Emma is 22 months old!

Today Emma is 22 months old! She is still learning new words every day, and exploring her world in new ways. She loves to pull out the chairs at the kitchen table and climb up in them. At first I tried to tell her no and keep her off the chairs, but it was a losing battle. So now I can’t leave anything on the table or she will get it. Also, she can reach pretty far onto the kitchen counters and pull stuff off, so I have to keep things away from the edge.

Emma knows the Longhorn sign is Bevo and she tries to do the Hook 'em sign with her fingers. She will say "hand, help", meaning for us to help her make the sign with her hand. She can't hold it but she is trying. She also loves to color and finger paint. She still loves Elmo but Barney is becoming a favorite too.

Some of Emma’s new words are “play”, “happy”, “sit”, “kite”, “bite” and “pap-paw”. She has started to call Grandpa Smith “pap-paw”, or possibly “paw-paw”, sometimes it’s a little hard to understand her. She still calls her grandmothers “mom”. I’m interested to see what she calls Granddad Mangrum the next time she sees him.

Emma has an unusual but still cute habit that I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned here before. She has been doing this for at least the last 3-4 months, if not longer. When we mention the name of someone she knows (but not ourselves) she will make a fist and knock on her head. Yes, she knocks on her head just like she will knock on a door. She knocks herself pretty hard too, we tell her not too but she always does it. If I tell her that her grandparents are coming to visit, she knocks on her head. If I ask her if she wants to play with her friends Lauren and Emily, she knocks on her head. After she knocks, then she’ll get excited and scream or laugh, or make another appropriately happy sound. I hope one day she can tell us just exactly what the knocking of her head means.

If I'm eating something and she wants some, she asks for a "bite". She will ask for a "bite" of banana, instead of wanting to hold the whole thing.

Halloween is in a few days and I will posts pictures of Emma in her costume. I’ll try to post a sneak peak before Saturday. Until then enjoy these short videos of Emma riding the choo choo train at the Elgin Pumpkin festival on Oct. 18. In the 2nd video if you hear a baby crying, that is not Emma. At the end of the 3rd video, you can see Emma sign "more" with her hands.