The longer I go without writing on this blog, the harder it is to write on it. It feels like so much happens with this kid daily that once I start writing I have no chance of addressing everything I want to write. Well, tonight I am baking muffins for Emmett's day care class and I don't feel like working on my lesson plans (like I should do), so I will procrastinate with the blog.Today we got the three boys together (Ethan, Augie, and Emmett) along with most of the parents at Crissy Field for what ended up being a warm day. It is so interesting being with the three boys together at one place to see how they have changed and how their personalities continue to change. We often think of Emmett as pretty outgoing and wild, but today he was very tame and stuck to Andrea's leg as the other two boys were all over the place. They are really turning into little people, and they have personality fluctuations just like big people.
Emmett has been in day care for about a month. When he started back he would cry each day when I left him, but he got over that relatively quickly and now doesn't even notice that I leave, and when I pick him up he doesn't want to go. It is definitely nice to feel like the time he is spending there is time he enjoys. I still try to minimize the time he spends there, but am starting to realize that I shouldn't really worry about it as he is really happy.
We have been riding the bike together each day. I really do not want to get rid of this front seat that we have used, though he is reaching the max weight and is starting to look a little stuffed into the small seat. It is just so nice to be able to have real conversations as we travel. The trip still takes about 40 minutes each way, but he very rarely complains about it (almost never) and has things that he really looks forward to seeing (we pass through a section of a path that has trees completely overhanging it which we call the "tree tunnel"---every single trip he gets excited for our passing through it even though we have done so a hundred times or so). The next two pictures are one of the bike on one of our trips (I used the guitar for a demo in class) and the second is of Emmett driving a ladder engine one morning on our way to school (we pass a fire station every day---another highlight).
Speaking of conversation, he is talking so much and about such varied things---it is really such a difference. He has taken to picking up conversational ticks that people have as he thinks they are important parts of conversation. It is pretty funny.
There are a few things that this kid lives for: trains, his bike, his trike, and his mom. For weeks there were a different collection of trains that had to go to bed with us each night. Andrea was in NYC for about 9 days and each night he would instruct me which trains I was to sleep with and which he would. At that time he had two favorites, Molly and Thomas, whom he would sleep with and I would sleep with Percy and Bertie the Bus. During this phase Emmett was really attached to Andrea and was still not seeming such a fan of me, but one night as we were getting into bed he looked at his trains and decided that he would let me sleep with Thomas that night. He really seemed to mean it as a meaningful trade and I definitely took it as such.
Speaking of Andrea's trip, we used Skype to video chat while she was gone and one night she showed Emmett that she had bought him a subway train. It was funny that up to that point all he talked about was missing Mom and looking forward to her coming home, but after seeing the train the reason he looked forward to her return was simply the train.
For a while it seemed like Emmett wasn't very into books, but things have definitely changed with him back to really loving being read to. My mom supplied us with a very large collection of books which has been great, but mixed in that collection was about a half-dozen Christmas books that Emmett always seems to find and want to have read to him. Not really the season. She also just sent along a ~250 page collection of golden books that she picked up at a garage sale. The stories often have paragraphs per page, but on the first day Emmett made me read about 3/4 of the book in one sitting (the book had characters smoking---things have changed).
Sleep...we have found it is just easier to sleep with Emmett each night. He sleeps through every night, and goes to bed at night easily. Andrea has taken most of the bed duties as she really likes sleeping, which has been good as I can get things done at night. Naps have gotten to be a little bit of a pain with about an hour or so for him to settle into sleep. Not so fun.
Two semi-recent sleep things: while Andrea was gone in August, Emmett and I were practically living off of watermelon. Emmett really likes watermelon, and one night he woke me up yelling "Cut more watermelon!" The other thing is that he is starting to talk about what he dreams, though I am not sure he understands that it is a dream or how dreams work. He woke up on Thursday telling me "I left my boat at the Discovery Museum." We had visited there that day and so I started to think about where he left his boat, and then I realized that he doesn't even have a boat (at least one he'd take there) and that he was talking about the dream he had just woken from. I tried to explain the dream idea, but I don't think it got very far.
About 2 weeks ago Andrea and I (more Andrea, though) would often ask Emmett "why?" when he told us things and he would get very mad and say "don't ask why!" A few days later he started to turn the tables and is now a "why?" kid about everything. We will have long conversations (mostly one-sided") on the bike where he asks me why the sun goes down or why people sleep, and, of course, no matter how long or detailed my answer, it is immediately followed by "why?"
There is so much more, but I should really get to bed. I will try to get back to this with less a break than has been the case recently. I have lost speed so here are a bunch of other videos. Also included is a video which kills me...we had a neighbor over for a little play time and Emmett busted out his dancing moves. There is another video, but this first one is the best for capturing Emmett's love of dance and his friend's confusion at the crazy guy with the train in his hand who has taken her hand.
