What kind of bad dad am I?

As you can tell from the widening gap between posts that keeping up with Emily Grace is becoming more challenging, daily. I don't necessarily mean that in a negative way, although there are days... Emily has not only survived her first year in pre-school with me but now finds herself "promoted" to mom's room for this school year. The first thing Emily noticed in mom's room is that there are a lot more rules. (that's why mom is considered the gold standard) Emily has pointed this out to her mother to no avail. Emily's language has also been developing at a tremendous rate, primarily in the way that she uses language and puts thoughts and concepts together. She asked me the other day to "plug the toaster out" or un-plug the toaster. We had pork chops for dinner the other night and Emily got down out of her chair, walked around the table to me, cocked her head to one side and said "these pork chops are not working for me." I told her that dessert would not be working for her either if she didn't finish eating her dinner. The look of shock and dismay was worth the price of admission. Today Emily wanted to know if silly putty was waterproof. I told her that I wasn't sure but if she put it all in the water it might be ruined and I didn't want to hear any crying. I then asked her how she could figure out this problem. She told me that she would take a little tiny piece of silly putty and just test that and see if it was OK. I thought "Wow!" there are kids in fifth grade who couldn't figure that solution out on there own. Do you see why these blogs are getting farther and farther apart?.....

Love,
Dad

words of wisdom

Trying to remember all of the memorable words/phrases that come out of Emily's mouth is almost impossible. Here are just a few examples: "an-baid" for band aid; "bo-pa-jen" for ? she says it when she's excited or happy about something; and let's not forget "shoo-bee" for shoo. There's more where that came from but who can remember?

Love,
Dad

the truth hurts

I mentioned to Emily Grace that she would have to come with me to my guitar lesson tomorrow after school. She told me that my guitar lesson was boring. I explained that guitar was exciting and fun; she responded "not for me." Hard to remember that Emily's only three sometimes.

Love,
Dad

There she goes again...

I know it's a little late but Emily Grace actually started school in August. She is what's called a typical peer. A typical peer is a "typically developing" child who demonstrates good language/speaking skills, can follow directions, plays well with other children, shares, and doesn't join in when chaos is the order of the day. How did she get in here again? Did I mention that she's in my classroom? Mom and I both teach preschoolers with disabilities and after much discussion I drew the short straw and Emily joined my class. She's great for the children, but she's going to make my hair fall out. We were talking about what we would like to learn in school. Emily's answer? "Drive a car."

Love,
Dad

now more than ever....

The title of today's post has nothing to do with anything and everything to do with Emily Grace. At three years old she's out riding her bicycle by herself, without training wheels. She still needs help getting started, (What's the brake for?) but once underway she's got it down. The bicycle is still a little too big for her so stopping is problematic, Mom taught Emily Grace to stop in the grass so if she topples over it won't hurt as much; bruised pride is always better than better than scraped knees.

Love,
Dad

I know she's in there....

Bedtime has become a challenge not for Emily Grace but because of Emily Grace. She spends her evenings thinking up excuses to get out of bed and come visit us. I swear you can hear her in there thinking up the excuses. Ok, maybe it's the baby monitor that let's us hear what she's up to in there but she lays in there testing the excuses out loud. Some of them are actually quiet inventive: "If my foot gets itchy I might have to take my sock off. I thought I might hear an Armadillo outside at night. I need to go potty. Will you come and check on me later

Emily Grace is 3....

How did this happen? Where did my baby go? What happened to my little girl? She's 3 and acting every day of it. No, 3 going on 13 or 3 going on 30. She's 3! God help me. I keep getting in trouble or more accurately she keeps getting in trouble because she has great language. She told me recently to take the highway home because it was a short cut and short cuts are faster. And she makes great connections such as, short cuts get us there faster; so I give her too much credit for being more mature that she really is for 3 years old. So when she does things like putting a full glass of milk on the bed while trying to climb up it's hard to remember she's only 3. Or when she wants to take every baby doll and stuffed bear with us when we go out she's only three. Actually, in all of these examples she was only 2. 2 going on 3. The way it should be for all children.

Love Mom and Dad