me, "It's not OURS. It's MINE." Quite an impressive grasp of grammar for a two year old!

She constantly cracks me up. A couple weeks ago I was struggling with a picture frame. She watched me trying to pry the tabs open with a screwdriver. Finally she said rather gravely, "I think you're too little."

We play pretend a lot. One of my favorite things to do is pretend I'm a baby and she's the mother. She never goes along with it, but always bursts into giggles when I go, "Waaa! Change my diapee!" She laughs and squeal, "You don't have a diapee!"

One thing has been bittersweet. She is realizing already that not all children have a nanny. She watches Olivia, a cartoon about a little pig's adventures at school and at home. Olivia's mother is constantly on the scene, fixing her lunch, driving her back and forth to school, going to the grocery store, putting her to bed, reading to her...most of which I do for her. Then Camila goes to "school" where she sees children crying for their mommies, not their nannies. We go to gymnastics, where every adult is "so-and-so's mommy".

When we're in the grocery store, every adult makes a comment referring to me being their mom. She finds it amusing, turning around in the cart with a grin and asking, "You're my mommy?!"

I act surprised and go, "I am?!"

She'll giggle and go, "No! You're Baba!"

But she has experimented here and there. When I was putting her down for nap one day, she hugged me tight and clipped out, "Goodnight, mom!"

I froze but kept my voice light. "What did you say?" When she repeated it, I squeezed her tight. "Goodnight....DAD!"

She giggled. "I'm not dad!"

"Well I'm not mom!"

She laughed and went to bed, and usually she only does it when she wants attention or sometimes in the store, as a joke. But she has gotten clingier to her mom (not necessarily a bad thing) and occasionally is less-than-happy when I come in to work because she knows it means her mom is leaving. It saddens me in that she used to be so happy to see me every morning and would ask for me all weekend, but it's good that she's recognizing who her mother is and has some loyalty to her. For now, Emi gets excited when I come in!

We have fun during the day anyway, and yesterday I was showered with hugs and kisses before I left. Here are a couple pictures just to update you: