Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Emmett

Catching up on the goings-on in Emmett's past few months...

Emmett's Auntie Ne and her boys were in town and stayed in a hotel nearby with a swimming pool. After going for a swim, we went back to her hotel room to bathe the kids and get them dressed. I pulled Emmett out of the tub and dried him off and then went to pull his clean clothes and diaper out of our bag. As I headed back to him, I watched him begin peeing right on the floor with a big grin on his face. "Stop! No!" I screamed. Emmett's face straightened, his body went rigid, and he stopped mid-stream. We all started laughing as I wrapped the diaper around his naked bum. Silly boy! Thanks for giving mommy more clean-up work, as usual.

One day in early summer, Emmett followed Liliana into the bathroom and once she had finished her business, he said, "I want potty." Surprised, but more than willing to acquiesce to his request, I stuck him on the toilet and he actually peed. He went a few more times over the next couple of days - asking to go when he saw big sister doing her thing. Then one of those times he was overshooting the pot, so I quickly reached in and aimed him down. He halted mid-stream, turned bright red in the face, and screamed bloody murder until I took him off the toilet. After that, Emmett wouldn't go near the toilet for a couple of months. Then out of the blue, he started telling David, "I want potty" again. We are still working on it, but since he has self-started the potty training interest, we are going with it!

For Thanksgiving, we took a trip to southern California to visit Great Grandpa and Grandma Jovet. On the way down, our plane hit some very bumpy turbulence. Emmett thought it was hysterical and laughed out loud every time the plane bounced, bumped, and shook. His laughter was so loud and contagious, that he got everyone around us cracking up too!

Upon returning from our Thanksgiving trip to California, Emmett demonstrated a new-found skill...He can climb out of his crib. Great (to be read with dripping sarcasm). Because of this new ability, we have begun putting Emmett to bed in the second twin bed in Liliana's room. Since we knew we wanted to eventually move Emmett into the room with Liliana, we set the bunk beds up as two singles in our new home. We have had a few successful nights where we put Emmett down, he falls asleep, and then Liliana falls asleep in the other bed without bothering her brother. Some of our attempts have ended up with Emmett waking up in the middle of the night, waking up his sister, and then both of them traipsing into my room at horrible hours. Several nights were completely unsuccessful to start with, because Emmett was excitedly playing around in the bedroom rather than falling asleep - requiring us to put him back in his crib so Liliana could get to bed on time. At any rate, things are coming along and we will keep trying. Liliana loves having Emmett in her room and is disappointed whenever he has to go back to his old room.

Our family attended a nice Christmas party earlier this month at our realtor's office. The place was jam-packed with people, food, and fun. When our number was called for a picture with Santa, I headed over with Liliana to stand in line while Emmett and David made their way after us. David came around the corner and I asked where Emmett was. "He's following right behind me," he responded, so I stepped inside the ladies room with Liliana to fix up her hair while David walked back around the corner. When we came out of the bathroom a moment later, my realtor was there and asked, "Did he find him?"
"Did who find whom?" I asked back.
"Emmett. David was looking for him," he responded.
In a bit of a panic, i started working my way through the crowd back the way we had come, asking people if they had seen a little boy in a black suit. Everyone was shaking their heads. Then I heard the elevator beep behind me and saw David step off with a teary-eyed Emmett in his arms. David said when he walked back around the corner to get Emmett, he was nowhere to be seen. David knew he loved buttons and guessed he had gone for a ride on the elevator, so he went up to the second floor (which is the top floor). Emmett was not there, so David went down to the parking level. There was Emmett right outside the elevator, crying in the parking garage. You can only imagine how freaked out I was at all the "what-ifs" that could have happened down in that open-to-the-outside parking garage. Apparently I pulled shenanigans almost identical to this when I was young, so if you ask my mother, I am getting my just desserts. I have said many prayers since that incident, thanking God that Emmett stayed put and was safe until David could get to him. Having children can be such a stressful thing at times! If only they weren't constantly finding ways to endanger themselves.

Love my little guy!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Liliana at Church...and Emmett, too

Sundays are always full of fun when you have Liliana at church with you. Chances are good that she will say or do something that will either make you laugh, grit your teeth, or want to cry. A couple of recent examples follow:

Liliana was asked to give the closing prayer in primary several months back when we were in our old ward and she was attending sunbeams. Everyone bowed their heads and waited patiently for her to begin. I began to wonder what was taking her so long, so I peaked at her from the back of the primary room (as the secretary, I was normally sitting back there working on paperwork of some sort). I saw one of the primary leaders step up to Liliana and whisper an offer to help her know what to say. "No," Liliana responded loud enough for everyone to hear. "I only do that at bed time." After a couple more attempts to convince her to pray, the leader gave up and said the prayer herself. I tried to remind Liliana after church that we also pray for our meals and any other time we feel the need, but she still said she didn't want to pray in primary. The other leaders teased me about that one for a bit.

When the congregation is singing during sacrament meeting at church, Liliana likes to hold a hymn book on her lap and sing as well. The only problem is, she doesn't know the words to most of the songs yet, so she makes up her own words. A few weeks ago she sang out at the top of her lungs, "Oh, Tinkerbell and Rapunzel..." and continued to sing loudly about them, even during the pauses in between verses! I didn't know whether to hush her or encourage her to keep singing. I guess we will have to pull out our hymn cds and play them more often to try and teach Liliana more of the songs.

Today our opening hymn was Far Far Away on Judea's Plains. When the song's title was announced, Liliana loudly said, "They said planes. Where are they? I want to get on the planes!" I tried to explain that plains and planes were not the same thing, but she was set on the idea of going for a flight and didn't want to hear about flat-lying lands or any other non-airplane related topic.


Back in the ward we attended when we lived in Renton, I was working in the primary. Emmett was not old enough to attend nursery yet, so he usually went with David to Sunday School. One Sunday, about halfway through Sunday School hour, a sister brought Emmett to me in the primary room and told me she had found him by himself in the women's bathroom...playing with the toilet! Grossed out - and a bit annoyed, I left the primary room in search of David. I found him down some hallway chatting with someone. "Oh, there's Emmett," he said with a guilty look on his face. After I told him where he had been discovered, David's response was, "Again?" Needless to say, David was not on my good list that day!