Emory 18 Months

Emory turned 18 months old on August 4th. I took her to get a checkup yesterday. Here are her stats:

• Weighs 22.6 lbs., is 31 1/4 inches, head is 18 1/4
• Walks & runs all over the place, falls a lot!
• Climbs chairs, Kaleigh's bunk bed, the slide at the playground
• feeds herself with a spoon, refuses to be fed - she does pretty good when she wants to
• just recently started coloring, before now she just ate the crayons
• can point to nose, ears, belly, mouth
• can take off her shirt
• talking, talking, talking - she stayed steady for a while, adding new words & just recently started saying more phrases & sentences. More on that below...

She seems to be extremely healthy & developing great. She's been really healthy since her last ear infection at the beginning of the year. Nothing since. I was a little concerned that she's covered with bruises, but not really since she's so very active!

When Dr.Rhodes was asking about her development, I kinda laughed when she asked if Emory could say at least 5-10 words. I said yeah, more like 50. But it's probably way more than that. She's constantly repeating the twins now and does a pretty good job. I can't always understand her but she does make her wants known! I'm not sure what her longest sentence is but she has said trampoline, swimming pool & puppet show. When I hang up my phone she says "who's at mommy?" (who was that, mommy) After I tell her she says "oh, okay".

Nathan recently taught her to do a fist bump. She puts her little hand out & goes "fis bump". It's so cute. This morning Nathan got up with her and she came to my bed, gave me a big kiss right on the lips. Said "fis bump?" & after I gave her one, said "dank oo". I laughed & said "thank you!" & she said "welcome". It was the funniest wake up I can remember!

On the flip side, she is definitely strong willed! Just last night the nursery worker at church was tellling us how Emory would not let her hold other kids & made her walk around the room holding hands. I think she thought it was funny, but some don't. What she wants to do it's just easiest to let her. She's so sweet that it's easy to forgive her those more difficult personality aspects though.

She's recently learned some new songs. Nathan's been teaching her "Jesus Loves Me" and she picked up from somewhere the alphabet song. Here's a video of her singing that. She does much better on the first half, you'll see!

IT ALL BEGINS...

Kaleigh headed off to Kindergarten yesterday! I have to admit that before now I really didn't get all the hype about kids starting school. I do remember when K was 1 or 2 driving by the school that she would have gone to and tearing up thinking about it. But honestly, I will miss her but I do have three little ones at home to occupy me so this mom is not sitting around moping!

It is a big deal though. For the next 15 (or more) years, someone else is largely responsible for her intellectual, emotional & social development. I guess the reason I wasn't real sad is b/c I wasn't doing that great a job for her around here! Not that I didn't try, but she's had to entertain herself a lot since she turned 3. We've always done the HIPPY program so at least there was that, but I didn't even come close to being able to do some of the amazing creative activities that I know my friends do with their children.

I'm pretty sure she's going to do great. She is very ready academically. She's extremely social & well adjusted. She can be very stubborn and gets frustrated easily, which would be her main areas to improve on. Her personality is soo much like Nathan, good & bad!

The main adjustment for us all will be the schedule. I know that no one is going to sympathize with me when I say this, but I'm having to go from getting up at 9:00 (yeah, I know!) to before 7:00. Kaleigh's a fairly early riser but not quite that early. Still, she usually gets up with a smile and starts talking, don't know where she gets that from, ha! But yesterday afternoon she was pretty tired & cranky and we had a battle over her thumb-sucking (which is worst when she's tired). We are going to have to really work on having her in bed by 8:00 or 8:30.

Outside her room

Her teacher, Mrs. Payne in the background

Settling right in

So here's how the day went yesterday - I forgot to factor in rush hour traffic and we ended up being about 4 minutes late. So we parked and were running in, me snapping pictures along the way. I didn't get the shot outside the school that I wanted, we'll have to do that later. She went in the class and her sweet teacher greeted her and she sat down at her table & started playing with blocks. I went to hug her and she kinda pulled away from me. :( To make up for being late in the morning I left the house about 30 minutes early to pick her up. I waited nervously to find out how her day went. She told me it was a lot of fun. They read a book called The Kissing Hand and went on a treasure hunt. I asked the dumb question, "do you want to go back tomorrow" but thankfully she said yes. This morning when I woke her up she said "I'm so excited to go to school today! Yesterday was fun and today will be fun too!" Seriously, isn't that what I'm supposed to be saying to her? Love that girl!                                       
 

Back to School Busyness

For us it's not really "back" to school since K will be going for the first time, full time. She is very excited. She got a DVD when she registered, about 12 minutes long, showing what kind of things she will be doing and the teachers & faculty. She's watched the video probably 20 times. :) I'm very excited for her. I will miss her but knowing it's best for her makes it so much easier. She's extremely social and likes to stay busy and just gets restless at home since I can't spend the time focused on her that she would like.

I've had fun shopping for & gathering school supplies. I've made sort of a game out of seeing how cheaply I can get everything. My personal goal was $20 or less. It's not that we don't have the money, but I like to save & take advantage of some of the great deals. Each week I look through the ads and find which stores have the best price on things I need. I don't make special trips though, just attach it to another errand. I've done a little price matching at WalMart but they usually don't have the same quantity or whatever it is that I'm trying to get. Here's my list & what I've spent so far.

• Disney Princess BackPack - 12.99
• Lunch Box - free w/ Backpack
• Labels - free w/ credit at website
• plastic school box - 0.59
• Elmers glue -.40
• rest mat -$1 @ yard sale
• tissues - .67 Kroger deal
• pkg pencils -.19
• 4 boxes crayons - $1 (.25 ea)
• Fiskars scissors - .79
• 6 glue sticks - 1.20
• Crayola watercolors -
• quart ziploc - 
• GermX -

 So far I've spent 18.83 (not including tax) and I still have to get the last 3 things on the list. Probably won't make my goal unless I find some amazing deals, but we've still done well, I think. I couldn't resist picking up some other things that weren't on the list, for me or for the future. I found 5 cent folder & pencil cases, cheap highlighters, lead pencils, etc. What can I say, I just like school supplies.

I'm not going to go out & buy her a whole bunch of clothes, either. I really don't understand that concept. She already has clothes, and she's probably going to be doing some growing during the year. I'll buy as she needs things. Plus her tastes change a lot. A year ago all she wanted was dresses, this summer the crazy girl only wants to wear jeans, ha! My friend Nitzia supplied us with some jeans. Thanks, Nitzia! Once the weather is cooler I'll start hitting the yard sales again for more great deals, or shop at a local consignment sale. I may get her one new outfit for the first day, but the way I figure it, she's young and doesn't know the difference. Anything I do now will set a precedent for the future.

I think Kaleigh will do great academically & socially. My main prayer/concern for her is that she will not be overly susceptible to peer pressure and grow up too quickly. I hope that she will be kind and be treated kindly. It is a hard world out there but I think Kindergarten is too young to learn that.

I'll be posting pictures soon of her first day, but for now, here's a video of her at my parents' church VBS. She looks so little next to the other kids but she really know all the sign language. And couldn't help adding a little extra hip action in there too!