Why I like Hello Kitty in blue

It's very freeing to color with a toddler. So freeing, in fact, that I'm writing a second post today!

Actually, I'm writing a second post because I have other things done. Strange feeling. But I digress.

When Eme got her first taste for coloring (a few months ago with a ballpoint pen and some important papers, and then her leg) I got out the crayons and started coloring (in the Hello Kitty coloring book she got from the Lewis family) with her every day.

At first she was very timid with the colors, and I found myself taking time coloring the picture on the facing page, very careful to stay in the lines and make sure the colors matched. I was coloring like an adult. In fact, like an adult who has been pushed into particular boundaries and is stuck there.

Months later, Eme has learned to take a firmer hand with color and her colors appear all over the page, and on the facing page, and on the cardboard box we've set up for her to color on (to keep from getting crayon on her table). Until about a week ago I was still trying to color like an adult. Luckily, Eme saved me.

Eme likes to hand me a crayon and say "hep!" (that is "help" for anyone who needed a translation). I'll say "what should I color?" Eme will then point to a spot on the page (usually the Kiiii or the nossss -- that's the kitty or Kitty's nose) and I'll color it.

At first I was timid, still trying to stay in the lines. Now, though, under Eme's careful tutelage I have learned to scribble like a maniac. I've also kept my adult sense of humor throughout -- ask me about Mr. Mewhansson.

Sometimes I ask "what color should I make the Kitty?" and Eme will respond with "buuuu." (The only two colors she knows are blue and pink, and she gravitates towards blue.) Or I'll ask "what color should I make the teacher's desk?" and she'll hand me a lime green. The number of blue, orange, purple, yellow, and rainbow-hued Hello Kitties (not to mention Hello Kitty's friends and items around Hello Kitty's house and neighborhood) is astounding when taken all together.

Trying to color in the lines and pick "realistic" colors for things may have been very adult of me (and what am I trying to do if not teach Eme how to eventually be an adult), but it didn't exercise my creative side at all.

Coloring stridently (lines? what lines?) and with no regard to whether that color ever appears that way in nature is much more fun. I feel like I'm better at it than I could ever be when I was trying so hard to make the pictures "right."

And it makes Eme laugh.

And it makes me feel free.

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Wonder Baby Wednesday #9

Wonder Baby Powers, activate! Form of.......her mother's daughter.

The top pic is Eme after she grabbed a whole tomato and just started eating it. The bottom pic is what was left when she was done.

This is something that I used to do as a toddler (my mom professes that she thought some kind of animal was eating her tomatoes until one day when she saw me toddle up to the tomato and take a bite out of it right on the vine). There's nothing like an inherited love of tomatoes!

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Wonder Baby Wednesday #8

Wonder Baby Powers, activate! Form of........Mama's little laundry helper.

This is what I get for turning my back after emptying the dryer: it fills back up by itself.

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Why I Heart Dr. Karp

I realized I never wrote the post I promised on why I heart Dr. Karp. Don't worry, my husband knows all about it. He hearts him, too.

Dr. Karp is the author of The Happiest Baby on the Block and The Happiest Toddler on the Block. The number of people (all of whom we trusted) who recommended these books to us before we had Eme made us very curious. Now that we've read and been using the information in them, we know what everyone was on about.

His theory is that the first three months are time when the baby is still developing as if it were in the womb, and what we think of as "colic" in babies who have no medical reason for it is just their shock at being out of the womb. He gives the 5 S solution. We discovered through trial and error that it worked very well when we followed the instructions. So well that we didn't wait until she was a toddler to run out and get the second book.

Dr. Karp's theory about toddlers is that they are like little cave people. When we try to talk to them like they are adults while they cry and scream, we can't possibly expect to get through to them. Rather, he says we should mirror our toddler's emotion, looking directly into her eyes, showing her that we understand that she is upset. Only once she sees we understand what she wants can we redirect her.

So far, this is also working very well with Eme. It's funny to see other people's reactions when we're out in public and we crouch down to Eme's eye level and say "Eme mad! Eme want to walk!" but she stops yelling. Then we can say "let's ride in the backpack!" or "here's a bunny cracker!" and she becomes much happier.

She's only a few months into toddlerhood, but we're excited about these tactics so far. We'll see how it goes as we continue to learn along with Eme while we help her learn how life works.

For all of these reasons, we heart Dr. Karp.

Wonder Baby Wednesday #7: Warning! Exceptional cuteness ahead!

Wonder Baby Powers, activate! Form of......Wonder Flower Girl!

Yes, the stinging in your eyes is caused by her overpowering cuteness. It will go away in a few hours. But the chest pain...that's from your heart growing three sizes larger (like the Grinch when he heard Cindy Lou Who singing). That change is permanent.

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Done and Done!

To follow up from the last post: The wedding gift is complete.

Totals:

• 48 total hours of work (the final 12 hours of which was a mad dash that kept us up until 2:30 in the morning the day before the wedding; thanks for your help when I needed you at the "11th hour," Amy!)
• 2 total months of days in which the work was completed (mostly during Eme's nap times)
• 168 total pieces of glass to make up the final product (though if you count the ones I mis-cut or accidentally broke while working on it, it was probably more like 180 pieces that I cut, total)
• 2 total photos for you to enjoy: the top photo is me holding it so you can get a sense of the size of the thing. The bottom one is just a straight shot of it when we laid it down on the table.

The second "done" in the title of the post is because I also got my laundry folded. :)

For next week's Wonder Baby Wednesday, I'll post a pic of Eme as Wonder Flower Girl.

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Things I don't have time to finish (in no particular order)

1. Folding the laundry
2. Rolling all the coins to bring to the bank (I guess I'll have to figure out how Coinstar works)
3. Loading the dishwasher
4. Maria's wedding present (is it coming up THIS Saturday already?)
5. Projects for my freelance work
6. Writing in Eme's journal
7. Listening to the most recent "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me..."
8. Changing the Brita filter
9. Grocery shopping (yes, I literally had to run out of the store yesterday; long story.)
10. Reading a library book (what happened to the days when I COULD finish 200 pages in 2 weeks?)
11. Responding to my backlog of emails (sorry if yours is one of the ones languishing...)
12. Blogging
13.
14.
15.