I'm Watching You

A couple days after Easter, Emma was sitting down, enjoying a few pieces of her candy.  I, ever so slyly distracted her and snatched a piece of her candy and promptly ate it.  She turned back and immediately noticed that the piece was gone.  With a rather stern look on her face, she looked up at me.  She raised a hand and pointed two little fingers at her own eyes and then pointed at me as she said, "I'm watching you, Daddy!"  After I finished laughing, I told her that I wouldn't take another piece of candy.  To be honest, I was too afraid of the repercussions.

Loyal to Daddy

The other day we were at dinner with Mandy's parents and Emma and I were going to the Padres game the following day.  Emma kept talking about the game, she was so excited.  At some point during the meal, without me knowing, Grandpa Taylor asked Emma, "Emma, will you do something for me?  Tell your daddy, 'Go Rockies!'"  It only took Emma a moment for her to respond with, "I can't do that to my daddy."  Over 3 years of brainwashing paid off in this one moment! That's my girl!

Go Padres!

Last season Emma and I watched a Padres v Rockies game and every time a Padres hitter came up to bat she would say, "Daddy, who's that?" "Orlando Hudson." "Oh. Go Hud-son! Go Hud-son! Go Hud-son! Daddy, who's that?" "Cameron Maybin" "Oh. Go May-bin! Go May-bin! Go May-bin!" We did this for about 3 innings. That's my little Padres' fan.

Pacify This

When Emma was about 2, we decided it was time to get rid of the pacifier at night.  It started off as a punishment if she misbehaved during the day.  I remember one day I got home from work just in time to put Emma to bed.  Mandy told me that she had lost her pacifier earlier in the day.  Emma climbed up into bed and I asked her,  "Emma, were you good for mommy today?" She shook her head, no.  "Then you need to give me your pacifier."  She dropped her head, rather dejectedly, then she slowly held her hand out and dropped a pacifier in my hand.  She had two at the time, so I said, "And the other one too please."  Keeping her head down, she reached out and dropped the other one in my hand.  I told her she could try again tomorrow and maybe have them tomorrow night.  It was a warm night, so I opened her window and set her pacifiers up on her dresser then I left the room.  Mandy and I stayed up a while later to watch a couple shows.  After a couple hours, we headed off to bed.  I went into Emma's room to close her window and give her a kiss and there she was, fast asleep with a pacifier in her mouth!  I glanced over at the dresser to see that both pacifiers were gone.  She had snuck out of bed and climbed up on a box to grab her pacifiers off the dresser.  I figured it wouldn't teach her anything if I took the pacifiers now and she does sleep better when she has one, so I decided to talk to her about it in the morning. 

Side story: Until Emma was almost four, when she woke up in the morning she wouldn't get out of bed.  She would sit there and call out to us until we came in to get her.  Then she would hop out of bed.  Just another one of her quirky little things. 

The next morning I woke up to shouts of, "Daddy.  Mommy.  I'm awake!"  I went into Emma's bedroom and there on her dresser, in the exact position I had set them the night before, were both of Emma's pacifiers.  And there was Emma, sitting innocently in bed.  The little stinker had woken up, climbed out of bed, put her pacifiers back (somehow in the exact same spot), then climbed back into bed, before calling out to say that she was awake.  As I quickly put it all together, I stood there and just laughed.  I figured I ought to be upset about it, but it was all just too clever and funny, I couldn't be mad.  I then began to wonder how many times she had done it before, but it hadn't been warm enough to open the window, so I hadn't noticed.  The next time she lost her pacifiers we set up a camcorder to see if we could catch her doing it again.  Because of the dark, it was hard to see much, but sure enough, we could see her sneak out of bed and grab her pacifiers.  Then she decided she was thirsty, so she snuck out again, put the pacifiers back, then climbed back into bed before calling out, "Mommy.  Daddy.  I'm Thirsty!"  That night and from then on, the pacifiers found a new home, hooked to a couple nails above the door frame. 

Curtains

When Emma was 20 months old, I was about to graduate from BYU and they had a Grad Night, to celebrate the graduating class.  Mandy and I decided to go and enjoyed a nice evening of games and food and we brought Emma along.  In the Wilkinson Center, the hallways were blocked off to limit access to only graduating students.  These movable walls were simply a metal frame with curtains hung over them.  Emma was about 4 inches shorter than the crossbar in the frame and she had a blast leaning forward, running through the curtain and letting it slide up her body and face until she burst out the other side.  We watched her do this for about 15 minutes, loving her joy and excitement each time.  Finally we decided it was time to go, so we made our way to the exit.  If you are not familiar with the Wilkinson Center at BYU, in the center of it is a large atrium with glass walls.  Emma was running about 20 feet ahead of us as we rounded the corner heading to the outside doors, the atrium off to the side... with the curtains drawn around the glass walls.  Emma quickly shifted directions, her objective clear in her new trajectory as she made a b-line for the curtains.  At a dead run, she ran face first into the curtain and about an inch later, into a solid glass panel.  She bounced off, a red mark already forming on her forehead.  Like any good parents would, we burst out laughing at the innocent mistake of our fun seeking daughter, but she wasn't done making us laugh.  With a slightly stunned look on her face, she reached up to rub her face and then burst into her high-pitched little laugh.  For the next couple minutes she laughed her head off and we laughed along with her.  She still loves to run through curtains, but on her first pass, she approaches with more caution than she did that night.

Alligators

Yesterday Emma came running out of the bathroom, "Daddy I just went poop in the potty!  There's a big alligator and a baby alligator!"  Sure enough, there was a big turd and a little turd.  Where does she come up with this stuff?

Conniving Little Pooper

We have been told that when a new baby arrives, the older sibling may digress in their potty training.  Well, I can attest to that!  Emma has been doing wonderful at potty training for the past several weeks, but a week after Ellie was born, she began having accidents.  One day, after she had already had one accident and we had put her in pull-ups for the evening, she came running down stairs and said she had just gone poo poo in the potty.  I noticed that she had a little poop ring on her bum that usually happens when she poops in her pants, so I went upstairs to check on her and to wipe.  Sure enough, there was poop in the toilet.  When I looked a little closer, I noticed that the poop was on top of the toilet paper she had used to wipe and that it was more squished than a normal turd.  I looked around the bathroom, but I couldn't find her pull-up.  I went down to the kitchen and sure enough, there in the trash can was a pull-up with a good sized brown streak.  That's when I realized what she had done.  After having an accident in her pull-up, she took it off and dumped the turd in the toilet.  She then proceeded to put her pull-up in the trash after which she ran and told me she had just gone poop in the potty.  The sneaky little girl spent some quality time in time-out for this one.  I think the most impressive part was that there was no poop on her hands, the toilet or the trash can.  So efficient!  And so conniving!

Mission Statement

I love telling stories and my favorite ones always seem to be about my two little girls.  I don't have the best track record for remember things, so my goal is to save these stories (most of which are rather funny) in this blog for myself and others to read and for Emma and Ellie to one day read.