4-0

yep, baby girl is 40 months old now.  (i know, it's ridiculous that i am still counting and doing monthly posts).  i know i've said the last few months have been trying, but they are also full of reward and all things precious.  because really.  there is little that is not precious about my baby :).  this month, i've noticed that emily has really started understanding consequences.  we usually give her choices, and she knows that the wrong choice (e.g., continuing to melt down) will usually end with no fun.  i'll be honest, sometimes, okay, lots of times, it is just easier to give in.  but for the most part, the threat of time out or a spanking is enough to make her calm down.

when she isn't having fits, which is most of the time, she's doing these cute things:

• she is really starting to notice and comment on things she likes.  to me, "mommy.  why you be pretty at the birthday party?"  uh, i was confused.  "why you be pretty in that dress?"  my heart?  melting.
• "daddy, does trees grow from bird poop?"  hahaha.
• watching a commercial, she starts laughing.  "he said 'fih-veh'.  like hg."  then she kept repeating it.
• i was home with her for some reason (maybe she was sick?).  by afternoon, this was her response when i asked her something, "stop talking to me.  you have been talking to me all day."  (again, laughing when i should not be).
• "i have to buckle my seatbelt so strangers don't take me" (when sitting in the grocery cart)
• "mosquitos bite me because my skin is so sweet and yummy."  (mr./uncle? trey likes to make fun of the way she says mo-skee-tos)
• she wore her royal wedding dress to ong and ba's house one day.  that evening, i asked her what ba said about her outfit.  "dep qua."  what does that mean, em?  "so pretty."  i am so excited she's learning some vietnamese.  during the same conversation, i had given her a fortune cookie that i brought home from lunch.  she crushed it when she took out the fortune and gave the crumbs to me.  i was going to throw it away but she told me, "no, i want to eat that.  don't danh (yan?) it."  that means don't not share it.  i think her grandparents tell the babies not to danh a lot when they play.  ba has also taught her how to sing in vietnamese- "vo tay ba cho an banh."  that means clap your hands and grandma will give you cake. 
• we play this game (that she initiated and has done ever since).  em: "i love you, mommy."  me: "i love you more."  em: "i love you most."  (aww!).  when d said, "what about daddy?" (the first time), she looked confused (because most is as far as she goes) and then, clever girl, gave him a kiss "muah!"
• "mommy loves me more but i love her most."
• she's watched a lot of rapunzel, if you can't tell.  she'll tell me, "don't ever ask to ... again!"
• when she catches tanner scratching or licking his paws, she will make a loud noise by knocking on the wall/table/door/whatever to distract him. 
• she still wants to stop the car and pick flowers whenever she sees them.  she LOVEs to pick flowers.
• "absolutely serious NOT!" 
• "this is so funny.  i putted a booger on your pillow."  (she totally did, too).  when she is about to say something funny, she'll say, "this is so funny..."
• she likes to make "googoo faces" which means she takes her hands and pulls on her cheeks so that her eyes look goofy.
• "why i have none boobies?"  (oh sweetie, mommy asks the same thing about herself, too).
• "you make the goodest chicken i ever tasted...even better than chick fil a."
• "where are me going tomorrow?"  to play with your fri-ends!  "what are their na-mes?"  and she will copy my inflection to a tee.
• we brush our teeth to get rid of all the "sugarbugs" in our mouth.
• "dear god.  thank you for my mommy and daddy.  i really like my mommy.  no, i love my mommy...thank you for my sunday school class.  i really like for ms. elizabeth to be there.  she lets me hold her hand."
• our friend/neighbor who has been in poland since november came back for a quick visit.  emily was so excited that she sat at the bottom of our stairs to wait for ms. monica to come home.
• "fine!"  this is what she says when she concedes.  e.g., "mommy, can i bring this to school with me?"  no, let's leave that at home.  "fine!  i won't bring it to school with me."  she says this sort of in a huffy puffy kind of way, but never gets mad.
• "mommy, can i take off your glasses?  (takes them off).  now you look like my mommy."  a couple of weeks later, she asked the same thing and told me, "i don't like you in glasses.  only ong and ba wear glasses.  because they are old."
• she's been loving on her lambie lately and sleeps with it each night.  hg gave it to her when she was baptized and em has not taken a liking to it until now.
• [getting off the toilet after peeing] "i can't walk.  i have some toilet paper in my butt.  [picks it].  and some more.  [picks again and tosses it on the ground.  i pick it up and flush it.]  was that some toilet paper?  or some poop?  cause that might be yuck."  omg, i died.
• "hands up!  don't tickle them!"
• while trying to fall asleep, she darts up and starts to whimper.  "i need to wash my hands."  no, they are all clean.  "no, my arm is sprinkling!"  pretty sure she meant tingling b/c it was asleep.
• she still loves putting on bandaids.
• and she still belly laughs.  it is so cute.  she'll do this when she notices something funny in one of her books (like ruby laying upside down, hanging off her bed) or when she swipes my phone to take pictures of herself.  like this:



• i was having a bad morning- you know, when your hair is awful and nothing looks good on?  she was watching cartoons in my room and when i stepped out of the bathroom, she said, "pretty."  what is?  "you look pretty mommy.  i like your outfit."  then she insisted on a picture of us.  how did we get such a sweet kid?!

• when i am lucky enough to take a nap for a few on the weekends, i usually do it on the couch while d and em are playing.  each time, em has decided that's the perfect time to play with my hair.  she will curl it, put bows in it, everything.  and i have no clue.
• each morning when she gets dressed, she'll turn around so we can button her dress or whatever, and she will always hold up her hair.  kind of like women do when their hubbies help them with their necklaces.  she is such a princess.
• oh, her favorite song right now is love story by taylor swift.  she tells donnie, "you be the prince and i'll be the princess.  it's a love story, baby just say yessss."