Mini burrito

Quick post as we are supposed to be packing for NYC. Today is Andrea's birthday and we spent part of the day in the park. We decided to get burritos for lunch at L'Avenida and the person taking our order asked if we wanted beans or rice for the kid. We said no, that he would eat off of our burritos. She gave a kind of funny look, gave us our food, and we went outside to eat at one of the tables. A few minutes later she came out with a mini burrito she had made for Emmett and he was pretty excited. I took some pictures:

The gate

We just got back from the playground and I was playing with the camera while Emmett played. Emmett spends a good percentage of his time opening and shutting the two gates to the playground, but he can only open by pulling. I have often wondered if they would have designed the playground so that the gates swung outward if he would only be able to open gates by pushing? I have also often wondered if they designed the playground with gates that opened inward thinking that gates that open outward would be easier to open since inward opening gates could be swung open and harm children who are playing in the playground whereas the odds of hitting a kid with an outward-swinging gate are much lower. I have spent a lot of time wondering things at the playground.

Back to the video. Emmett is opening and shutting the gate and I ask him where the latch is. It is not that exciting, but illustrates how he says words that sound like the intended word, but that there is a good deal of interpretation going on. He really seems to like sounds with a "ch" sound---"lunch" is another favorite as are "peach" and "cherry," where lunch and peach actually sound somewhat similar and cherry is only said "ch." Anyway, here is the video:


As you can see, this video, like most these days, ends with Emmett noticing that I am holding the camera and coming to get it. While cleaning the camera I found the following picture from yesterday when he was on the attack, too.
Nothing too much else going on that is too exciting. Emmett has been a little less than regular in the last week with his naps making us wonder if he is starting to make the switch to one nap. Yesterday he missed his afternoon nap and was spacey and sleepy at dinner and on Wednesday he missed his morning nap and I thought he was going to fall asleep face-down in his plate. He went down just fine today, so we will see what comes.

Oh, one other thing semi-kid related. Malcolm, the cat, had an increased limp that got to the point where he wouldn't put his foot down at all. On Wednesday Emmett, Malcolm and I took the bike (Emmett bike seat, Malcolm trailer) to the vet but due to bad communication between the vet and I we ended up riding home (after a 45-minute stay in the waiting room) and had another appointment at a walkable vet on Thursday. Ends up Malcolm had an abscess in his leg that got bad, gave him a fever of 105+, and needed to be lanced. He got that done and is now finally putting his foot down a little. It was sad to see him hurt, but I have to say that the plus-side was that he wasn't begging for food all of the time and he wasn't bolting for the door every time it was opened. Emmett was surprisingly good at both vet offices and just watched the whole procedure without complaint (well, not the lancing...we left for that).

Words words

Emmett is turning into a regular old parrot. He is starting to repeat words that he hears a lot, and yesterday Andrea and I took him to the park where he heard a woman yelling either to her kid or her dog "run run run!" and Emmett said "run run run." Both Andrea and I were shocked. Yesterday was the first day (that I recall) where Emmett really used the word "up" in its proper context...except when he says it his arms are held upwards in front of one of us and he yells it as a command which has made us realize that we should really push "please" as an early learned word. He is saying "mom" a lot (repeating it more than asking Andrea for permission to do something), repeats words like lunch and grass. He will point to our bicycle helmets or his hat and say "hat", although his "hat" often doesn't sound terribly different from "cat." When Andrea's mom was in town, she read an Elmo book to Emmett and he immediately tried (and continues to try) to say "Elmo"---which is easy to distinguish from all of his other words as it is his only two-syllable word. There are two funny things about Elmo: 1) when Jan read the book to him he had never seen Elmo on TV, had never seen a doll, and had never heard his voice, but he was immediately obsessed with Elmo carrying the book everywhere and repeating his two-syllable interpretation of Elmo's name. I am convinced that it is the perfect roundness of Elmo's head and eyes, the big smile, etc. that captivated Emmett, but this argument was countered by Andrea who pointed out that cookie monster also has similar features (though a bit heftier). The second funny thing is that we were over at Augie's house with Augie and Anne on Sunday and they had an Elmo book which Emmett found and immediately latched onto. What was funny about this (or perhaps not so) was that Emmett found it, said his two-syllable Elmo-ish word, and Andrea and I both immediately turned into "those parents" who were ecstatic that our child could speak when any unbiased person could tell that our kid is just making sounds. At least Anne was kind enough to not point out that our kid can't say Elmo yet.

Two quick things

One less place we can lock up Emmett. Yesterday I had shut the door to Emmett's room with him in there so that I could clean a diaper up in the bathroom. Suddenly the door opens and Emmett is in the bathroom with me. I figured I must not have shut the door all the way and forgot about it. Today the same thing happens, so I put him back in his room, shut the door, and watch as he grabs the handle, turns, and makes his way out of the room. Hmmmm.

Yesterday was the first day that Emmett threw a real temper tantrum. He and I were on a long bike ride so we stopped off at a playground with an amazing view (Haas picture at left...not great, but you get the idea with downtown in the background). I needed to change his diaper and he hates being on his back so I gave him the keys to bribe him to deal with being on his back. Change went alright so I wanted to put the keys away. Queue temper tantrum. Emmett got all upset and stomped away, crouching down then standing, crouching then standing. I couldn't stop laughing but didn't let him see me laugh. Tonight he repeated the performance, this time because he was getting fed cherries from the farmers market, wanted more, and Andrea took them away. Rather than do the crouch routine, this time he literally laid down on the floor and shook his arms and legs. It is great stuff. Andrea is right that it is funny now but will not be soon.

Peaches, nectarines, and cherries are coming into season in the farmers market, and Emmett has loved all three. Today he had his first pluot and liked it, too.

Just found another picture from today. Emmett was playing in the sand with a toy that some other kid had left in the park and decided to kiss the sand. I realized when he did this that a runny nose can be hard to spot from a distance, but sprinkling his face with sand is a very effective method to highlight the runny nose.