How adorable

Most would say that I am biased but Emma is stinking adorable. Sort of an oxymoron- is that the right word? Anyway, it isn't just me that has said that recently...

We are going to be starting Emma in preschool in the fall after our CA vacation. (If this were a blog just about me I would now go off about how things have changed and how my little girl is suddenly not so little...but I won't.) We are going to send her to this Montessori preschool that is really close to our house (within biking or walking distance) and has a great little place- plus a wonderful learning environment. So Emma and I went there last week to observe. Well, I observed while Emma jumped right in. Now, it is summer so the class was much smaller than it will be during the school year, but Emma only looked to me a few times for guidance. Otherwise she was content to play with the bean bin, introduce a little girl to her Baby Katie, splash in the tub of water and touch the cards, math manipulatives, and other items in the classroom. It was pretty cool to watch.

Then we went downstairs to have a snack and check out the library. Emma crawled right up in the recliner that is just her size, admired the fish tank, and asked me to read her a book. When she was hungry for snack, we went to the snack area and the teacher explained the process of first washing your hands. Emma went right with her to the bathroom and politely followed her instructions. Back at the snack counter, Emma climbed in the chair and listened to the teacher's comment about what was for snack. That was when I noticed the cute, ceramic plates and mugs, all displayed on these metal racks with hooks. I said, "Oh, look at how cute these are," as I handed them to Emma. When the teacher came over to check on her Emma said, "Oh, look at these plates and mugs. Aren't they so adorable?" To which the teacher replied, "That was adorable." Aww.

What is not so adorable are the early wake ups that keep all of us from sleeping, potty time that keeps Emma from napping or going to bed on time, and the NOs of the terrible twos. Emma seems to like using the potty as an excuse to stall sleep time. No big surprise there, but man is it frustrating. We don't want potty time to be rife with angst but we have to draw the line somewhere! So now she will use the potty (if she asks) before bath, after bath and ONCE after we shut the door and say goodnight. The trouble arose because sometimes she really does need to pee but most of the time she just fools around on the potty. As for the early mornings, we told her that if she wakes up soaking wet or with a poop she can come out of her room to tell us. (Oh, and the biggest break through in the last 2 weeks was that one day after nap, we both (Emma and I) realized that she could open her bedroom door all by herself! That was a momentous occasion that has had multiple repercussions as you can imagine.) So, she has woken up every morning at around 5 am with poop, pee or some other potty emergency. yeah, no one sleeps much after that even if she does return to her room for a bit.

Tonight as I was sitting down to post I thought I heard some thumping noises coming from upstairs. Once I ruled out Steve as the culprit I realized that it must be Emma. Sure enough, there she was looking down at me through the bars of her cage, I mean the bars of the gate at the top of the stairs. When I asked her what was going on, she said that she had to go potty. Are you sure? Yes! So off came her diaper and down she went on the potty. After a few false starts (playing with TP, walking out of the bathroom, almost crying because I moved her books back into her room) she peed in the potty! What a big girl Emma is! Thankfully Steve and I were able to talk her out of the normal potty reward of sunflower seeds. Before you go getting ideas that we are really crazy around here, let me clarify that these are chocolate covered, candy coated sunflower seeds. They are small and she only gets about 7. (A poop in the potty will come with chocolate covered raisins!) The look on Emma's face as she yells down the stairs, "Daddy, I went pee-pee!" is too adorable.