"Baby Boy...Come Out!"

I've been wondering exactly how much of this "new baby on the way" thing Emily has been picking up on. I had actually been thinking that she was not really aware that something is brewing, but I decided to test this theory out in the last few weeks, and our interaction went something like this -

Me: "Hey Emily, what's this?" (pointing to my belly)

Emily: "Baby!"

Me: "Yes, there's a baby in there!"

Emily: (after thinking for a moment) "Baby Boy, come out! Want to see him!"

Me: (laughing hysterically) "Yes sweetie, Mommy wants to see him too!"

Emily: "Da-da too!"

So, I guess she understands a bit more than I have been giving her credit for. Reflecting on this myself, I came to realize that, oh my gosh, Baby Boy IS going to come out, and in the not-so-distant future. This Lightbulb Moment has spurred several bouts of nesting in the Herron household...a portion of the basement has been cleaned, the former "guest room" has been cleared of nearly five years worth of crap to make way for Emily's new room, and this said room has been painted and is awaiting the application of wallpaper border so its new tenant can move in. Emily herself got to apply the first brush-strokes of "geen" (green!) paint to the walls of her "cool new room", and after the assembly of her "cool new bed" today, she is anxiously awaiting the time she can start playing and sleeping in there. So..."Baby Boy, Come Out!" (...but not for another six weeks or so, please!)

Merry Christmas

And what a Christmas it was for us, too. I went in to this holiday fully expecting my excitement to far overshadow the excitement exhibited by Emily. After all, she's only one and a half, and up until recently she has been just as thrilled about tupperware as she has been about anything else. So, even though we had some cool stuff for her, I was prepared for what I thought could be a big letdown when she decided to pass by the new toys for the box they came in. Well, I guess those days might be over, because she brought me a neatly wrapped present delivered by the neighbors on Christmas Eve and said "open, please!". She opened it almost all by herself, and was delighted with her new toy. She must have remembered this experience Christmas morning, because she shouted "Presents! Presents! Open, open!". She is old enough now to have some imagination in her play, and she was delighted by everything. She kept going strong until suddenly she was exhausted and overstimulated by all of the new things, and pleaded "no more!", and went down for a morning nap. Once she was refreshed by some sleep, she was ready to go back at it. While I received some wonderful gifts myself, seeing my little girl so excited by new and interesting things was by far the most priceless gift of all.

'Tis the Season

In the Herron household, generally we wait until Christmas is almost upon us to start decorating, celebrating, and generally getting into all things Christmas. In fact, I distinctly remember a Christmas not-so-past that we were putting up the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. However, we (ok, I...) decided to kick off the Christmas season a little bit early this year. Emily and I joined Santa, Elves, and some friends from work at "Cookies and Milk with Santa" sponsored by Beaumont Hospice (yes, my office. Hey, it was convenient, and I personally know the santa :) We got to put together crafts of Christmas ornaments and holiday picture frames (ok, so I did the craft too...however Emily just loved making piles of the colored foam), chow down on almost every type of cookie you could imagine, (ok, so I did most of the cookie eating too...this is what you get for having a preggo around cookies at 10 o' clock in the morning having had no breakfast! Emily did however devour the largest sugar cookie I had ever seen), listen to Elves read Christmas stories, and meet the Jolly Bearded Man himself. I must say, I wasn't expecting Emily to react very well to Santa, given her stranger anxiety and all. But she was very, very curious about the Man in Red, even tentatively approaching him to accept a candy cane (I thought having her sit on his lap might just be asking a bit too much from her!). The candy cane was the greatest discovery, direct quote from Emily : "YUMMY!" Emily had the greatest time running around, staring in awe at the elves and other kids, and playing "peekaboo!" with the office ladies. I had a great time too, just watching my little girl have fun and remembering how cool Christmas was when you were a kid and you believed in Santa, Rudolph, and magic, and didn't have to put up and take down all the Christmas decorations yourself :) What a great way to kick off the Christmas season...bring on the holidays!

Every Bunny Needs Some Bunny to Love

Somehow Emily has become obsessed with bunnies. We think this may be due to the real-live bunny they happen to have at Emily's school. His name is Hunny-Bunny, and they will put a diaper on him and let him hop around the room at times. The kids love him. But, I digress. Emily...fascination... bunnies...there we go. She has this stuffed bunny she has to take EVERYWHERE, she sleeps with him and the first word out of her mouth in the morning (replacing the former, "shoes") is "...bunny!" So we thought it would be fitting to dress her as a bunny for Halloween. And what a bunny she was. I'm not sure if she really "got it" or not, but she did not mind wearing the costume at all, and obligingly "hopped" around the front patio while kids streamed up during Trick-or-Treat time, alternatively running in circles and stuffing her mouth with candy. Oh, the enthusiasm. She even got to meet a little girl dressed as Elmo, and we were treated to a very bizarre "Bunny-Meets-Elmo" moment, very cute though! We had a great time just hanging out and watching all of the kids in the neighborhood, and Emily developed a taste for Smarties. Discerning palate, that's my girl.