A fun visit with our Florida grandparents just came to a close. Visits are too far apart and always too short. Especially at the speed the girls are growing. During their visit we went to visit the Mayfield Dairy and saw how they make jugs, fill them, and move ice cream around the plant. We also ate some yummy ice cream. During their visit we ate good food, splashed at pool time, did some shopping, and stopped by a park for some quick play before a storm blew in. In and between all the other activities there was also a lot of play, hugs, and stories.

I lucked onto the idea of the grandparent photo by the swing. It worked really well to keep the two year old contained and looking somewhat toward the camera. You can’t get enough photos of grandparents and their grandkids.

Julia was enjoying a swing while Grandma secured her to it, although you couldn’t tell it from the look on her face. She was swinging in a tandem swing with Emily, which Emily thought was pretty cool.

Julia has a pretty serious face most of the time. Sometimes she sports a super-serious look, if she is considering something. Then she will burst into a smile and a little laugh. Many of her smiles are given to Emily and the best time to see one is when you go to save her from her bed when she wakes up.

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.

(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!