Spring break

This is a strange post. I am in San Francisco while Andrea and Emmett are in Susanville. I am going back up as soon as I finish this post. I realized that I had started this one about a week ago and never got back to it, so I figured I would add a couple of lines, pictures, and movies and then post it. Apparently Emmett got to ride a horse today, so it is fun times for him up north. Also, we had snow while I was up there a few days ago. We built two tiny snow men, which Emmett was actually pretty excited about. This weekend we will be in Tahoe, so hopefully even more snow fun.

Emmett and I went to the doctor last week for his two-year check-up. We showed up on time, got sent to the room, and waited for nearly an hour for what ended up being a 5 minute appointment. This is similar to what happened when I took Emmett in to the immedia-care facility a few weeks back for what ended up being conjunctivitis (maybe I wrote about that here...don't remember now), where they put us back in the exam room an hour before the doctor saw us. It seems like places who make their dollars treating children would understand that keeping said children in a small place for an hour

First off, stats: Emmett weighed in at a whopping 30 pounds, 4 ounces and was measured to be 36.25 inches tall. It is hard to tell that the kid that you see every single day is getting taller, but one of the recent tell-tale signs has been the fact that when I stand with my legs spread as a tunnel for Emmett to run through, he now has to slow and duck his head. It really does seem like this change happened within the past few weeks. Oh, the weight and height put him in about the 75th and 90th percentiles, respectively, so he is climbing the ranks.

It is interesting the books that Emmett is choosing these days. Often they are relatively long books and he wants us to read them to him repeatedly. Recently Andrea and I were discussing how much of the stories he really understands---the jury is still out. One of his recent favorites has been "The Twelve Days Of Christmas", which I have had the pleasure of singing in its entirety multiple times daily in mid-March and early-April. The reason that I bring this up is that it is funny how his head works. When Andrea's mom was in town a few weeks ago, she, Andrea, Emmett and I took a rowboat ride on Stow Lake. One of the highlights, especially for Emmett, was rowing up close to some logs which had dozens of turtles sunning on them, and as we got close the turtles would jump (Emmett's term...they more flung themselves) off of the log into the water. Emmett would yell "jump" to try to encourage other turtles to jump. Grand times. Well, every time I get to the second day of Christmas and mention the two turtledoves, Emmett says "boat, water, jump, jump," even though the fact there are birds in the picture and no turtles has been pointed out numerous times.

Somehow Emmett learned to say "cheese" while having his photo taken recently. The days of getting pictures taken of him with a semi-natural facial expression are in the past, I think. The evidence is in the following movies where as soon as he sees the camera he starts up saying "cheese" repeatedly. Oh well. Here are a couple of pictures, too---one of us in the water near the golden gate bridge on a clear day and another of Ethan and Emmett enjoying their first ice cream cones (well, at least Emmett's first) together.

This video has Emmett chasing Ethan on a boat at Dolores Park and trying to hug Ethan each time Ethan stopped. Ethan was having none of it.


This one is Emmett playing in the sand and water at Golden Gate Park. I don't know why I uploaded it, but since it is here I will post it.


This video has Emmett playing with the shape box (which he has gotten pretty adept at completing) until he sees the camera and starts up with the "cheese" thing. I try to get him to change his word.


The ice cream cone video. Ice cream brought to you by Bi-Rite---best ice cream in the world.