Emma at Two

Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: give me understanding that I may learn Thy commandments."
Psalm 119:73

To be exact, this is Emma at two years and 7 weeks. I almost got her pictures taken earlier - twice - but had to cancel both times because Emma seems to think she can do anything the older kids can do. She can.... but she usually has some mark to prove it when she's finished.

The little rhyme goes, 'Sugar and Spice and everything nice - that's what little girls are made of'. I would say, Emma has a very healthy dose of 'spice'. Life has never been, and will never be boring with her around. She's a born leader - she'll make sure things happen the way she thinks they should. Usually, she'll manage to make everyone else think it was their idea to start with too.

Emma is very independent - she can do it herself, she does not want to need help and if she does need help, asking for it is one of the last things that crosses her mind. Unlike her sister, Emma is not a people pleaser. She doesn't care if you don't like it. She does - the end. She has very strong opinions, and does not change her mind easily. This does not mean she does not change her mind, just that she won't change her mind until she's fully considered all the options, pros and cons, and has found the solution most favorable to herself.

Re-reading all of the above makes Emma look willful and manipulative - and she is, but she's also very charming, mischievous, and lovable. Her laugh is bubbly and contagious, her sense of humour is priceless, she has an expression for every thought that enters her head, she's smart as a whip and very protective of her own.

It has been quite the adventure watching this little girl grow for the past two years. She's definitely the exception to the rule when it comes to raising kids. I guess, the best way to stay on your toes is to be thrown a curve ball once in a while and I think Emma is ours. But you know, the harder it is to do something, the prouder you are of it. Some of the things we've learned with Emma have been the hardest lessons to master, but they're so worth the end result!

Smiles and Smugglers

I tried getting a picture of Butler smiling the other day, but I kept getting the tail end of the smiles in my pictures. By the time I thought that maybe taking a video would work, he was getting bored, although I did get a whole smile that way. There's two smiles in the video below and Butler even added a few words of his own. He was trying to convince me to pick him up since it was time for his breakfast and he'd been waiting very patiently for his turn regarding my attention. I apologize for any dizziness caused by my video skills.

Good Morning Baby

Last night I was getting the kids ready for bed. It was Dolly's turn in the bathroom, and when I checked on her I found PC in there at the sink with his pajamas unsnapped. "PC! what are you doing in the bathroom- WHY are your pajamas unsnapped? Do you need to go potty?" I grilled him. He shook his head and I started snapping his pajamas back up. Two snaps started he said, "I can do it Mommy! Please can I snap it?" Dolly was out of the bathroom by then so I nodded and stood up watching him. "Don't watch me, Mommy - I can do it." he insisted, so I glanced down the hall to see who else needed attention. Then PC closed the bathroom door. I opened it and he insisted as he tried closing it again, "Don't watch me, Mommy. I want to do it myself." I let him mostly close the door and then I headed to the kids' bedroom to supervise the 'getting the toys out before bedtime' process.

A few minutes later PC stepped out of the bathroom smoothing his snaps and asked me, "Are they all done right, Mommy?" I nearly exploded in hysteric laughter, but managed to gulp back my guffaws, pull on a mostly expressionless face and answer, "Yes, they're all snapped right. Now, come with me." I reached for his hand and led him (bulging pajamas and all) to my room where Sir was waiting to say goodnight to each of the children. I said to Sir, "We have a S-M-U-G-G-L-E-R here, and he needs to say goodnight." Then I got to watch Sir control his urge to explode in laughter before he addressed PC.

Sir: PC, are you ready to say 'goodnight'?
PC: Yep.
Sir: What do you have in your pajamas?
PC smoothing his snaps with his free hand: I don't know.
Sir: PC, I can see you're hiding something in your pajamas.
PC checking his snaps again: How?
Sir: What do you have in your pajamas?
PC: I don't know.
Sir: That's not the truth. Give me the sippy cup and get into bed.

Sir and I were cracking up so badly through all of this, we couldn't properly address the situation, so we settled on keeping the cup and sending PC to bed without the 'drink all the water you can before bed' step of the bedtime process. While I was trying to stay out of sight because I couldn't keep a straight face during Sir's conversation with our son, I managed to snap a shot of the guilty party. It's not the greatest picture because I turned the flash off to avoid disturbing them and I couldn't stop shaking with laughter when I took it.

Thriving

In spite of Butler's claims every 10th day or so, he is NOT starving. We saw the Dr. on Tuesday for the 1month check up and Butler had gained 2 pounds and grown 1¼ inches all in 3 weeks!

I was relieved knowing that it wasn't all 'just in my head' when it came to the size of my youngest. At different points over the last month, I'd thought Butler was either 'gearing up for a growth spurt' or I just wasn't drinking enough water. I figured it must be me and the water option in the end because it happened more than just at the 2 and 4 week marks. But I wasn't entirely satisfied with my conclusion - he was also, it seemed, outgrowing his clothes. I really didn't have a explanation for the half-filled diaper box of baby clothes that wouldn't fit my son. Especially since they were the same clothes the other kids wore at his age and not just more clothes in general.

Anyway, after the doctor's appointment I went home and checked the shot and growth records I had for all of my kids and this is what I found:

Dolly, born 8 lbs, 12oz was 12 lbs, 7oz at 2months.
PC, 7 lbs, 6oz at birth was 11 lbs, 14oz at 2months.
Emma, born 9 lbs, 10oz was 11 lbs, 4oz at 2months.
and Butler, born 9 lbs, 8oz was 11 lbs, 4oz at 1 month old.

I didn't have 1month weights for all of the other kids to do a more accurate comparison so it will be interesting to see how big Butler is at his 2month visit. Other than that... I got some real smiles from Butler Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday evening. It was so much fun to see him respond - now just to catch a picture of it!

Is it really 'Better Late than Never'?

Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 2:1

Once again I'm late in getting the portraits posted. I was late getting this picture taken by oh... five weeks. The day I took PC in for his pictures, the studio's computer crashed - halfway through our session. So we went back two days later and they finished the shoot. Then when the pictures were ready three weeks later, I still hadn't had a minute to think of what verse I wanted to put with them.

Next it was Emma's birthday, and after that the priority was getting everything finished up before Butler arrived. And now it's 6 months after his birthday and I'm finally posting PC's 3yr old pictures! Talk about being behind schedule - and it's almost the same story with Emma's pictures (I just got those back yesterday though, so hopefully they'll be up here sooner than later).

These pictures were taken less than a week after Grandma C. let me help her give PC a haircut. Note to self: do not try cutting boy's hair within days of photograph appointment. I nearly scalped him, and even after Grandma C. fixed the worst of the damage, it still looked pretty choppy. But it was either a 'Sir Shaggy' shot, or 'Champ Choppy' one and I think the latter looks better.

I settled with the picture above for our package pose because you can see more of PC's face, but I think the picture below is a nicer picture myself. Both pictures have sparkly-eyed smiles though, and sometimes that's what counts the most.

And now it's time to feed Butler again. I started this post yesterday - at least the pictures are up now. I must go as my younger son demands my presence!

Milestones and Miscellaneous

A couple days ago, we dropped Sir off at the skytrain station so he could make up a bit of lost time on his commute. As I was rushing to get one of the younger kids ready to go, Dolly proudly brought me this paper and told me, "Mommy! This says, 'I have a headache.'!" "You have a headache?" I checked with her. "No, we're playing 'hospital' and this is what's wrong with PC." she explained and she was off to play again.

I was very impressed because it was the first time that I'd seen Dolly try to build words. We 'do schoolwork' a few times each week, but I've spent most of the focus for Dolly on reading and have only asked her to try writing a very few letters and numbers so far.

Below is a video of PC and Emma trying out a birthday present he gave to her. You may need to watch it a few times.

"Niryam, I sorry."

And I think we might finally be making progress when it comes to nights with the Butler. He's gone from being up from 1-4am, to having his bedtime snack at 11:30 and sleeping from midnight to 5ish. Some nights he's up at 4, other nights he'll sleep till 6 and every once in a while he'll go from 1am to 8. The biggest change though was yesterday. He spent more time awake during the day for a change! He took naps of course, but he was pretty much on the same schedule as the rest of us (with the exception of having a meal every two hours) which was really nice.

On a random note here are some numbers you might find interesting. Butler's leg from his hip to ankle is 8" long. His feet are 3¾" long - I think I wasn't that far off when I said he had big feet on Day 1. He also does NOT like his feet to be cramped in any way, shape or form. If you offend his feet, he will let you know what he thinks - loud and clear.

26 days old.