Milestone Minutiae

Today in the car, Emmett was snacking on pretzels. As he ate the first one, he held up a partially-eaten pretzel and told me he'd made a letter C . Sure enough, he was holding a C shaped bit of pretzel. Over the course of the next few pretzels, he also made a U, B, M, X, and a triangle, correctly identifying each one. Not bad.

Here are a few quickies from Christmas. Emmett had a great Christmas with lots of wonderful presents. After opening his new tape recorder (with a tape of stories being read by Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle James), he stopped opening presents altogether and listened to it for a while. It was all I could do to convince him to finish opening his presents! One of the things I got for him was a "Jazz for kids" CD that we had previously checked out from the library. He had really enjoyed it, so I decided to buy it. When he opened it and I told him what it was, his face lit up and he gave me a big hug. He also had a great time playing "bowling for bear and bunny" and "bowling for Emmett" with Grandma. Grandpa Tim has a big green exercise ball (as tall as Emmett) that is rolled at the bear and bunny to knock them over. When Emmett is the target, he loves bouncing his face off the ball before he throws his feet up in the air as he rolls onto his back.

Yesterday, I bought Emmett a pair of blunt kid's scissors. Since then, he's spent hours happily snipping paper into confetti all over the family room floor.

While taking a hawaiian shirt off of Emmett tonight, he wanted to help with the buttons. He can't actually do buttons, and was getting a little upset about it. I let him "help" with the last button, and to distract him started talking about things that he's good at. I told him he's good at coloring with crayons, and that he makes nice collages. He looked back at me and said "You're good too. You're good when you're doing the laundry." I love that kid.

A few minutes ago Emmett and I were playing in his room while I cleaned it surreptitiously. He took a wooden toy cheese sandwich and declared that he was making grilled cheese, in the toaster oven. With that, he put the sandwich on the floor in the doorway. A few minutes later, I saw it and grabbed it to put it away. He immediately shrieked that I had taken it out of the oven too soon, and that I had broken the top of the toaster oven, too. I pantomimed "fixing" the toaster oven door, and put the sandwich "back inside," and he calmed down.

... that you may or may not find interesting. Everyone knows Emmett loves music. Since we've been in this house (and his CD player is closer to his bed), he pushes the button to start his bedtime music. This morning when he woke up, I head him talking in his room (not unusual). A bit later, he had turned on the music, too. I'm not positive it's the first time, but it's close. Speaking of music, today Emmett was very tired in the car, so we drove around a while to get him to fall asleep. David had started some music. With his head slumped over to one side, Emmett said "This music is making me happy." (for the record, it was Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp - David is quite the comedian)

When David and I talk about changing things in the house, Emmett will usually join in. He'll enter the conversation and say "How about we put the stove over on the other side?" and stuff like that. This morning, after David and I had been talking about new furniture, he popped in with "How about some window treatments?" Um, I don't use that phrase much if at all... I asked him what a window treatment was. He said "I'm talking about drapes ." Another term I don't really use. I guess he's picking up a lot from HGTV.