There are no photos for this one, but it is a good story.

Emily has been pacifier-less since her birthday almost a month ago. She has really struggled with going to sleep and we have tried a lot of things, but haven’t found the right combination of things to help her. Tonight was no different. She was up a few times, but mostly I could hear her moving around in her room. We let her work it out on her own and finally it was quiet. Just before I went to bed I heard a few noises at the door. I thought Emily must have woken up and was looking for us just to put her back down. I like these because I can cuddle and rock her for a few minutes, only when I tried to open the door carefully it was stuck. It was stuck on a sleeping Emily! She had gone to sleep laying just behind the door. I admit I walked away and chuckled about this for a few minutes. I returned and worked for a few more minutes moving her legs just far enough that I could squeeze into the room. Sure enough she had moved her pillow, blanket, and stuffed animal to the floor just inside the door and finally found sleep. I took pitty on my sleeping beauty and moved her back to bed to sleep. Sweet dreams, little girl!

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy had to perform some light plumbing to one of our toilets. I asked Emily if she wanted to help/watch me fix the toilet. Being the ever so curious girl she is, she said yes.

She was very helpful at fetching paper towels and a cup for Daddy when I needed them. She watched as I flushed and drained the toilet and emptied the remaining water into a bucket with the cup. And she was curious as I changed the leaky pipe to the toilet and put everything back together.

Flash forward to tonight. Sometime between this recent plumbing fix and the present, our toilet started continuing to run because the rubber flapper inside the toilet would remain open, until we took the lid off the toilet and pushed it closed.

So this evening I decided to tackle this latest development–with Emily trailing close behind. I opened the top of the toilet, then flushed the toilet and began working on adjusting the length of the chain that lifts the rubber flapper when the toilet handle is pressed. As I was doing this Emily left very excitedly. She returned a few moments later with a roll of paper towels, saying “Here are your paper towels, Daddy.” She then left very quickly, so I followed her out wondering why it occurred to her to bring me the paper towels.

It’s then that I see Mommy getting the cup and bucket out from last time. Emily had remembered that I needed these things the last time I fixed the toilet, and she went to Mommy to be helpful and get them for me. What a wonderful helper for Daddy to remember these things and then to fetch them with her own initiative.

Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
And the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day

One of our overarching themes of our trip was the song “Home on the Range”. One of the library books I had picked up for the trip was the song put to pictures of a little boy chasing his cowboy hat through a dream. Emily loved reading the book every night at bedtime and then we would sing the song to her. We also had a copy of the song that we listened to everyday. Emily started calling it her song. And in our travels, we even had one day that we saw a herd of bison and a few deer and antelope grazing.

The song was definitely sinking in because one day Emily was talking with a couple of women at the Grand Canyon about the rainbow we could see. After she had pointed it out, she continued with the proclamation that ‘the skies are not cloudy all day’. Maybe one day she will understand that rainbows require a few clouds, but the exchange was very funny!

Another of our trip highlights was hiking in Carlsbad Caverns. The cave is quite impressive from the huge open rooms, number of bat residents, and unusual rock formations. We were able to hike two trails in the cave. We hiked into the cave through the natural entrance which is a hike descending 800 feet and then the second hike was a loop around the ‘Big Room’. In total we went three miles carrying both girls.

We weren’t sure how the girls would respond to being in the cave. They were bundled up because the cool temp would feel really cold to a kid with very little body fat and who is not exerting any energy hiking. The adults were a little over dressed and kept peeling off layers as we walked. Despite the constant cool temperature, hiking and carrying the girls built up quite bit of body heat. Emily commented on how dark it was and the funny smell. She thought the sun had gone down. Like usual for the trip, Julia greeted the park rangers who crossed our path with waving arms and kicking feet.

While we were on the second hike each of the girls dozed off and took a great nap. Not hard to imagine them doing it – it was dark, they were warm and bundled next to their parents, and it was naptime. Overall they were happy to be out and about and didn’t mind the dark cool cave. Thankfully, the hike ended at an elevator. We admired the visitors that visited the cave before the elevator was installed and were glad that we had the modern convenience.

The other day I raced though dinner so that I could go out and get our yard mowed before dark. I am notorious for mowing yards as the sun is going down and you can hardly tell where the cut line is. I successfully got the grass cut and a few other yard items taken care of before it got dark. As I worked around the yard, I kept finding Emily in windows and doorways keeping tabs on me. Nowadays, whenever she sees a mower, she points it out and talks about watching Mommy or Daddy using the mower. So the grubby Mommy came in the house and headed straight for the shower to clean up. I caught my reflection in the mirror – work shorts, t-shirt, old shoes, dirt stained socks, carelessly swept ponytail, plenty of sweat, and earrings. Earrings? I guess I wanted to keep a fashion sense to my yard attire.

Just a few more words on Emily’s potty training. I couldn’t be more pleased with Emily’s progress. We tried to go full action potty training and after day three and a lot of crying everytime she sat on the potty, we took a break. I just didn’t want her to hate the potty and she definately wasn’t enjoying the process.

Our new approach was to remind her that when she needed to go she needed to tell Mommy or Daddy. And then when it looked like she was trying to communicate something we would ask if she needed to go potty. This approach only produced 1-2 successful trips to the potty each day.

Then the day before yesterday we made four successful trips and no diaper changes after her nap. Yesterday followed with three successes. I guess one trick to potty training is figuring out what is the best reward motivator. Emily asked to watch Diego as her reward yesterday. I told her that she could watch one Diego episode as a reward, but couldn’t watch another Diego as a reward until she ‘poopied in the potty’. After that successful trip to the potty she always asked to watch Diego and I would repeat the rewards system. She surprised me today, while she was on the potty I went to fetch a fresh dry diaper and she poopied in the potty. She was very calm about it like she did it every day. I was so proud of her! We postponed her nap and she watched her Diego episode to celebrate.

When I was reading about the training process, I found several references to the fact that I would be learning about how Emily learns and deals with situations. So what I have learned about Emily so far is: she likes to be in control, she likes a little privacy at times when doing things for herself (espcially the first time), she learns quick, and her wanting to do something is the best motivator for her.