Fascinating Fingers

Emmett has been really checking out his hands the past few weeks. He will lay on his back and put his fists straight up in the air in front of him and just stare at them. He will also watch his hands while he's sitting up and tries to work them into his mouth - sometimes both at the same time. His little swing has a couple of hanging toys on it that he slowly and jerkily works to make contact with his fists. I call it "punching Clifford" because one of the hanging toys is a little red dog. You can see his look of concentration as he struggles to get his hand to go where he wants it to go. About two weeks ago, I was holding a set of rings over him while he was laying on his back and he managed to work his fingers through one of them and grab hold. Since then he has continued to improve his reaching and grabbing and is getting pretty good at getting his hands on his toys with a bit of effort. I can't believe how quickly he's growing!

David stood on the scale with Emmett the other day and then subtracted his weight to get a rough estimate for where Emmett is at. There was a 20.3 pound difference! Even if we subtract an entire pound for Emmett's clothes and diaper, that still leaves him weighing over 19 pounds when he's only 3 and a half months old! I'm certain that this kid cannot keep up this growth rate for much longer, but he continues to do so for now. He's wearing 6-9 month clothes and is quickly getting to the point where most of the 6 month stuff is too short in the arms or legs and/or not big enough around the middle. Where'd my little baby go?

Liliana is speaking ever more complete and increasingly complex sentences. Just tonight she saw David working outside and asked what he was doing. I told her he was fixing the cargo box (the kind you attach to the roof of your car). She responded with, "Daddy's fixing Liliana's cargo box for Liliana's car?" I hadn't mentioned the car, so I was pretty surprised that she remembered they went together. Liliana is also learning more words and phrases in Spanish and says things like, "Te quiero mucho, Daddy" (I love you a lot, Daddy) and "Quiero ver Sean" (I want to see Sean).

Last night we had Liliana video chat with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Hernandez. Grandma asked Liliana what she was supposed to do when she was happy (referring to the "If you're happy and you know it" song). Liliana wandered off and I thought, "Squirrel" (refer to the movie "UP" if you don't know what that means). However, she returned quickly with her musical Elmo toy that she got for Christmas and pushed the button that plays the "If You're Happy and You Know It" song. She clapped and danced for Grandma and Grandpa and then selected some of the other songs to perform for them. My favorite was when she played the wheels on the bus and had Grandma and Grandpa doing the hand motions with her on their end of the video chat line! It was really cute and I know Grandma and Grandpa got a kick out of it. :)