Big Things are Coming!

August 1st - Emer used a regular cup, without spilling anything, by herself, for the first time today. I know my mom has helped her use a small regular cup, but I have never been able to get her to drink from a cup without dumping it on herself. So this was a very exciting development! She was so proud of herself!

August 2nd - I went back to work for another year of counseling the primary students in Greencastle. I'm excited for school to start, but as I was driving home one day I started thinking about Emer. I wonder what kind of student she will be like...I wonder if she'll make friends easily...I wonder if she'll like reading or math better...I wonder what she'll look like. She's changing slowly, but you can see it when you look closely. (Of course she's still nearly impossible to capture via photograph!)

She's only 2 but I was having trouble remembering what I used to do with my time before she was born. This is usually a romantic thought many people have when they are thinking about a new boyfriend or girlfriend. I never understood it. What did people mean they couldn't remember life before that person? How ridiculous! We make our own lives and don't need someone else to make our lives for us. Geesh. But it's different with a kid. My tiny wonder has given me someone to be with all the time. I can teach her things, show her the world, play in the little world of our backyard, and watch her run around like a crazy person. It's so much more fun than I ever thought! And I know she's not perfect. She has her (my) temper. When she doesn't get enough sleep she gets CRABBY! And who knows what she'll decide to eat when we sit down to a meal. (Hmmm, that also sounds a lot like me...)

Random side thought - do you think my love for Emer makes me a narcissist???

August 4th - I was able to put a french braid in Em's hair for the first time! It stayed in all day as well, I was so excited :)

August 8th - Let the potty training begin! I will update this blog next week with our progress. But for now, please wish us luck!!

Birthday Thank You's

My, my how the time flies! I hope that when Emer is old enough to do her own Thank You cards she is more timely than I am! But right now, I'm all there is to take care of the Thank You's for her. So here we go!

On the 4th of July my Tiny Wonder turned TWO!

We had a lot of fun throughout the whole day starting with our presents and ending at an Indians game. Well wait, I guess the festivities started the day before when Emer got a card in the mail from Karesa and family. It included frog stickers, which she Loved!

She had also gotten a package a while back but we saved it for her birthday. She loves her duck pillow from Cousins Sadie and Lucy (and family)!

Cousins have good taste in gifts because Hayden and family got her the Wonder Pets Schoolhouse which she hasn't stopped playing with!

(She's also gone back to asking to watch the Wonder Pets more often than I would like...it's only TV, right? LOL!)

After opening our gifts (see below) she played for a while then took a nap as usual. It was kind of a nice surprise that we were able to keep her on her usual schedule, especially since we had been traveling home from the Outer Banks the entire previous day. She enjoyed the beach, though wouldn't get in the water. It was very cold so Idon't blame her! She did love playing in the sand...

Which was good for me to see, considering the big gift we got her for her birthday! Here she is playing with our neighbor's granddaughter the day after her birthday:

They enjoyed some sprinkler and sandbox action! The girls are too cute together :)

Grandparents can also pick some great gifts. At this point on Emer's birthday I was feeling like a 2 year old's birthday is more fun for the mom than the kid : )

These are from Gigee and Poppy

The Bubbles are from Grandma

Sand box toys from Gigee, Poppy, and Grandma

Concluding Em's birthday we went to the Indians game and enjoyed a Rose Hulman cookout, a losing game, and baseball hats for the kids. Emer and Hayden are definitely the cutest babies at Victory Field! Don't you agree? :)

It was a late night, finishing up with fireworks from Em's bedroom window. She enjoyed the day and the night. The 4th of July is one special day in the O-C household!

New York 2010 and Many Other Things!

I am so embarrassed - we've been back from NYC for over a month and I haven't posted anything about our trip. A big part of this is because I was posting pics from the city on facebook. Now I know not everyone is on facebook, or is a friend of mine on facebook, so this really shouldn't be an excuse. The big excuse is that I've been lazy! And I figured people would see the pics on facebook, ha! So, to make up for it, here is a quick slide show of our trip, followed by a funny video I thought you might like.

SlideShow:

Video:

Since the NYC trip, I've been busy finishing up another school year, taking Emer to Marvin's for the first time, starting a running program, and hitting the pool!

* The school year ended with a bang! About a month and a half before the end of school my principal (who was one of the best people to work for!) announced her retirement. It was a HUGE shock to everyone! So as the year wound down she and I went to work setting up things for next year, but it was bittersweet knowing that a new principal would be stepping in. Next year will see more change; such is life :)

* Emer LOVES musicals and Marvin's! Our second graders put on a musical called "Go Fish". It was about a shark who wanted to fit in but everyone was afraid of him and didn't want him around. All the kids were dressed like different fish and the songs were so cute. The musical held Emer's attention for the entire program! She even sat through a cute slide show and graduation for the kids. Following the program we went to Marvin's for dinner.

She ate over half a toasted cheese!!!

Watching her enjoying hanging out with a couple of my students and chowing down on Marvin's was like a flash forward of her life. I would love to see her go to DePauw someday. I'm not going to push it on her, but since I work in Greencastle I'm sure she'll see plenty of the campus over the years and this was just a taste of the fun to come.

* Ah running. You see, I've always been a workout

junkie but over the last couple of years things have been changing at the YMCA. I no longer do

kickboxing (sometimes I get over to KTA where I used to go, but it's rare) and I've had some challenges in new classes from teaching a choreographed class to teaching a kids' class. Lately I keep hearing about the Couch to 5K and the Biggest Loser competitors are now doing marathons. So I figured, why not start a running class at the Y that focuses on running and strength training?! In order to do this I've had to stay a week or so ahead of the class. It's been about 3.5 weeks and I'm enjoying the new challenge! I take Emer along and she provides lots of encouragement:

As well as reminds us to drink our water:

The class has set a goal to run an event in August - August 14th to be exact. We're all signing up for the 3 mile run and I plan on running the entire thing! Woo hoo!

* And finally, the pool. GeeGee and Poppy bought a baby pool for Ems and Hayden and we all tried it out over Memorial Day weekend. Of course they loved it and it was hilarious to watch them play in the freezing cold water. (And, of course, I have no pics of them in the pool! But here's one of the kids running from the pool to the swing. Don't ya just love 'em?!)

A few weeks ago Emer and her friend Ella met up at the indoor pool and had a blast playing around. Both were totally into swimming by themselves until they couldn't touch (it's a zero entry pool). They used the kickboards and shared toys. What fun!

Then I took Emer to the big pool at the Y last week. She kept going back and forth between the pool and the splash pad just playing and swimming and playing and swimming. The little chic has fantastic tan lines already, in spite of the SPF 45 and 50 I've been putting on her!

Thank you, Daddy, once again for sharing your wonderful skin with our Tiny Wonder :)

It's going to be a good summer, I can tell. I will try to keep this blog updated more often! Things will be busy (QUASH this weekend, then vacation to Outer Banks, then Emer turns 2, then PartyLite conference, then the Race for Education run, then a friend's wedding, then school again...) but I'll do my best to keep up with the pics and writing. As always, thanks for checking in and enjoy the sun!

Mother's Day Take Three (my 3rd Mother's Day as a Mom)

Does anyone watch the TV show "The Middle"? I love this show! From the first episode I thought the mom on the show WAS my mom. I mean, she's busy all the time, takes care of everyone but herself, wears herself thin without anyone noticing until it's too late, etc., etc. And then they had the Mother's Day episode. Did you see it? Were you nodding in agreement? Did you sit back and think, "they are right! Father's Day is great because of Mom!". I made my husband watch and the message he got from it was, "well now you see that it's not me, it's men!" UGH! That wasn't the reason I wanted him to watch! Then I told my mom she had to watch (she DVR's it) and she called as soon as she was done watching. Mom agreed with me that it was the perfect depiction of being a mom on Mother's Day.
Ah, being a Mom. It's kind of the coolest thing in the world. Changes have occurred with me that I could have never imagined. I am actually proud to be becoming my mom. We all know this is an inevitable part of becoming an adult, but it's not until you are a parent that you realize how much you have become like your mother (or father, I suppose, for those dads out there!). I think Mom does a fantastic job of raising us (yes, my brother and I both still call on her for things, so she is still raising us!) and to think that I'm a lot like her is something to be proud of.
Another big change is in my emotions. This is kind of embarassing, but since I hope to share this blog with Emer someday I will write it out as a lesson from which she can learn. I used to be this super emotionally strong person. Nothing could make me cry. Now, I cry watching TV! I cry when there's a story line about someone who loses a child or when someone is reunited with a child they haven't seen in a while. I'm fully aware that most shows are not real but I empathize with the story line. Everything from Army Wives to Survivor (you know, the family episodes where they get calls from their family members) makes me tear up and it's kind of pathetic. I used to blame the post-partum hormones but I'm WAY past that now. Now I have to look at it like this: as a parent I can now imagine what it must be like to lose Emer. I don't know that I would want to go on if anything happened to her.
Being a parent is the most miraculous thing in the world. Everyone says that, and it is corny. But it's also true. The feeling I get when I look back at 'old' pictures of her is a feeling of pride, love, and joy. I can't believe how much she's changed in less than 2 years. I can't believe that I created her. I can't believe that I'm responsible for this beautiful, super-cute, attitude-filled toddler. It's not something I can describe any better than I've tried to do here.

* You know those t-shirts with random sayings on them? Is there one that says, "My kid rocks"? Because if there is, I want it! *

Paparazzi!

You know those articles online that show the stars' kids doing regular things like shopping, eating, etc? Well over the last couple of months we haven't had any big milestones or exciting findings to report, but it seems that the paparazzi has been watching little Emer! Here's a slideshow of the things she's been caught on camera doing:

(As an aside, we went to New York City last weekend and I'll be posting a blog about this, including video, in the next day or two.)

Nothing new...

I was talking to the hubby today and we were lamenting the sunshine we had yesterday. It occurred to me that I hadn't written an updated blog lately and I probably should do that. But then I realized that not much had changed to write about!
* It's still freezing, rainy, yucky outside (Emer has learned to say "yucky")
* The weather has us in more bad moods than happy lately (sunshine, please?!)
* The school year is plugging away...
* And we're planning another trip to NYC! (I figured I'd better get one more trip in before Emer turns 2 and we have to pay for her flight as well as mine!)

* One new thing - here's some new words Emer has learned lately: "Thank you", "Daddy" (not really new but spoken very clearly), "Poppy" (also not so new but very clear), and Scotty. Yes, Uncle Scotty, she can say your name better than she says "Mommy". Arg!

And that's the update :)

Translator, please?!

Everyone keeps asking me, "How is Emer? Is she talking up a storm yet?"
And I say, "She's doing great! She is quite a talker, but not so much in English..."




Can someone translate this for me please?!?!