Playground

About a block away from our house is a little community center and playground.

Earlier this summer, we looked at it longingly, knowing that someday Emma would love to go there. Someday is here! We just started going a week or so ago because Emma's interested in one thing, and wants to do it all. the. time.

Sliding down slides.

The obsession started when we brought home her little slide that sits on the side of our house. I would say she goes down it about 20 times a day these days, always a handful of times in the morning and evening. The pool we go to for her swimming lessons also has a slide, and sometimes we think she tolerates her lessons because she knows that at the end she'll get to go sliding! We help her slide down the water slide because she's not big enough yet to come down into the water alone, but she slides down her slide at home all by herself, and has actually started not going down at all unless we're three feet away. What a big girl :)

Well, this playground down the road also has a slide. Two, actually. One is for little kids, and one is for big kids. She really likes going there. This is her signing "more" as we were arriving. Translated, that means "Cool, I'm at the playground again! I want to do everything!"

First we hit the little slide. Da-da went with Emma,

and then Emma went down all by herself. This slide is bigger than hers at home, so it's hit or miss whether she wants to face it alone.

Then, we headed over to the big slide, by climbing up the stairs and walking across the bridge.

Here are Emma and Da-da coming down,

and if you can't tell, she loved it and wanted "more!"

But, only if Kitty could come, too.

This was about the time in the evening when I ran out of battery, so Emma and I continued exploring and sliding and playing in the sand while Da-da reconnected with his 9-year-old self :)

K-State Get Together

Tonight we got together with a bunch of K-Staters who live in Minnesota.

There is a formal event each year at the same home, and this was our second year going. We love any excuse to celebrate our alma mater, hear about what's going on in Manhattan, meet other graduates, and share K-State with Emma.

The house where the event is held every year is pretty incredible.

We love their big stone patios (that could easily seat 100 guests between them).

They look over the Mississippi River and two full-length golf holes that the family designed for fun.

Emma was just a few months old at last year's get together, but it's amazing how many people recognized her and commented on how much she had grown.

She enjoyed watching the fish in one of many fountains (moments later I caught her jumping in the water - close call!),

hanging out anywhere near the K-State car with the neat horn,

chasing after the family dog,

playing with toys and generally looking cute,

and getting to know her new friend, Kingston, who is 16 months old.

It was nice to get a taste of K-State in Minnesota!

True Words

Song For a Fifth Child

Ruth Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth

empty the dustpan, poison the moth,

hang out the washing and butter the bread,

sew on a button and make up a bed.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue

(lullaby, rockabye, lullaby loo).

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due

(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).

The shopping’s not done and there’s nothing for stew

and out in the yard there’s a hullabaloo

but I’m playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren’t her eyes the most wonderful hue?

(lullaby, rockabye, lullaby loo).

The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,

for children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down, cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.

I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.

Aren't these words beautiful? 

They ring true to me.

If you dropped by our house on any given day, you would probably find it a mess.

But it's a good mess, because there's a little someone living in it. Really living in it.

And, to be perfectly honest, bubble blowing and popping, puppet shows in the afternoon, sliding down slides, reading and re-reading favorite books, taking walks, clanging pots and pans, sharing peaches, and rocking to sleep are worth every dusty bookshelf, dirty dish, unvacuumed rug, and unwashed sheet.

So worth it.

Because, my girl is growing so fast.

Faster than my heart can take it sometimes.

And, I don't want to miss a moment.

Wordless Wednesday

The Relaxing-In-Style Edition

YouTube

We don't watch a lot of TV at our house, mostly because we don't have time. Occasionally, we turn on Sesame Street or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Emma in the morning, and she loves both. But, more than just watching TV, we've found that she loves music.

She's used to listening to music in the car, in her playroom (we love the Putumayo Kids CDs for playtime), and around the house during the day, but we also started playing her YouTube videos on our laptops a few months ago (probably in some attempt to keep her entertained while we took a call or something!). We now know when she wants to hear "her songs," because she'll come up to us and say, loudly, "YA-YA-YA!"

Emma's favorite songs are those from Sesame Street, and they all include Elmo. She loves that little guy. She watches each video very excitedly, but at the same time, patiently, if that makes sense. She claps her hands, sways side-to-side, and sometimes sings along.

These are her favorites, in case you're bored or around a little one who might enjoy them.









The real point of this post, though, is to tell you that the other night, we found something else that Emma loves on YouTube, and that is listening to dogs barking and cats meowing. Here she is watching a YouTube video of dogs barking. She could not believe her ears. Or her eyes. And, in case you're wondering, "ruff-ruff" is how she says dog.

Splish Splash

We, or I should say, Emma, received a very exciting surprise last week.

It came in a big box.

Why, it's a water and sand table!

Yay!

Emma loves, loves, loves these. We play with them a few times a week at the Minnesota Children's Museum because they have some just her size. And, you may remember that her good buddy Milo has one at his house, too. I'm not sure what it is about toddlers and water tables, but they're a perfect pair, especially during the summertime.

When it arrived, Da-da put it together while Emma supervised (i.e., played with the parts ;)).

And, as it started to take shape, we think she knew exactly what it was. She kept smiling really big and trying to "splash" around in it!

It's now in its home outside in our yard, right next to Emma's slide. We don't have a lot of room on the side of our house, but it's become a neat little area in which we can play. A bonus is that it even stays shaded most of the day! I can't tell you the number of times that Emma brings us her shoes and wants out there.

Her constant companion whenever she goes outside is "Kitty." Kitty likes to go down the slide (oftentimes before Emma), and most recently, she's taken to swimming.

So, Kitty often gets to sunbathe in the afternoon so that she's ready for Emma's evening stroll (-er ride) around the neighborhood.

Just Keep Swimming

Emma is taking swimming lessons this summer, although we've dubbed her class more of a splash-around-with-your- child-and-get-him/her-used-to-the-water kind. She loves it, and we love the chance to be part of it with her. The teacher sings songs that encourage the kids to look at the bottom of the pool/splash in the water/blow bubbles in the water, we practice getting in and out of the pool, and generally have fun playing and floating around. We're there an hour, and Tyler and I trade who gets in the water with Emma for the first 30 minutes, which is the length of the actual "lesson." The last 30 minutes is free time, so we all get in and do things like go down the slide and play with the water toys, because we don't get to do it in class.

It was Tyler's turn to get in with Emma this week, and as we're about halfway through the lessons, I thought I should bring our camera and take some pictures of them in the water!

So, here's our class in the little pool. It's usually where the lessons start. The little girl to the right of Tyler and Emma (wearing the purple swimsuit and pigtails) is Emma's age, and she and Emma are the youngest in the class.

 After doing some activities in the little pool, our class moved to the big pool.

They practiced "swimming"

 

and putting on life vests, which Emma did not love, but at least tolerated.

Tyler and Emma came close to me once so that I could get a posed picture of them. Honestly, I couldn't decide which one to show you, so you get all of them. I love how Emma's smile gets a little bigger with each shot!

Wordless Wednesday

The My-First-Drawing-That-Now-Hangs-On-My-Parent's-Fridge Edition

Potty Talk

So, we bought Emma a potty.

It's great.

She uses it all the time...

...to, er, stand in. And put toys in. And put on our heads. And carry from room to room.

I hope you didn't really think she's using it for its intended purpose. We're a long ways from that. However, that said, she's definitely starting to understand that big kids like Mom and Dad don't wear diapers but go potty in a potty, and she's aware that we have a potty. She follows Tyler and me to the bathroom, she's learned how to flush the toilet (so it gets flushed pretty frequently around here, if you can imagine that), and she likes to pull handfuls of toilet paper off the roll.

When she has a particularly wet diaper or a poopy one, she lets us know by walking us to her changing table. I've even heard her say a word that begins with the letter d (her saying diaper?) when she's getting hers changed. She also watches me really closely when I wash, dry, and stuff her cloth diapers, and sometimes she'll bring me one of her babies or Elmo and want me to put one of her diapers on them. She thinks that is really funny.

So, she's definitely interested in pottys, she's aware that she wears diapers and of when she needs a new one, and she's starting to understand a lot of what we say. We're no experts, but we decided for all of these reasons that, if nothing else, maybe buying her a potty and using it as a conversation piece may be a good start to the whole potty-training journey. We tell her a lot that someday she'll go potty in her potty instead of her diaper, and once or twice she's sat on her potty while we've been in the bathroom.

I don't know if you've been in the potty aisle at Target, but believe me when I say that there is a potty aisle, with crazy amounts of pottys to choose from. There are simple pottys and there are fancy pottys with handles so kids can "flush." There are even pottys that cheer and clap each time they are used. We decided to buy Emma a simple potty. She has this one from Ikea.

She had the choice of green or red, and she chose red, which was not the least big surprising to us given her love of a little red dude that goes by the name of Elmo.

So, yeah, as a recap, we're nowhere close to potty-training, but we're introducing the idea to our little lady! Stay tuned for additional potty talk.

More Zoo Fun

This weekend, we headed over to Como Park Zoo and Conservatory, one of our favorite spots to go with Emma. It's not the big Minnesota Zoo by any means, but it's better in some ways because you are able to get really close to the animals.

Like, this close.

Cool, huh? We go to this zoo once a month or so (and have written about it here and here), and each time we go, Emma is a little more excited and curious about the animals there. She must like it because she managed to get a hold of Daddy's phone and buy a family membership to the place via Groupon's mobile app. Two clicks and the deal was done! At least she didn't buy us botox or a trip to Cozumel? ;)

Emma arrived at the zoo in style.

And, once she was through the doors, she was shocked (seriously, we didn't stage this picture) to see her first animals: ducks and flamingos.

I think she would have liked jumping right in the water with them. It was hot in Minnesota this weekend, and our heat tolerance isn't what it used to be!

Further in, she also liked the primates. They're always a favorite. One sneaky guy was right above our heads when we walked by his cage.

The animal who made her the most happy, though, was Sparky the Sea Lion. He always seems to find her when we're there and pops out of the water at just the right time. We discovered that Sparky has a show at the zoo, so we waited around for it and ate a snack.

The show turned out to be really good; we sat in the front row, so we saw it all up close. Sparky's trainer made him dance, and it was probably the highlight! That Sparky has moves!

All in all, we had a great time.



Ramblings

We're not up to too much on this lovely Thursday evening. I just uploaded a cute video of Emma going down her slide all by herself, and I thought I would put it on the 'ol blog for you to see.



What's amazing about Emma at this stage, and I'm sure you saw it in the video, is that she understands so much of what we say. If we ask her to go and get her shoes because we're going bye-bye, she'll go and get them (most entertaining is which pair she chooses). Anytime we say "let's go," she takes our hands and starts walking. She leads us into her room and points to her changing table when she needs her diaper changed. She's totally aware that certain things go together, like spatulas and pans. She blows kisses and makes a really loud "muaaah" sound when she does it. Sometimes, out of the blue, she reaches up and kisses us, and we immediately melt into a puddle. When we read her her books, she likes to be sitting in our laps. She says "ruff ruff" for doggy, "kkkkk" for kitty, "bu-bu" for bubbles, and although she says both "ma-ma" and "da-da," she prefers calling both of us, along with everyone else on the planet, "da-da." She signs "milk," "eat," "more," and "finished." Although she says and signs only a handful of words, we can tell that she understands so, so many more, and we think she's on the brink of saying some of them. She's fascinated with other kids, especially girls who are older than she is. She walks right up to them and usually waves, sometimes very dramatically, at them. She always shares and probably wouldn't know what to do if someone didn't share right back. She's independent when she feels comfortable to be, but still likes the reassurance of knowing mama and daddy are close.

We love her.
So much.

Wordless Wednesday

The I-Like-Sitting-In-My-Toy-Bins Edition

Manhappenin'

We love few places in this world as much as we love Manhattan, Kansas.  

Manhattan is where we went to college. It's where we met. It's where we did a lot of growing up. It's where we met some of our closest friends.

While we were in Kansas a few weeks back, we decided to visit there with Emma. It meant a lot to us to take her there. We drove around to the various places where we lived and worked, walked around on campus, dropped in on people we knew so that we could see them and they could meet Emma, and ate at one of our favorite restaurants. We had a great time, and I'm sure Emma enjoyed hearing all about our college days ;)

Unfortunately, we didn't take a ton of pictures while we were there, but we did take some.

Like, of the city limits sign,

the places where we took the bulk of our classes,

and inside the student union. Cute Dad and baby alert!

 

While we were in the student union buying shirts for ourselves and for Emma, Emma found a little (ok, big) something that she wanted to have.

And, if it were a wildcat, we probably would have bought it for her ;)

We hope to make it back to Manhattan again soon because...we miss it there.