It's rare we can't understand him these days, and his vocab and sentence-making skills continue to flourish. He even can use past tense correctly now, which kind of blew my mind. He's all about the hugs and kisses still, which is still delightful! And he's getting pretty good at independent play (especially when the alternative is naptime ;) ). My favorite saying is "What ya making?" when he sees/smells me cooking or "what's that noise?" - the inquisitive phase is HERE.
I enjoyed a long weekend in Orlando with my MiL Jennifer where we did the Princess 5K at Disney World with her friend and her friend's daughter. We then enjoyed a few more days at the various parks. It was lots of fun, even for a gal who doesn't enjoy roller coasters (I hadn't been since I was a kid, so I forgot that roller coasters aren't really a Disney thing anyway). I missed Emmett like CRAZY and was so happy to see him again on Monday. Though, I was glad not to have him there because I'm pretty sure he would've hated it at this phase in his life.
Speaking of grandma's, we enjoyed having my mom stay with us for a week while she attended her annual teacher technology conference in downtown Austin. We had fun hanging with Gammy, and she was nice enough to babysit a couple times while she was here!
Other shenanigans include Sundays at the Mueller farmers market, fun at the Thinkery, hikes at Walnut Creek (including last Wednesday when it was warm enough to splash in the creek), hanging at Springdale Farm and finally trying Eden East for brunch, and visiting the new tasting room at Austin Beerworks (and getting to watch Emmett run around with other kids there chasing a ball and playing games together. He seemed like SUCH a big kid, my heart was swelling!).
7:20 a.m. Coffee's ready, pancakes are piled up and happy and Luke's downstairs. Breakfast time! Emmett actually eats most of a pancake with some syrup, along with his usual pumpkin Greek yogurt and cereal.
8:15 a.m. Emmett is pushing his lawnmower around in the back yard and decides he wants to go on a "mow mow" walk, so we go through the side gate and head out without saying bye to Luke, oops! He sets off at a good pace and sees a garbage truck driving by the street we're approaching and takes off! My legs are jelly from an intense 10 minutes of squats after Body Jam last night, so there's no way I'm keeping up. He's good about stopping to wait for me before reaching the street, and we set off towards the garbage truck. We see Luke drive by on the way to work and wave excitedly. More garbage trucks and school buses drive by, lots of waves and smiles!
8:45 a.m. Back home and playing in the front yard. The "donut gang" walks by (some neighbors my parents' age who walk to the local donut shop every Wednesday). They have extra donuts without sugar on the outside and offer one to E to share with Benji (after checking with me first of course). E is unsure, but then decides he loves donuts and repeats that repeatedly while demolishing half! We play around front, back and inside and I get us packed and ready for our hike.
9:45 a.m. We set off towards Walnut Creek for a Hike It Baby hike. Emmett has fun playing and is super speedy the first half of the hike! Then he tires out a bit and I end up wearing/carrying him most of the last half mile or so. He enjoys some applesauce, apple, graham crackers and Goldfish along the way. We cover 1.25 miles, pretty good for a toddler-led hike!
11:45 a.m. Surprisingly, E says he's ready to leave after only 10-15 minutes at the playground after the hike. We say goodbye to our friends and head home. He's jonesing for Daniel Tiger, so he sprawls out on the rug and watches an episode while I throw together a lunch salad (no leftovers today since last night was salmon night) and empty the dish washer.
12:20 p.m. Lunch time! E has some leftover brown rice (he's not much of a quinoa man these days), edamame and thyme white beans. Luke and I scarf down some delicious salads. The mix is quinoa / roasted beets / cucumber / olives / cherry tomatoes / thyme white beans / arugula / feta / lime, honey & olive oil dressing. Watermelon for dessert!
12:45 p.m. Surprise surprise, E wants to head back outside. We head to the sandbox while Luke clears the table. He comes out intending to spend a few minutes hanging out, but Emmett says back to work and gives him a kiss goodbye. Luke can take a hint, and heads back to work ;) More front yard, back yard fun with an "outside milk" break. E loves drinking milk on the patio while I read him books - fun for all! We wrap up with some trains.
1:00 p.m. I convince E to come upstairs for additional milk and quiet time (the new nap time). Basically, instead of going down for a nap in the crib, he lays down on his lamb rug on the floor and takes a nap there. He was starting to push naps suuuuper late and fight them, so I decided to give him the option not to sleep and play in his room to keep the nap. Other than a few days chockful of tears, this has meant a couple hour nap on the floor and we're all happy. Sweet.
2:05 p.m. Sweet sleep achieved! I head downstairs to kick up my feet for a few minutes and start this post with Gilmore Girls reruns in the background. Then I start on a Pi Day blog post for Whole Foods (right up my alley!). I wittle away at our tax return, almost done! Next up it's dinner - an Indian chicken dinner (I love simmer sauces as a short cut. Our favorite is surprisingly the Target brand butter masala). I grab a bell pepper plant to put in the garden. I finally got everything planted yesterday but accidentally grabbed a serrano plant instead of a red bell (don't want Emmett to accidentally eat one of THOSE!). I plant it and give the garden some water and clean up some miscellaneous tools left from the planting process.
4:45 p.m. Time to wake Emmett up! No matter when he goes down, I always wake him up by 4:45 because I don't want him to push back bedtime. That made for a short nap time the last couple weeks when he was going down after 3, so I was thrilled to get 2 1/2 hours today! He's happy and snuggly and glad to see me :) We head downstairs and cuddle up on the couch to watch an episode of Daniel Tiger.
5:10 p.m. He's getting wiggly and wants to play, so we turn off the episode early and head outside to have some fun! More garbage truck shenanigans (he loves driving it over the "speed bump" i.e. slightly raised tree roots over and over). We have fun digging in some dirt (our garden beds were suuuuuper bogged down and not draining well, thanks Texas clay soil. So we scooped some out and mixed in fluffy amendments. We spread that dirt in a low patch in our garden and E has looooved scooping it with his construction trucks and shovels!). I end up doing a sassy shovel dance to 24K, but E is surprisingly unimpressed. Ha! It's lovely out so I crack a lime La Croix that totally hits the spot. We move to the front yard and race back and forth in the driveway with his lawnmower then garbage truck for quite a while waiting for Luke. He's running a little late, oops! But we're having fun and don't mind.
6:10 p.m. Luke's home! I quickly warm the Indian food and warm a piece of naan for us all to share. Tonight's Indian is chicken, carrots, onions and beet greens. E doesn't love cooked carrots but sometimes will eat them, not today though. He loves the rice and naan and eats some chicken and sauce.
6:30 p.m. We clear the table and run circles around the downstairs and have an epic dance party. E normally has been asking to go upstairs early, but not today! We finally convince him to head up around 7:15.
7:15 p.m. Emmett "plays beach" for a while. I think he learned this from Daniel Tiger when it was raining and they couldn't go to the beach so they pretended with pillows and blankets. He takes all the pillows and an excess blanket from our bed and piles them up in the doorway. Super cute! While he's playing I sneak in a quick shower. I intended to shower earlier but thought I'd go to Sh'Bam tonight at the gym (a dance class kind of like Body Jam but in a Zumba format). But my legs are killing me and I'm tired and having too much fun with my guys, so decide not to go.
7:25 p.m. Emmett's turn! He has fun in the bathtub and loves scrubbing himself. We get out and do the "doot doot" shark song (even though we're using the lamb hoodie towel today instead of the shark one). Jammie time - he chooses super quickly today, nice! He pounds milk while I read him books and he proceeds to climb all over Luke. Clearly he's tired ;) Not! We brush teeth and then he jumps in bed for 5 minutes. You know, so he can go to sleep. We read one last book in bed and said goodnight. He proceeds to call out "goodnight mommy, goodnight daddy" for a few more minutes, so sweet!
8:05 p.m. He's asleep, score! We pour ourselves some wine and sit down to watch the last episode of The Crown, so good!
9:00 p.m. I'm beat, so we head upstairs. I'm reading The Man in the High Castle. We loved the series, but the book has been a little slow to start.
9:45 p.m. My eyes are closing, so lights out! E was kind and slept til 7:20 the next morning, score :)
