Goodbye Gahkweese

As Emma was putting together her Jungle Animals puzzle tonight (YES, we've finally mastered the puzzle!!!!), the usual "gahkweese" suddenly became a "speebra" and then evolved to "seebra" within a few minutes!! For a few months that thing has been a gahkweese, not sure what changed her mind about finally calling it a zebra, but that was pretty exciting....and a little sad. That was one of the last made-up words she was holding onto...
The stomach flu has been so unkind to poor Emma who puked for the first time in her little life. She didn't know what was going on, and we didn't know what to do. It hit her sooo hard, with a fever, chills, loss of appetite (this is soooo not Emma!)- you name it. Things were coming out both ends (you sure you want her Jamie?) So we relaxed on the t.v. rules around here and allowed Cinderella and Curious George on for most of the day. Now that she's getting better (this sickness is taking FOREVER to leave....er maybe I'm just being taken advantage of), she's still asking for "t.b" and "moomies" all the time. Oy yoy yoy.....hopefully this whiny child will give up the battle soon :)
Since becoming sick, Emma has also realized that she doesn't get nearly enough mommy time and demands that the baby go "swimming" (be put in the swing) all the time. Hopefully this too shall pass.
And if we thought she was attached to her monkey before- holy moly! Now when we do our "milk and rock" routine at night, the monkey has to also sit on Emma's lap- there's just no more room for the book which has to be held up about an extra foot and even then Emma still can't see it over her giant monkey.
Lately Emma has begun singing all kinds of songs. The first really recognizable one was "Stars" as she calls it. Braden and I were driving and all of a sudden she starts singing along to the cd "Tweeko Tweeko star". The rest of the words were totally made up but sounded just like the real lyrics. It was hilarious! Since then, she's added many a song to her repertoire.
The fascination with the timeout corner has now made it to the cat. Emma chases her around saying "SCOUT! Get down! Timeout!". She yelled at her tonight for touching the cat food (which Emma is of course not allowed to touch).
Bela is getting increasingly louder in her sharp cries. She cries longer and harder now too, which is sad. But in the times when she's not doing that, she makes the cutest little sounds and actually smiles! She is sleeping a lot better on her own, though she still finds her way to my arms on occasion (usually when I'm feeling a little impatient or just plain tired). But we'll get it soon enough and then I'll miss our little bedtime buddy.