Thanks to one of our friends and a Baby Einstein video, we have encouraged Emily to communicate with us via sign language. She has adopted some signs into her daily communication. The signs that she has used most are ‘Daddy’ (Granddaddy), ‘more’, ‘please’, and ‘eat’. If you ask her to sign ‘kiss’ and ‘baby’ she will, but they are not words that she uses on her own.

Examples of how she uses signs:

• Yesterday at the store she handed me the baby food container out of the shopping cart and signed ‘eat’. Instead of opening the baby food container we headed over to the deli section and got some free samples of bread to get a snack.
• While eating food Emily will sign ‘please’ or ‘more’ and sometimes both to ask for more food. The other day she was signing ‘please’ and I tried to get her to sign ‘more’ and ‘please’. Instead of imitating me she nodded her head up and down with much excitement. It was like she was agreeing with me that she wanted more.

That’s Wet!, originally uploaded by Robby Edwards.

Emily had a play date with Mommy and a friend at a local park with a water feature. She really seemed to enjoy it.

(17 months) After I looked at this photo I was shocked to see how big Emily has gotten. She is becoming our big girl with each passing day. We love our big girl, but we also miss our little girl!

We spent two afternoons playing in our backyard pool. Yesterday I introduced it to Emily and while she enjoyed playing she was very careful. She splashed, poured water on herself, moved toys around and had a good time. Today when we went out to play she was so much more bold. She was willing to get in by herself, move around, stand up, get in and out. She hasn’t discovered the fun game of pouring water on Mommy yet, but it will come soon.

(17 months) Emily is such a happy girl! She loves to play and swing. Emily has started imitating kissing. She will make kissing noises and she will try to place them on your cheek. Sometimes she hits, but other times she misses and gives kisses on your nose or just in the air. Emily will also put her head on your shoulder and pat your back as a hug. Nothing melts my heart faster than a hug!

She will also imitate a ‘shh’ with her finger over her mouth. One day I was shopping with Emily and she decided that she wanted to squeal loud enough that the three isles on either side of us could hear her. I tried to ‘shh’ her and she decided that it would be a fun game to imitate me. The first time she put her finger in her mouth, but after a couple of times she was getting it right. I was so glad that the squealing had stopped and that this funny little girl was ‘shh’-ing her Mommy.

(17 months) Today Emily and I made a short visit to the park. It was a hot day and a little swinging seemed to be the best plan for the day. I had Emily walk from the car to the park by herself. It isn’t too far and she loves to swing so there wasn’t anything to get her distracted from our destination. As I was walking beside her I asked her if she wanted me to hold her hand. She said “yeah” and turned to me while putting her hand up for me to hold. My heart melted! While it was very sweet, it also reminded me of how fast she is developing and learning. Some days it is really easy to miss how much she understands because she chooses not to respond to my instruction. But today it was very plain to see!