Update on Emma - 3 years and 4 months

Our Emma. Our independent, ever-sassy, fun-filled Emma.

She is growing up so quickly. It's hard to believe she will start preschool in 2 months. And FREAK. Once she starts preschool, I might as well start her BYU application process.

She can be so frustrating at times. But, gratefully, most of the time she is wonderful to have around. But wait. Did I mention she was really REALLY frustrating at times?? Just wanted to clarify.

Below are a few pictures, followed by our recent stories of little Miss.

Almost ready for church.

Watching a movie in the park with her future husband Alex. (She tells everyone she is going to marry him in the AZ Temple.)

At the zoo with friends. Enjoying one last gorgeous day before summer confines us to our air conditioned home.

One morning she was eating breakfast and insisted on me taking a picture of her. In another note - if you are what you eat - Emma will eventually turn into a Honey Nut Cheerio. Her FAVORITE breakfast cereal and what she eats 99% of the time. Luckily she will also gulp down spinach fruit smoothies to help with additional nutrients.

• Emma lives in her imaginary world about 75% of her life. She is CONSTANTLY playing with, talking to, singing to, and interacting with her imaginary friends. She is really darling with it - and Greg and I think she may have a future in literature with her active imagination. She is able to discern between "pretend" and "real" - on which we continue to focus. I'd worry about her mental state - but all the articles I've read say that it is developmentally appropriate - so I'm going to trust them.
• Greg did catch Emma yelling at her imaginary "Belle" and had to remind her that we needed to use nice words even with our pretend friends. She has also been seen pushing her pretend dog away because it was jumping on her. And then later that same day, her dog suspiciously died. Don't mess little doggie. You jump on Emma, she'll make you pay.
• She has fallen madly in love with Clemetine oranges. She calls them "baby oranges", is thrilled that they are just her size, and LOVES to peel them and eat them like candy. She has at least 2 a day.
• Emma finally noticed that Greg has different "body parts" that she does, in nether regions. That was an interesting discussion. Thankfully, she hasn't talked much about it since the initial day of discovery.
• Emma loves to mimic her parents. Some of the especially funny comments coming out of a 3-year-old mouth while disciplining her parents or imaginary friends are: "Do you understand me?", "When I say come here, you need to come here." and "Look at my eyes". And when she is on her pretend phone, she frequently looks at me and says "Just a minute".
• While singing with the Primary children for Mother's Day she knew the song quite well, but spent the entire time chomping on a new piece of gum her silly Mom forgot to take out of her mouth. Oh well. She just loved standing up in front of people. As half of the Sunbeams were too timid to sing with the Primary, Emma was shoving her way to the front of the group. So strange. We have no idea where she would have inherited that trait?
• When Aunt Laura was babysitting her, Laura had to resort to bribery to encourage Emma to stay in her bedroom for bed time. Laura told her that she had 5 doughnuts to eat the next morning for breakfast. But warned her that for every time she got out of her room, she would lose a doughnut. About 10 minutes after the bedtime tactic, Emma came marching down the stairs, told Laura, "I still have 4 doughnuts" and proceeded to beg for more water/food and a bathroom break. She had calculated her losses and evidently decided that 4 was plenty. Good math, eh?
• Emma LOVES the new ipad2. There are so many fantastic apps for small children - most of them educational. Though fearing addiction to technology Greg and I spent a lot of time configuring the best tactic for her usage. We decided on an "earning" approach so that she doesn't feel she is entitled to it whenever she wants. She can earn 30 minutes of ipad time every day if (and only if) she does school time with Mommy. She is now suspiciously VERY anxious to complete school time every day. :) But as a result, she can now write almost all of the upper case alphabet letters. And continues to do well in lots of other academic areas.
• Emma definitely tries our patience with her strong-willed personality. I'm desperately clinging to "love and logic" ideas and recommendations. It has been making a positive difference. But there are plenty of times that I'm still at a loss. She's now been kicked out of Primary and Nursery at separate times - guess the next step is prison. She started pulling hair a few weeks ago, but when I told her that the consequence to hair pulling was having her beautiful hair cut short, she was MORTIFIED and the behavior has not happened again. I'm trying to make sure that I am patient with her, because coincidentally (ha ha) she has worse days when I am short with her at home. We have had to leave gym class and play group early because of bad behavior. But, upon returning to both activities in subsequent weeks, she was sure to behave well so that she could stay the whole time.
• A few weeks ago, Emma was ADAMANT that I not turn right on a red light. I tried to explain to her that it was OK to turn right on red, as long as I stop to check for oncoming traffic. She quickly retorted that "Daddy doesn't do that". And when we were next in the car together I gratefully hit a green light for a right turn to which she VERY excitedly said, "GOOD job Mommy! You turned right on GREEN! See I told you!".
• And her stubborn nature that is sure to get worse as she gets older (right Mom?). She sings the ABC song by saying "H, I, K, J...". When I tried to correct her, she boldly told me that I was wrong and she KNEW how to sing the ABC's. In a moment of parenting weakness, I boldly replied that I went to school for 18 years and was positive that I was smarter and knew my ABC's better than she did. Without blinking, she said, "No Mom. I know them better." End of discussion. First the ABC's --- what's next?
• We have been having BIG TIME trouble with bed time. It was taking us about 1-2 hours AFTER initially putting her into bed dealing with water/bathroom requests and sneaking down the stairs. SOOOOOOOOOOO - with MUCH dismay I am here to regretfully report that I think she may be growing out of afternoon naps. I have tested her this week by skipping afternoon naps and she has absolutely CRASHED at 7:30pm for bed. No sneaking, no peeps from her. NOTHING. She is literally asleep within seconds of her head hitting the pillow. But DANG. What am I supposed to do to entertain her an extra 2-3 hours during the day? It's been an adjustment for me, but I think we'll get into a good groove soon. And boy do Greg and I enjoy our peaceful evenings together!!
• Emma has recently become OBSESSED with what days her Dad has to work. Every single morning she excitedly asks Greg if he gets to stay home with her. When he tells her no, she mopes around for a few minutes. When he tells her yes, she runs around in pure GLEE. What a lucky girl to have a Dad as great as Greg. And what a lucky Dad to have a daughter that idolizes him.
• Emma missed the cut off to "graduate" from Nursery by 11 days. She is therefore in Nursery with kids that are 1-2 years younger than her (most of them). We got a report for her Nursery leader today that she gathered all the younger children (and leaders) around and "read" books to them all. HA! She probably thinks she is the teacher.
• When something really exciting happens in her little life she likes to exuberantly declare, "I am really freaking out!"
• She picked out some blank spiral notebooks at the dollar store. The other day she asked me to read them to her. I told her that I couldn't read them because they were just blank pages and there were no words. She looked at my quizzically and said "yes, there are words right here" and then proceeded to read to me for 15 minutes from the blank pages. All kinds of interesting stories! Who knew blank pages could be that fascinating??
• We are going to a friend's home tonight. She she approached Emma and said, "I'm so happy that you are coming to my home tonight!" - Emma said "YOU ARE!"
• For all the frustrating moments, our precious Emma is happy and sweet most of the time. She is constantly telling Greg and I how much she loves us. She is always singing and chatting happily. She loves to cuddle up next to her as we read her books. She loves her Daddy singing her to sleep as he rocks with her in the rocking chair. Nothing makes her happier than spending time with our "whole family". She loves to list off everyone in our "whole family" to make sure that we are not forgetting anyone. She is definitely a ray of sunshine.