The wild child at 21 months...ok, 22 by the time I actually finish this post!

Disclaimer: Once again, this post is much too long for anyone to want to read unless they really love Megan. :) And the pictures are NOT well placed. But blame that on blogger.

Sweet Megan, my wild and crazy girl. She's really turning into a big girl. Jamie and I were commenting the other day that somehow, in the craziness of Emma being born, Megan made the transition from baby to toddler. Its true. She's a busy busy girl, emotional, sensitive, loving, and smart!

I don't really even know where to start in talking about her. She's pretty much talking in full sentences now, although she still says, "hm?" when she doesn't know how to answer. She's almost figured out "or" questions, although she still will often answer "Yes" when you ask her if she wants this or that. Her language learning is still incredible. She'll pick up on something new that you say and repeat it over and over again until she has figured out what it means. Same with enunciation. Often she will repeat multi-syllable words to herself until they sound right. Amazing. Of course, she's still less than 2 and her enunciation is still baby-like. She can't say her "L"s or her "R"s, so she says, "de-yish-ous" and "I yuf you" and "watuh". And she really doesn't get personal pronouns. When she wants you to pick her up she says, "Hold you" and when she wants you to sit next to her, she pats next to her and says, "I sit wight he-uh". Or, more often, since we misunderstand her (because she's not using the correct pronouns), she'll switch to our names after trying with the pronouns. "I sit next to you...MAMA sit next to MEGAN." She's very deliberate about her talking too. She'll pause to make sure she's using the right word or pronouncing it correctly. Oh yes, and she thinks all babies are female. Or, I guess, just doesn't know the difference between male and female yet...although she does correctly point out "man" or "yady"...often asking if its a "mama" or "yust a yady". (I guess she can't say "J"s yet either.) But if she sees a baby she always asks to "kiss huh...talk to huh...touch huh yeg" even if its a boy.

And, boy, does she love babies! Emma, of course, is chief among them. She gets SO excited whenever Emma wakes up. She brings Emma toys and books constantly, and will now turn the book around as she holds it in front of her so that Emma can see the pictures. (That one amazed me. How did she figure that one out? I didn't teach her!) If Megan is sad, nothing makes her feel better like hugging Emma. If Emma cries or even complains, Megan starts suggesting things to make her feel better. "Emma sad. Kiss huh?" if she's crying. "Ah you bored? Wanna go in exuhsaucuh?" if she's complaining. And she willing runs to get me anything that Emma might need. A bib from the bib drawer in her bedroom, a burp cloth, a blanket...whatever. She even noticed the other day that I switched Emma to the same brand of diapers that she wears!

Other than playing with Emma, Megan's favorite things to do right now are "wite, wite, wite" (draw or write), read, look at pictures of Emma's birth (yook at doctuh pictchuhs?), put anything and everything "nigh night" including finding a blanket or paper or whatever to cover the object, play with the toy food and grocery cart that Mia got her, and generally transfer things one at a time from one container to another container on the opposite side of the room. And she loves playing with water and drawing with chalk outside.

She's also getting more and more imaginative every day. She'll scoot a piece of play food along the floor making car noises. Or put 5 purses on her arm and tell us she's going to "chuhch", walking into the other room and standing there singing "ha-yay-yu-yah" at the top of her lungs for a while.

Oh, and she loves to be "si-yee". She'll hunch over when she's walking or wrinkle her eyes up and look at you expecting a laugh. Sometimes Emma will make a noise and it will strike Megan as so funny that she will just burst into squeals of laughter.

She's definitely a toddler with all the drama that goes along with that. She cries to let you know she wants something or doesn't like something and laughs a hysterical sounding fake laugh when she's showing off. She definitely has her own will and lets you know it...but at the same time she is a very good little girl. She knows that she must "obey mama" and she usually does without even a complaint.

Honestly, she's better about cleaning up than I am! When we're going to move to a different room or a different activity, she often jumps up and says "keen up keen up?" and starts cleaning up the objects she has been playing with. I think it must be Jamie's mom's influence because I am totally not that consistent about making her clean up. Yay for grandparents!

She's trying to figure out what different words mean. Often in the car I'll hear her little voice from the back: "I have a kestion." But she has no idea what that means. :) She asks often if someone or something is "koot", "fun", or "funny". Ha. I feel bad saying, "No. Papa isn't cute. He's nice." But, really, I have to teach her language! :)

A few weeks ago she went to her first friend's birthday party...and LOVED it! Of course, she and 3-yr old Bailey chose to go inside away from the craziness of the party guests and play together just the two of them. She also chose that day to decide that she was big enough to go down a big girl slide all by herself (with Daddy to catch at the bottom!) She loved it SO much.

Oh, and speaking of things she loved, the Fairfax City Independence Day parade had to be a highlight of her summer so far. If she hears us mention a parade, she flaps her hands and eagerly says, "go to puh-yade? Yay!" And runs around to try to get ready to go.

Outing-wise, she also loves the pet store, Starbucks, Home Depot, Trader Joe's, "Unca Jon and Auntie Cah-yine's house", and the pool.

She's finally started going to the church nursery on her own. And amazed me a couple weeks ago by actually answering me when I asked her what she did by telling me that they blew bubbles, ate crackers, and drew pictures. No prompting necessary.

She does love church. She talks about it all morning on Sundays. "Go to chuhch. Sing songs. Hah-yay-you-yah. See friends?" and she talks about her "friends" all the time. She draws a picture and asks me to show Anna, or asks to talk to Becca on skype. This morning she has been asking to see "Annabeya" (she means Izabella) who does "bite choo bite choo" (a little back scratching rhyme) and sings "Jesus yufs me this I know for the Bible tells me so". She points out any young guys and asks if they are Caleb and, of course, talks about our extended family all the time.

She LOVES her friends, but is still super shy around people she doesn't know very well. In crowds she often wants to be held and, if I can't hold her because I'm holding Emma in the car seat or something, she'll cling to my leg. And if someone tries to talk to her she'll bury her face in my shoulder.

She can sing lots of songs *almost* word-for-word, and often refers to them as the entire first line or two (as above with Jesus loves me). She used to sing the alphabet "abcdabc, abcdabc...". But in the past week or two she has started singing, "abcdefghijklmnopqrsy and z Now I know my abcs next time won't you sing with me."

She can count to four and often will add the next number to your counting up to 9. She knows that she is one, although it did get a bit confusing when Bailey turned three. :)

And she's just started sitting still and paying attention to longer books (with simple plots) being actually read to her.

But, as much as she really is a smart, grown-up girl, Megan still has little hold-overs of baby-dom. When she waves, she shakes her head vigorously too, as if she can't shake one part of her body without getting her head involved. When she's happy, she still flaps her hands. And, in the middle of the night, when she wakes up, she still wants to be held and rocked "like a baby". (Although we rarely do it because we are trying to help her learn to fall asleep on her own...not very successfully!)

Megan's sleep has never been great. I work hard to keep her on a pretty strict schedule and routine for nap and bed times because sleep has always been difficult for her. She naps at 11:30 (unless she's slept very late because of very disturbed sleep the night before) and goes to bed at 7:30. Recently her naps have been lengthening a bit (to around 2 hours thankfully - it took a LONG time before she would sleep more than 30 minutes unassisted!) and she's been sleeping through the night more frequently. (Maybe around 50% of the time?) For a long time she had awful insomnia where, if she woke up, she would be awake (in her bed in the dark, no toys, no books, no conversation, etc.) for usually 3 hours minimum. Since she's been sleeping in her big girl bed, its been better. But still, this past Saturday night, she was awake from 11:30 pm - 4:50 am. Its no fun for us, but its not fun for her either, poor baby. We've tried everything and nothing works all the time, although we do have some things that seem to help a bit. Thankfully, most nights that she wakes up, it only takes an hour or two for her to get back to sleep.

An aside: Honestly, Megan's sleep has been something that has been challenging for Jamie and I. We pray for her to sleep well, and most of the time God doesn't do what we want. Ha. For me, its been a reminder that we don't trust in Him because He does what we want or makes life easy. (Believe me, its not easy when Megan has been up all night and then Emma wakes up an hour after Megan gets back to sleep!) But I've been reminded several times (most specifically through this blog post) that there are much worse situations in life than a sleepless child and I'm challenged that if I can't trust God through this, I will have much more difficulty when those other trials come. God doesn't always take away trials. But He does ALWAYS give us the strength we need to go through them. And He walks beside us through them. And, in all this, God is good. And I am thankful for that. Even when He doesn't do what I want. :)

One of the sweetest things about Megan growing up is seeing her learn about Jesus a little. She's still so young and I'm not sure how much she understands, but Jamie has taught her that Jesus will live in her heart if she asks him to. So she points to her heart when you ask her where Jesus lives. She kneels beside her bed to pray at night and, after listening to Jamie or me (or Grammy or Mia or whoever) pray, she says, "I yuf you Jesus" and then, when prompted, "Amen". She knows that the Bible is a book about Jesus and really likes her "Jesus books".

Megan has always seemed to have an affinity for those who society might cast away. Even from when she was a tiny baby and wouldn't go to anyone but mommy...except a lady who's husband was sick and a very overweight cashier and several others who just needed a sweet baby smile and snuggle. Now, she is very aware of others' pain. If a child cries, she rushes to "kiss huh" and if she hears about her uncle falling off of his motorcycle, she wants to kiss him to make him feel better.

Oh yeah, and she's potty trained!

Megan, you are sweet and tough and tender and smart. You are silly and lovely and a million things that I haven't remembered to document. Your daddy and I are so proud of you and love every part of you. And Jesus loves you more than either of us and He will never fail you. I pray you learn that above any other lesson we teach you.

Sweet Emma at 3 months

From the start, the adjective that has seemed to describe Emma the best is "sweet". She's laid back and lovely.

She was born with long arms and legs, long fingers and toes, and extraordinary strength.

And, as a newborn, she would often sleep with her eyes open. We would joke that she was kind of like an alien.

A very cute alien, but an alien none-the-less. Long finger

s and toes, eyes that open in her sleep, and extra strength that enabled her to tense up her b

ody and struggle against what she didn't like. It usually went something like this:

Me: Is Emma awake? Her eyes are open.

My mom: No, she's just being an alien.

She is also prone to "man burps". It was amazing what huge burps would come out of such a pretty and teeny girl. Ha ha. She does it less now, but she still has skills!

Her hair is dark, but highlighted. Now its looking more red, but when she was first born it almost looked like she had had it streaked. Dark, dark hair with striking golden streaks.

And she's a great sleeper. At one month, 6 days old, she slept from 10 pm - 4:45 am, ate, and then went right back to sleep until 9 am. At two months, 11 days old, she went 10 1/2 hours between feedings. Now its unusual (and probably a couple-day growth spurt) if she wakes up before 4 or 5 am after going to sleep around 7:30 or 8 pm. And sometimes its closer to 7 am!

Ha. I'm glad we had Megan first or I would think it had something to do with my parenting!

Anyway, she's not just advanced sleep-wise. On her two-month birthday we were giving her tummy time on our bed. We looked away for a minute and, when we looked back, she was on her back. Since then, she's rolled over several times for us from belly to back. (Thankfully she's still pretty immobile on her back!)

When she's on her tummy she can lift up her whole upper body in a combination between arm and core effort. And she's just a little bobbly when we hold her in a sitting or standing position. I often put her in the bumbo while I'm making dinner or feeding Megan and she does really well in it. But her favorite is when you hold her by her hands in a standing position. How is it possible for a three month old to be proud of herself? But she definitely looks like she is!

She has been smiling since she was 3 weeks old, cooing since she was a month old, and has started really obviously laughing within the last couple days. She loves to talk and will coo and gurgle at you like nothing else. She especially loves when people coo and gurgle back at her and when they whistle.

She loves her sister and will smile when she catches sight of Megan. Megan will get right in her face with her, "Hi Emma. Hi Emma. Hi Emma." And if Megan is crying or feeling sad, one of her favorite things to do is grab Emma's foot or leg and hug it. Emma doesn't seem to mind at all.

Emma is often surprised, awakened, or shocked by Megan's loud cries, yells of excitement, or temper tantrums (yes, our firstborn is in that stage), so we've had some days and weeks where Emma is just a mess by the end of the day. She just hasn't ever been able to take a long enough nap during the day. But I think she's getting used to it and hopefully Megan is getting to a stage where she'll start to understand about talking quietly.

And just yesterday when Megan was screaming in anger about something and Emma burst into tears, Megan immediately stopped her tantrum and focused entirely on making Emma feel better. "Kiss her. Kiss her." Megan kissed Emma a couple times and Emma calmed down. And so did Megan. What a sweet relationship. I pray it remains so tender.

It does seem like in the past couple days Emma has just turned from a newborn into a baby. She's talking and cooing a LOT more. She's awake for (slightly) longer stretches. And she is enjoying looking at toys. I can now set her in a bouncy chair or her bumbo or on a blanket and she'll be happy for maybe 10 minutes before complaining and wanting a change of scenery. Of course, play that is that close to the ground only happens when Megan is taking a nap!

Emma loves taking a bath. She kicks and coos and has even had two baths now where she hasn't cried at all through the entire process. She doesn't seem to get as overwhelmed by it as Megan used to, which I guess is just another one of those laid-back qualities. She just thoroughly enjoys it. Sadly, she doesn't get to bathe as often as she would probably like because it is such a handful with Megan trying to help.

The poor baby often just doesn't get as much attention or play as Megan did because I'm busy with two. But she is amazing and wonderful and hopefully that relationship with an adoring big sister will make up for it.

The picture of her taking a bath reminds me, though, that one of the things that people always comment on about Emma is her wide eyes. Its true. Its like whenever she is awake she is just trying to take in the entire world with her eyes. Right now they are a beautiful blue and she looks so innocent and sweet looking out at everything.

While Emma is eating or sleeping, she likes to have her arms up. She also likes to grab things. I never want to forget her sweet innocence as she pulls her own hair while she's eating or sleeping!

Sweet Emma, you are loved. I hope you never feel neglected because your mama has two babies to care for, but that you always feel loved and cherished by Mommy, Daddy and Megan. We all love you so much!