Little Mommy

As Emily becomes more observant of our everyday tasks she has started to act out her observations on her dolls and her sister.  She takes her doll and wraps her in a blanket and will rock her to sleep and place the doll in her play crib.  Emily likes to command her sister to lay down and go to sleep, which Avery will sometimes comply with but other times is defiant and runs away causing Emily to have a fit.  Emily also scolds her sister when she is up to no good and comes and tells mommy that Avery is causing trouble.

I have come to realize that when the house gets too quiet the girls are up to something or in something they shouldn't be touching.  The other day Brian found Avery lying on the floor and Emily changing her diaper.  She had even placed the changing pad down on the floor for her sister and put powder on her bottom.  Emily was struggling with the tabs on the diaper when we found her but had managed to get that far in the process.  Emily also puts diapers on her dolls.  She is very good at repeating what she sees mommy do and takes lots of details into consideration.  Her actions make me try and watch my actions more carefully around her and try to be a good role model.  If I'm a good mommy to Emily and Avery then I can only hope that they grow up to one day be good mommies too.

Avery at 20 Months Old

For being so petite and soft spoken Avery sure is a risk taker and an accident waiting to happen.  Lately our little girl has been in a strong climbing phase, trying and succeeding on climbing on the coffee table, couches, chairs and even the dining table.  Just the other day as I was cooking and Brian was playing with the girls, Avery wandered off and decided that she wanted to touch the flowers in the vase on the table.  She climbed on the dining room chair and then up on the table with such ease that we didn't hear her through her endeavor.  It wasn't until Brian gasped and bolted up from the couch that I turned around and noticed she was so calmly standing on the dining table with a flower in her hand.  That was a close call!  One day I heard small shouts from the girl's bathroom and found Avery had climbed up on the toilet but couldn't find a way down.  That doesn't stop her from still making her way in there and trying it again so I have come to keep the door closed to that area.

Teething is still a big issue at this point and it bothers Avery so much when she is getting a tooth out that she tends to wake up more often at night.  This will happen for a couple of weeks before we see a small inkling of a tooth poking through her gum.  We use lots of bubblegum flavored fever reducer and try and keep her pacifier close by for chewing through the pain.  Teething has led to some biting incidents at school and Avery almost got sent home the other day because she bit three times in one day.  They didn't call for a pickup because the last bite was right before I was about to get her anyway.  Of course not all of the biting incidents are because of teething as Avery has learned that when people get too rough with her she reverts to biting as a defense mechanism.

Although Avery doesn't speak much she does have a big vocabulary and can name objects if you ask her what they are.  She also knows her numbers in English and Spanish from 1-5.  I love to hear her speak Spanish because she really enunciates the letter O of the word.  For example, when saying uno she enunciates the O so it sounds like un-Oh and when saying dos she says, d-Oh-s.  It's hilarious because she also strains her face to make the O shape with her mouth.  Now I have to get her to tell me what she wants instead of pointing at it.

Little Gymnast

Emily loves having Tumblebus as her extracurricular activity on Fridays at her preschool.  Tumblebus is an actual bus that is gutted out and fixed with toddler sized gymnastics equipment that the kids get to work on in stations.  I am never sure exactly what they do in class because I am in and out so fast in the mornings which is the only time that the Tumblebus teacher is available.  Once in a while I will see her trying to roll on the carpet or the grass at home so I know she is learning something and all I really care about is that she has fun outside of the classroom.  Auntie Alyssa sent me these pictures and a video of Emily trying to flip herself on a bamboo stick that Hayden (Alyssa's boyfriend) is holding.  Now I'm convinced she is learning more at Tumblebus than I thought and that our little girl sure has some upper body strength.  Gymnastics in the future?  I think so, I'll have to convince daddy, but as strong willed as he may be, he has a soft spot when it comes to his girls.

Easter 2012

Easter weekend has now come and gone and we were blessed to have very good weather all weekend long which made for great family get-together's.  Saturday we had an early Easter celebration with the Militello family at Nana and Byedaddy's house where the girls played with their cousins and got to swing outside for a bit.  We would have been there on those swings all night had it not been for those pesky mosquitoes, but the girls had a great time as always.

Easter Sunday started out with morning Easter services at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church which went on a bit longer as was expected, so by the time we left mass and headed over to Ama and Apa's house the girls were tired and hungry.  Avery fell asleep right away but only napped the length of the trip which was approximately 40 minutes, not quite long enough for beauty sleep.  When we arrived she was not in the mood to be greeted or left on her own.  She would not take any photos and cried for a good twenty minutes.  Aunt Dalia came to the rescue and suggested we start out with our Easter egg hunt.  After a couple of minutes of hunting both girls got the hang of it and were very excited to fill their baskets with Easter eggs.  We got the girls some bubble guns in the shape of animals and Emily loved them.  Avery was a little frightened by the vibrating trigger.  Ama and Apa got the girls some great treats for their Easter basket and Andrea bought them some new outfits.  We all had a great time and can't wait for next Easter.  Thank you to Godfathers Sammy and Mitchell for the girls' wonderful Easter dresses.

Warning:  Please shield your eyes from the paleness of my legs, I obviously need some much needed tanning.

Painting and Gardening at Nonna's

Ee, I, Ee, I, Ooh

Singing during bath time has always been part of our routine since Emily was a baby.  If we aren't singing we are going over new vocabulary that has popped up with everyday words learned from teachers, friends, and family.  Lately, Emily's favorite song to sing has been "Old McDonald Had A Farm" with her picking the animals for which we make sounds for during the song.  Every night she requests this song and now has Avery singing along and dancing, although Avery only sings ee, i, ee, i ooh.  All the animals on the farm are familiar except for the one requested last night, MONSTER.  Yes, apparently on Emily's farm there is a monster that says, rawr!  She surprises me everyday.

More often I see that Emily is now repeating everything people say as soon as they say it.  She sounds like a parrot when you are trying to have a conversation, but later she recalls new words and will use them for her own expressions.  Being the older sister, Emily has a tendency to be bossy and new words and phrases come in handy when bossing a younger sister around.  Of course Avery doesn't seem to be a good follower which frustrates Emily to no end.  I really need to put up a video of Emily and her conversations with her sister during playtime.  They are hilarious and Emily's pronunciations make her sound like a foreigner.

At preschool Emily is doing great in her learning of numbers and can count to ten all by herself as well as say her ABC's.  She is also learning some Spanish and can now recognize her colors correctly.  Emily has learned the rules in her classroom and we try and apply those rules at home as well.  The other day as I was picking her up she was in time out.  Later on that night I asked her what the reasons for being placed in time out were and she responded, "For pushing, for hitting, for biting, for pull hair, and for not listening,"  Of course knowing these rules does not mean that she follows them all the time.  We are working on the not listening part because  that is the reason she is in time out most of the time, although I'm sure as all parents are I will be working on this rule for rest of my life.