Emily loves her Daddy! She will roam the house while he is at work and if she wants him she just starts yelling out “DA”. I’ll tell her that he is at work and will be home later. This week when she did this I called him on the phone and let her talk to her Daddy on the phone. She sat on the couch, held up the phone up to her ear, and just jabbered to him. After a few minutes she slowed down and I told her to tell Daddy goodbye and give Mommy the phone. She told him “bye-bye” and gave me the phone.

We have been making some home improvements in expectation of our next little one. On Saturday, Emily went to play at Grammy’s house so that we could get some concentrated work done. Robby said goodbye to Emily on the back porch when we left. When I brought her back she looked up at the porch to see her Daddy. When she didn’t see him she called out to him by calling out “DA”. She put her two hands on either side of mouth to amplify herself and called a few times. He didn’t hear her, but we walked around to the open window where he was working and she saw him inside. She got so excited and called out again. He came to the front porch and met her as we came in.

It is such a joy to watch her excitement and expression of love for her Daddy. I pray that she will always have such unabashed love for her father and will be willing to show it. I also pray that my heart will call out to my Heavenly Father with the same excitement and love as Emily is demonstrating.

Look Who Decided to Join Me, originally uploaded by Robby Edwards.

Rachelle sent Emily to wake me up.

(15 months) Emily loves to swing. If she could ask she would definitely ask to be pushed. She can’t swing as high as Natalie does. Maybe in a few years she will catch up with Natalie.

Daddy’s perspective

I took a morning off work to spend some time with Emily during her swim class. She seemed to really enjoy our time together. Especially, when I made motorboat sounds, and encouraged her to “chase” me through the water. She seems to favor the breaststroke; she kicks like a frog. I think she gets that from me.

She seemed fairly comfortable in the water, with the one exception that she latched one of her hands around my arm, and would only paddle with one hand. It was sweet, and a bit silly looking, too. She also didn’t like it when I dunked her under the water, so I only put her under once.

I am really looking forward to more swim time with Emily. When can we go back, Mommy?

(8 months) Emily is taking swim lessons! Our local community pool offered a parent-tot swim class to introduce little ones to water. Emily is the only child in the class so we are getting a lot of one-on-one time with the instructor. Emily thinks the water is cold and is fussy until she gets used to it. I think it takes Mommy just as long to get used to the water as it takes Emily. Some of the activities we do in the pool are “swimming” between Mommy and the instructor while focusing on the kicking motion, jumping into the pool from the side of the pool, floating on our back, splashing Mommy to encourage movement of the arms, and holding on to the side of the pool by ourselves. There are also fun things to look at while we are in the pool. There are lane flags, lane dividers, bubbles made by the instructor, and water geysers made by Mommy.

Overall, Emily is doing great in the class. She likes Ms. Joyce, her instructor, and doesn’t seem to mind the water. She has a natural kicking motion anyway and that translates well into the kicking motion for swimming. Part way through the series of classes, Emily has decided that she needs to hold on to Mommy more while we are in the pool. I’m sorry that she doesn’t enjoy the freedom of being relaxed in the water that she once had. It is hard to learn to paddle with your hands when you are holding onto Mommy’s wrist. Her concern does have an up-side though. She is now holding on to the edge of the pool by herself and even trying to climb out. Before she was too laid back to grab on to the side. Emily will put her mouth and nose into the water by herself when swimming between the instructor and Mommy. One day she figured out how to spit a fountain of water out of her mouth. Unfortunately, she has not repeated this on other days. It was so cute. Some days the water in her face is frustrating and some days she doesn’t seem to care. Each day we ‘dunk’ Emily once under the water. She doesn’t like it too much and wants hugs from Mommy when she comes up and is trying to figure out what happened.

Emily was lucky one day when Daddy came to class and got to play in the pool. Unfortunately, good things must come to an end and she only has a couple of classes left to go to. Mommy will be on the lookout for other opportunities to go swimming because this has been a good experience and a lot of fun!

(5 months) This is our first Independence Day!