The Days of Caleb and Emma

It is so wonderful to watch my children grow and learn. I love the fact that they are excited about learning and helping. I hope this will continue as they get older and start school!

So many new things happen daily. It is hard to remember them all. Hopefully, they will come to me as I type this out.

Emma

Emma playing princess!

My very independent child...Emma, of course. She is wants to do everything by herself. Sometimes it can be very frustrating and a battle of the wills. But we do pick our battles with her and try to encourage her independence in a positive way, like giving her choices between two things. It seems to work pretty well with her. She also loves to help us unload the dish washer and the dryer. Helping is a new and excited thing for her. And she does it well!

Emma has recently discovered body parts. Yes, that is right...oh JOY! They will walk in on us in the bathroom after showers and ask questions. I don't believe in lying to them. I believe in being honest about our bodies and sexuality. By no means does that mean that we go into great details or dwell on anything like that, but when they ask we answer matter a fact and then change the subject. Emma is to smart for her own good though. The other night at home with daddy and Caleb she was playing with her baby dolls and doll accessories. She took her baby bottles and put them down her shirt like, well, you know. So, Rick just chuckled at her a little and then took them out and showed her how to use them. Sigh...what to do with out strong willed very observant daughter?

Emma loves to learn. She is a pro at her colors! She can count to 9 all by herself and can recognize some letters in the ABC's when she sees them. Makes this mommy very proud. We are starting to work on shapes and our ABC's now. She loves to sing the ABC song!

Emma is a little cuddle bug lately. She is really wanting to be on our laps or in our arms. Also, holding our hands has become something of major importance to her.

She loves to play dress-up and play with her babies. Mommy's shoes are always a hot item in our house! we have regular fights over them and results in more of mommy's shoes being taken out to be fair.

Emma has always called Caleb "brother". Now she is trying to say "Caleb" and it comes out a mix of the 2 words brother and Caleb. It sounds like "brulbub". It is so cute!! She always likes to wear "balettes" in her hair and of course....they have to match! Also, she like to eat "checkup" on her fries and chicken nuggets! I love the words!!! She cracks me up!

Caleb

Caleb being his goofy self!

Oh my little man! He gets more handsome every day. Caleb has always been the quiet one. Of course, any mother understands that just because that child is your quiet one, they still have their moments! Ha Ha!

Caleb still loves music. He has definitely got a musical hear. He keeps time with the music and can dance to the beat. It is so fun to watch him! He has his favorite songs on the radio. His new favorite song is called, "Eye Candy" by Josh Turner. I got his new CD for my birthday from my mom. Of course, I listen to it a lot in the car...Josh Turner is one of my favorites! (He is my music boy friend! Ha Ha! I have many boy friends...like Joe Mauer from the Minnesota Twins is my sports boy friend...get the picture...anyway! Ha Ha!) So every time "Eye Candy" comes on Caleb starts to rock out in his car seat and when it ends he yells, "AGAIN!" It is so funny! And if it not turned up loud enough, he gets very upset and starts to cry. I have never seen a kid act that way about music before!

Caleb is so quiet sometimes that I have often wondered if he was learning anything. For a long time Emma was showing off with all the stuff that she knew and Caleb would just observe. Much to our surprise Caleb blew us away. One night at supper we were practicing counting. At this point I was well aware that he could count to seven by himself. All of a sudden he started to count, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10...I was impressed! Then he just kept going...11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16... then it got kind of messed up. BUT WOW! Two years old and counted to all most 20 by HIMSELF! We laughed and wondered if it was a fluke thing. So I got the camera out to record and had him start again, and sure enough he did it! We are so proud of him! What a little smart man we have. I was telling my friend, Amy, who is the music teacher at our school about his counting. She said that his music ability and math are very closely linked. So maybe Caleb will be really good at math, unlike his mother!

Caleb enjoys singing his ABC's and learning shapes and colors as well. He knows his colors if you ask him to find them, but he just does not say them very well. We have to work on that.

One of his new favorites is Veggie Tales. Honestly though, who doesn't love a good Veggie Tales song! It is so cute when he sings along with the songs and dances to them. If he knows you are watching though, he gets a little embarrassed! Ha Ha! He gets that from his daddy!

The funniest thing about Caleb right now is that he is very dramatic about certain things. He will drop stuff on the floor or something will fall over and make a mess, then he proceeds to say, "Oh MAAANNNN!" He says this will a lot of enthusiasm and inflection in his voice. I couldn't figure out where he got this from. It is so cute. Then I heard Rick say "Oh Man!" to something the other day and it was just like Caleb! They pick up on everything!

Caleb has also figured out guns. This surprised me greatly! We don't talk about guns or even have them in the house. Not even toy ones. But there are some bigger boys at daycare that like to pretend shoot monster according Miss Candi. She said that they will put together Lego's as guns. They are not to point at people or they have to put them away. Caleb has never played with them before Miss Candi said, but like I said before they pick up on everything. It is not that I don't want Caleb playing "guns", but I was so shocked at how early he figured it out. It was kind of funny the way it happened. I was making Easter dinner in the kitchen and Caleb came in looking for the turkey baster. He loves to play with that silly thing. So I let him get it and pretty soon he said, "gun" then started pointing it at me and other saying, "boom". I had to get after him a little and told him that he could not point it at anyone...only at the floor. I did not know about the daycare piece at that point, but I was guessing that the big boys were the ones that showed him. We have not had to deal with it since then! I know it will come up again, but at least I am aware of it now.