Things Misheard

Emelie is learning things so quickly these days that I'm constantly surprised by words she knows.

For example, the other day I said "sleeve" (just in passing; I don't even remember what I was talking about) and she pointed to her sleeve. When did she learn sleeve?

Or how about "bean"? My mom calls one of her cats Bean, and we spent some time at her house calling for the cat. Later, someone mentioned beans (the kind you eat) and Eme called "beeeeeen! beeeeeeen!" just like when we'd called for the cat.

The number and variety of words she understands (and repeats) amazes me, but even more amazing are the connections I can see forming when she shares her understanding. We've had a lot of laughs out of things that Eme mishears or misunderstands as her brains makes these kinds of connections.

For example, we have a groundhog living out in the back of our yard. One day we were pointing out the window and telling her it was a groundhog. The next time it appeared and we said "groundhog" she said "hu" and hugged herself. She thinks we're saying "ground-hug."

Another good one was when Andreas was talking about planting bamboo in the yard. Eme practiced saying "baboo," "beboo," "babo," and multiple other forms of the word right in a row. Finally, she ended the performance by wanting me to kiss her on her knee. The knee that she'd scraped a few days earlier. Her "boo boo."

My favorite by far, though, is a new book we've been reading with her. She likes to act out the book (ask her what Findus looks like when he gets scared of the badger; the face she makes is hilarious!), plus it's in Swedish so I don't read the words so much as reading the pictures. Once as we were "reading" it I pointed out that the man is making coffee.

Eme made a noise in her throat that I didn't really think about. The next time we read the book, Eme got very excited when we reached that page, pointing to the coffee pot and making the noise in her throat again. She was coughing. She made the connection to a word she knew -- she understood that he was making cough-ee.

Amazing.

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Where did it all go??

I know, I know, I haven't been posting much lately. I assure you, though, that a lot has been going on!

I just wanted to leave a note saying that I plan to write some posts soon (how about one on things misheard, and another on why I heart Dr. Karp; any other subjects you want to hear about?), and post some more beautiful but hilarious pictures.

Now that I've put this here for all to see, I'll have to motivate myself to find some time for blogging soon!

Super Powers

As you know, Eme has super powers.

I wouldn't want to reveal all of them (so there will still be surprises if an evildoer should happen to read this and then go up against her), but here is a short list of some of my favorites:

1) Multiple Forms: She has the ability to make herself look like many different, usually hilarious, things. (See Wonder Baby Wednesday posts for some examples.) She can cause laughter, confusion, or an evil-doer to stop in his tracks with one raise of the eyebrow.

2) Heart Melting: Really, I've seen it happen. We'll be walking around, minding our business in the grocery store/restaurant/neighborhood/etc when someone walks past looking grim. One look at Eme and they break into smiles. You can practically see their hearts melting. And don't get me started on the first time she said "DaDa" to Andreas and really meant it; it was like that scene from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the cartoon version) when his heart grows a bunch of sizes and bursts through the frame. If she were to come upon an evil castle, I think she could turn the inhabitants to good with this power alone.

3) Laser Vision: She can spot a bus or a dog from all the way down the block. Sometimes she can tell us the school bus is coming even when it's around the corner. Either her vision (and hearing) are fantastic, or she is summoning the bus. We'll have to see how this one develops before I can be sure of all of the applications.

4) Animal Sounds: She makes excellent animal sounds, currently including a meow, bark, neigh, pant ("tired dog"), elephant trumpet, and sometimes an owl sound. I imagine more sounds will be forthcoming soon. This could be useful when she needs to imitate an animal to cause a diversion or alert someone to the presence of a bad guy.

5) Blinding Cuteness: Self-explanatory. I mean, how many times do you find yourself rubbing your eyes after looking directly at her face? The use of this one should also be obvious, and when combined with the ability to melt hearts, almost unstoppable.

6) Cat Herding: She can get cats to run in the opposite direction when she comes close, so if she gets onto the correct side before she starts to run at them, she can get them to go the way she wants. She usually ends up herding them down the basement. If she can perfect this (maybe in combination with the sonic scream), I feel like cat herding could be of great use when fighting evil, assuming the cats choose to show up to the fight (that is, as long as it's not during their sleep time).

7) Extreme Empathy: She feels sad when someone else is sad. This happens to the extent that she sometimes begins to cry herself, or at least looks concerned and tries to determine the cause. When cousin Viktor was visiting, he bumped his head the first day here. After that, every time he started to cry she'd point to her head, wondering whether he'd bumped it again. Could this one be used to bend evil warlords to her will when they realize that she really DOES care that their parents didn't understand them?

8) Sonic Scream: This amazing sound emanates from deep within, and she uses it to attempt to stun animals, other children, toys, dada, machinery, or anything that is moving that she would like to get a closer look at, or is in any way excited about. For now, the scream sometimes causes people/animals to scatter rather than to freeze in place, but she's working on it. A lot.

How have you been applying your super powers lately?

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Wonder Baby Wednesday #5

Wonder Baby Powers, activate! Form of.... Wonder Bread Baby!

We don't feed her the stuff*, but labeling her with the sticker from the novelty sandwich box was a great opportunity for a funny Wonder Baby Wednesday picture.

*Particularly after an experiment where a number of slices of the "bread" lay in the yard, stubbornly not decomposing, for over a month.**

**I want to be clear, after having read an article about whether mommy bloggers are in the crosshairs for doing "product reviews," that this is in no way meant to be defamatory; anyone who still wants to eat it is certainly welcome to do so. In fact, I know many people with fond childhood memories that involve a slice of enriched white bread, some butter, and a coating of sugar. I'm just saying that I don't want to eat it, and therefore Eme will be missing out as well. :)

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Percents and Percentiles

We recently went to the Doctor for Eme's 15-month check-up and it has inspired me to think more about percents...

• 10th-25th The percentile of Eme's weight
• 25th-50th The percentile of Eme's height
• 50th-75th The percentile of Eme's head circumference ("It's like an orange on a toothpick")
• 90 Approximate percent of me that now feels confident as a mother (I still have my days)
• 75 Approximate percent guilty I (still) feel when Eme gets her vaccinations (100% of me knows it's best, but only 25% of me believes it right at the moment she gets the shot and looks at me as if to say, "mommy, how could you?")
  
• 70 Approximate percent of my time that I spend doing housework and taking care of Eme (the other time is me sleeping, working, or having a quick, rare moment to relax with Andreas)
• 50 Approximate percent of my time that I thought I'd be devoting to housework and Eme (but it's never an equal split, is it? Silly mommy.)
  
• 25 Approximate percent of my own identity that I feel I have left (I sometimes even refer to myself as "mommy" in my own head)
  
• 10 Approximate percent of me that can remember life before Eme
  
• 1 Approximate percent that cares to try to remember life before Eme
  
• 99.9 Approximate percent chance that Eme is the best baby that has ever existed (I've left the .1% for possible parental bias)

What percentages have you been experiencing in your life?

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Wonder Baby Wednesday #4 (I wonder when I'll find time to post again?)

Wonder Baby Powers, activate! Form of.......a firefighter!

We're putting out "fires" everywhere! Mostly they involve crayon eating, but they're fires nonetheless.

On the day of this picture, we were touching trucks at the library.

Mommy goes to the prom

I'm going to be 30 in a few weeks. That means a lot of different things. Some people feel old at 30, or like you've reached the "real" barrier to adulthood.

As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I went to Prom on Friday night. 30 wasn't making me feel old before, but I did at the prom.

The biggest thing that made me feel old? Some of those dresses were WAY too short. All of a sudden I was seeing things as a parent and I thought "did their mothers see them in those dresses?!"

I'll post them if I can get a hold of some of the pics (surprisingly, we didn't even bring a camera, but lots of other people from whom we can probably get some did, including both of our moms taking pics of us before we left -- yes, just like old times -- and the teacher in charge of yearbook took plenty during the evening).

A few other things that made me feel old:

• All of those kids (yes, I called them kids) looked like they were playing dress-up.
• But they still looked better than me in many ways. (ways that Andreas is too good of a husband to ever point out, but which I noticed anyway)
  
• Plus, I thought about what it was like at my prom and remembered taking it very seriously. Prom is such a big deal to high school students, but for me it was one night in a string of nights where I've gotten to get dressed up and be with Andreas. (Granted, this was the first big night out we've had since before the baby, but still a drop in the bucket compared to how the teens must have been feeling that night.

I've been to prom three times as an attendee, and now once as a chaperone. The first time is hardly worth mentioning (I was a sophomore, and split up with my then-boyfriend not long after prom). The next two times were with Andreas (yes, he and I were High School sweethearts), and chaperone duty was because he is a HS teacher, so I've now been to prom with him three times.

First prom with Andreas:

• Spent a lot of time worrying about the dress.
  
• Wondered whether he'd have a good time (we'd only been together for a few months).
• Worried about every detail including dinner (at Amy's house -- her mom's a great cook!), makeup (went to get it done at a Clinique booth at the mall), hair (sisters helped me get it right), pictures (ordered a bunch to share), dancing (how much to dance? would he want to dance with me at the slow songs?), etc, etc, etc.
  
• Had a great time.

Second prom with Andreas:

• Spent less time worrying about my dress and more about Gillianne's (it was her prom that year, too).
  
• Spent less time worrying about my dinner and more about Gillianne's date's (he chipped a tooth).
  
• Worried exactly the same about makeup and hair (I've never been great with those things).
  
• Danced about the same amount as last time, and ended up getting a hilarious video of us dancing with each other and singing to "Brown-Eyed Girl" onto the senior video.
  
• Had a great time.

Third prom with Andreas, this past Friday:

• Worried a little about my dress (how formal are chaperones supposed to be?).
  
• Worried a little about my hair (mom and I went to get our hair done; too much?).
  
• Worried a little about my makeup (I just chose not to wear much at all).
  
• Didn't have to worry about dinner -- Andreas' school provides dinner at prom, and it was very good.
• The most worrying I did was about whether Eme would go to sleep for Grandpa Guy. (Thanks for taking care of her, Dad!)
  
• Didn't dance at all (don't want to come off as inappropriate when you're a chaperone, and plus it was threatening to turn into a mosh pit), but got to watch the dancing from up on the balcony and it was amazing to see the crush of high school bodies gyrating with abandon from that angle; did we look like that at our prom?
  
• Had a great time.

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