December

December 1st! Happy 10 Months!

December brought with it some colder temperatures that had Emersyn and I staying inside more. I was hesitant to spend too much time in single digit temperatures with a little baby so, at times, the days seemed long. We did get out plenty to do some Christmas shopping. Emersyn always looked so cute going to the grocery store and found a way to make herself comfortable. I She would always put her feet on the handle bar, or wherever she could find something to push against.

We would also make frequent trips to the horse property. Emersyn got excited about seeing the goats and horses every time. We made sure she stayed warm in her cute bunting that Chris had bought for Emersyn before she was born. It was one of my favorite items of clothing she received.

And who knows, unlike Chris and I she may even become a horse rider and become a cowgirl.

Emersyn was starting to get a lot of 'favorites'. She loved stuffed animals and would hug them and hold them tight to her whenever she found one. The ones she most adored where a soft pink bunny and her kitty-cat blanket. Her eyes would light up every time she saw them. She also became a big fan of any toys with buttons and lights. I bought her a piano that quickly became a favorite. She could spend quite a bit of time turning the pages and hitting the buttons. She even started to dance a little.

Her very favorite place to be was anywhere mommy was. Even though she had plenty of toys to keep her entertained she would quickly shift her attention to anything I was doing. To distract her a little if I was working in the kitchen I would open the tupperware drawer and let her unload everything. This was some good entertainment and kept her busy for a while, and that way she was still close. We did lose quite a few lids under the stove and fridge, though.

Another thing that made Emersyn happy was bath time. She would start to jump up and down when she heard the water turn on. She still loved the rubber duckies, but she really liked to suck on wet washcloths. Of all the toys we gave her she liked the wet washcloth the best. Chris and I had a pretty good routine down as to how bath time would go which made everything easy.

Emerysn was becoming more vocal in many ways. She would jabber to herself and she started talking to Chris and I. She continued to make her grunts and grizzly bear noises. In the car we would have a conversation with her grunting. Chris and I would mimic her noises going back and forth. Emersyn learned to say 'Hi' and would say it loud and clear when she saw someone she was excited about. It was so fun to hear her little voice talk. After walking in to Relief Society (a little late as always) we sat a few rows behind a neighbor boy of the same age. Emersyn immediately recognized him and yelled out a big 'Hi!', interrupting the quiet of the meeting. Emersyn also decided to verbalize her frustrations. She doesn't like to have her hands and face cleaned after breakfast. She cries every time. For the first time (and sure not to be the last) Emersyn got so fed up with me trying to clean her hands that she made her hands into fists and looked right at me and yelled. It was obvious that she was very angry, but I was so surprised at her ability to direct her anger at me that it made me laugh.

Emersyn was getting good at playing games and understanding cues. When we said 'Yeah!' she would clap her hands. She started playing Peek-a-boo herself. She would hide herself while we asked where Emi was, and then she would pull the blanket down and we would say 'There she is!". One time when playing with my dad he was using his finger to trill his lips. Whenever he stopped she would grab his hand and try to pull it up to his mouth so he would keep going. She quickly picked up on that and would do the same to herself. Another thing my dad taught her in the same setting was to move her tongue back and forth while 'La-ing'. She thought that was a novel idea and really hung on to that one. Any time she saw him she wanted him to move his tongue and she would do the same.

Emersyn was also a bit of a snuggler. She loved the social interaction with her grandparents, aunts and uncles, and even some neighbors that she felt comfortable with. It was cute to see her give loves to those around her. I am always bringing my face close to hers and pulling her to me. She would do the same to others. It was endearing to see her lay her head on my dads chest or bring her face close to his, knowing that it is how she shows her love. e

We prepared for Christmas by getting our tree up and decorated. I made sure to leave most of the decorations off the lower branches just incase Emersyn decided they looked like a fun toy. Although a plastic ball could be considered more of a toy than a decoration anyway. Surprisingly Emersyn didn't get to close to the tree most of the time. We don't spend a lot of time in the front room and she wanted to be where I was so that made my Christmas tree protecting job much easier. Whenever she did get her hands on it, it was only to suck on the little light bulbs. I was nervous about her using her cute little teeth to bite it and causing some real damage.

In keeping with the Christmas spirit we took Emersyn for a drive around Layton Park to see the Christmas lights. It only takes a few minutes, but it was fun to see how excited she was. I think part of her enthusiasm was being able to sit in the front seat while the car was moving.

Emersyn had been lucky and avoided any sort of real ailment or illness. Even though this rash popped up unexpectedly, it was gone within a few days. It didn't seem to phase Emersyn at all and she didn't have any other symptoms to go along with it. I sent a pic to Chris to see what his thoughts were on it.

Emerysn was quite a speedy crawler. She had a high gear that would move her from point A to point B in lightning-baby-speed. People would often comment on how fast she crawl when they saw her b-line for something she wanted. It seemed that going from rolling over to crawling took some time and learning, but going from crawling to standing up on things was a short interval, and Emersyn was up on everything. This created an opportunity for even more bumps and bruises. I think it was rare that Emersyn didn't go a day without some sort of tumble and she often had various stages of bruising on her head. It made me question my parenting capabilities. I could swear that few other kids looked as banged up as Emersyn. Chris assured me that it was a normal part of learned to be more independent and I just don't notice it as much on everyone else's kids.

I don't know if it had anything to do with crawling, or just plain stretching out in general, but Emersyn seemed to thin out. Her face became longer and she started to transition out of the purely baby-face look. We had a doctor visit this month and got her next set of statistics and shots.

Length: 28.2 Inches 77 percentile

Weight: 19 lbs 8 oz 64 percentile

Head Circumference: 44.5 cm 66 percentile

Her development seemed right on track and her growth was on a regular curve. As a parent it's always great to know that your kid is on the right track. We started introducing more foods to Emersyn, though she wasn't interested in most of the stage 3 baby foods, though I can't say that I blame her. Emersyn was a real texture oriented baby and anything that felt too strange in the mouth was immediately rejected. After what seemed like a long time, Emersyn's right front tooth came in. She still had a funny smile, but it was a big breakthrough. I was hoping that with the eruption of both of her teeth having happened maybe she would quit grinding her teeth quite so often. Instead, I think having another tooth up top just gave her one more surface for grinding.

Aunt Sara loved being around her nieces and nephews. On her mission she wasn't allowed to hold any babies or kids so she was more than happy to get a little one (or two) on her lap.

Christmas was even more fun having Emersyn around, even though she had no concept of the meaning of the day and the fun that happens on Christmas. I did wrap up her presents (which just meant that I would also be unwrapping them for her). Because kids grow so fast at this age, we gave her a whole bunch of clothes to wear in the next stage of baby-hood. She didn't seem to be able to get enough of books so we gave her some great picture books. She liked the lift-the-flap books so we got a couple of those. Although she seemed like she was going to rip most of the flaps off right away. We gave her a walker to help her when she started getting closer to taking her first steps, and a nice fluffy pillow pet to cuddle (we had given it to her two weeks early, but we still wrapped it up). We were able to get through the days festivities without much disruption in Emersyn's schedule. We spent the early afternoon at my parents opening presents there. As always my parents were more than generous and it was fun to exchange gifts. Among some clothes, books (one of which was the Very Hungry Caterpillar - a favorite of mine) and toys, my mom gave Emersyn a large pillow pet that she could almost fit her whole body on.

The evening was spent in the mass chaos that takes place at Oma and Opa's. Emersyn always loves seeing new, or fresh, faces so she enjoyed watching everyone. As usual, anyone she didn't recognize that you might consider a 'stranger' she would stare at them for a while and take it in. Oma was so thoughtful, and with the help of Susan, made everyone their own quilt. Emersyn got a cute pink one that had a Young Women inspired print with the temple and other pictures on it. It is probably the last gift that will be handmade in that way and I thought it neat that she would choose a pattern for the little girls that had so much meaning. With the evening going so late and all the excitement of the day Emi slept the entire car ride home and had no difficulty transitioning to bed once we got home.

With New Years Day being on a Sunday, and expected to be bad weather, the Sonntags decided to get to together on the 31st at the horse property. Although I did sneak away to go shooting for a bit, the cold weather, and feeling bad about leaving Emersyn to be taken care of by whoever was available at the time, I spent most of the day hanging with the cousins at the house. Emersyn seemed to have a stomach bug that was giving her diarrhea. More often than not her diapers would overflow and she was going through a couple of outfits a day. Thankfully Heather had an extra outfit since we had already gone through the one I brought - and Ainsley is pretty close to the same size.

One theory as to why Emersyn had the runs is due to a sudden increase in apple juice over the previous few days. Emersyn had fallen and hit her mouth on the edge of mine and Chris' bed and cut her gums. There was a lot of bleeding, but we couldn't tell if it was from the teeth or just from a cut that was visible on the upper frenulum. To help soothe the pain we gave Emersyn some cold apple juice. She seemed to like it so we kept giving it to her. Unfortunately I think it was just too much. More worrisome for me was if Emersyn's teeth were going to die. I wasn't sure, but it could have been a direct hit on those front teeth, and I didn't want them turning gray or falling out. Only time will tell.