Emma-isms

Emma got her first haircut in a salon last week.  She was happy to climb up into the pink chair, but gave strict instructions- "Don't cut off too much!  I'm growing it out like Rapunzel."

E- Mama I'm cleaning your phone.  Now it's going to be as clean as a muscle.

M- A what?

E- A muscle... see?  Now it's as clean as a muscle... I mean a whistle.

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In the bathtub- I don't want Noah to be in here.  I'm so cramped now!

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Look!  These twill-dwen (children) have the same issues as me!  (I can't even remember what the issues were, but what four-year-old uses that word?)

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Leaning over to Jason during church- "Daddy, thank you so much for making breakfast.  It was delicious.... Am I the first person that has said that to you?"  (This sums up Emma's personality so well- pointedly, deliberately, adorably coy.) 

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M- Emma, I think it's time that we retire your shoes.

E- What does retire mean?

M- To send them to their final resting place... with your striped pants.... forever.

E- No!  Mama!  No!  Why would you want to throw away something with sparkles on it??!!!

Unlike the black and white striped pants fiasco (which she can still be found sobbing about at random), she finally conceded to throwing these beauties in the trash after she picked out a sparkly new pair.  While we were at the store Emma had a great time sorting through racks of clothes- "This is just adorable!  Look at how cuuuute this is!  This would be  perfect for a baby girl!  Mama, what if Noah was a girl?  Then we could buy this outfit for him!"

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On a particularly rough day, in which I told Emma to stop grabbing things out of her little brother's hands, she said "Mama, you're going to make me cry again!  I'm just going to cry!  This is the worst day ever!

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"Awww, this puppy is just soooo soft!  He's so cute!  I have tears in my eyes because he's so cute.  See!  I'm actually crying for cuteness."

Emma is learning her letters and numbers, but the fact that she can't read yet has been a hard concept for Adam and Leah to grasp.  One day Adam tried to get her to sound a word out, and got so frustrated when it didn't come.  "Just try!  You're not even trying.  You can do it if you just try!"  Another day Leah did the same thing, while trying to get Emma to read the words "Mrs. Keese".  It strikes me as funny that they don't understand her reading level, and Emma matter-of-factly has told us all, "I can't read yet.  They just look like blobs of letters to me!"  While she technically could go to kindergarten this fall, she and I are both thrilled that she'll be spending another year at home with me, Noah, and her loving grandmotherly teachers at Small Discoveries Preschool.

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When Leah was little, she used to twirl her own hair, my hair, and sometimes her friend's hair as a sign of great affection.  Emma has never done anything like that, until last week when she lovingly came up behind one of the sister missionaries long brown ponytail and yanked it so hard that her headband came flying off.  Jason and I were both mortified and apologetic, but I knew exactly why she had done it- earlier that day she told me all about how much she love, love, loved Sister Dombrowski.  She was obviously just showing it.

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One morning Emma and Noah kept running in and out of the bathroom as I was using it.  They were both carrying glasses of milk, which promptly spilled.  The game then turned to hopping over the spilled milk, which I told them to stop, and was only great fun until Noah slipped and fell on the tile.  At that point I yelled at them to GET OUT of the bathroom so I could finish up and clean up and keep them safe, to which Emma replied, "Don't worry Mama.  You'll feel better after you take a nap."

Emma is still my "naptime snuggle-buns", a job that she takes very seriously and loathes at the same time.  Her lunchtime prayer today was, "Please bless that I don't have to take a nap today, but if I do have to take a nap please bless that we can do fun things after naptime."  I almost always fall asleep while reading her the last of the four books we read before we go to bed.  Today I barely finished and she said, "There!  You made it.  Now you can go to sleep."  After naptime she always stumbles down the stairs, usually having changed back into her beloved, ratty nightgown, climbs into my lap and cuddles me just a minute longer before asking to watch a show before the big kids get home.