Isn't She Lovely

Emma's just been so much fun lately. (Well — mostly. I started this post probably five days ago, and it's probably good, because I'd totally have skipped saying anything nice about her the past 48 hours.) She's incredibly verbal and expressive (no surprise, I guess) which is mostly fantastic but also means she can express her frustration, anger, and exhaustion more clearly. She definitely has her "testy" mode. But even that is mostly hilarious. She's putting words together now "New shoes! Go outside! Get down! Help you! Bless you! Kiss you! See birdie! Fix it!" and her vocabulary is pretty random and interesting (marker! swing! awesome! slide! stroller! buddy! towel! pollen! tissue! airplane! mango! ocean! beach! turtle!).

She's also nuts for her brother and sister, and climbs all over them every chance she gets, and is furious at being relegated to the high chair instead of sitting up at the kids' table with them. Cody's so big now that he can easily pick her up, and she just loves being carried around. Loves roughhousing even more.

 Isn't she so pretty?

Her funniest thing, right now, is that while we find her endearing, she finds herself downright hilarious. Whenever anyone does something that pleases her, she shouts, "ALL RIGHT!" This happens for many small (to us) achievements, like getting her almost-impossible-to-remove "new shoes!" off in the car, followed by socks, and holding them up triumphantly in the car seat. "WELL DONE!" she exclaims, delighted with herself, and with a glint of mischief in her eye.

The kids are really enjoying encouraging her verbal experiments:


All right! I'm funny!


At the playground these days, it's all about the slide. She can do this one all by herself, and will do it 30 or 40 times before feeling ready to move on.

She's still a horrible traveler, as you can tell. Also, flexible. 

Here's her first ponytail!

She loves her little car: "Car? Ride? Outside! RIDE IT!"

She also loves her "BELLY! I'm SILLY!"

I love her lots. With few exceptions, she's delightful company. When she's hard, she's really, really hard. But I'm hoping the past 48 hours are just a little phase…teeth perhaps? : ) One can hope. Anyway, this is when I love her most — and that's saying something.