"Mmmah!"

That's what Emily is saying as she looks deliberately into my eyes. No joke, the girl is calling me! I was hesitant to assume that was the case until both Mom and Josh confirmed that was in fact what they were hearing as well. It's so exciting. I wanted Elijah to talk so badly when he was Emily's age; alas, he was not interested for a long, long while. Another wild difference between the two of them is how curious Elijah was with his toys. He was fascinated with the workings of his toys and didn't play with them per se, but investigated how they functioned. Emily is more interested in testing out her toys via her mouth, and then pounding them on the floor or at other toys - much like a typical baby would.

Someone loves to swing!

Ok, yes that is Elijah's hat.

Emily loves to observe though, much like Elijah did (does). She is much more interested in being on the move and catching up with Elijah. When Emily is having tummy time, I try to get her to crawl by putting a toy just out of reach. She'll get this determined look on her face, pull her lips in, grunt, reach with an out stretched hand.... and then go limp knowing that she's not quite ready to crawl. She puts her face on the floor and whines with an arm still stretched out in front of her. It's cute how quickly she gets frustrated; "If only I could crawl!" I know that once she's ready to crawl that she's going to just go. There won't be any practice/test crawls. It'll be more like next thing I know I'm racing after her because she's out of the room.

Elijah's third birthday is coming up (okay, not 'til October, but still!) and I've been shopping! I bought him a Toy Story bed tent, and a scooter, that is also Toy Story. He had his first experience on a scooter when he went camping with Josh and, from what I heard, wouldn't get off the thing. This has the handle bars complete with a zipper bag on the front. He saw me grab it at Target today and was all, "Momma! Momma! Momma! What is that? Let me see? We can play it outside?" There were only two left and I knew that if I came back later for it they'd be out of stock. Thankfully I was able to sidetrack him with a water gun from the $1 bin! My Mom and I found one of those huge floor pianos at Toys R Us, so that's what Elijah's getting from Grandma.

Elijah also got his hands on a number of those hand held touch screen gaming systems that are designed for children. There was one from Leapster that he did better with (ages 4-9, I might add). It was fun to watch him with the educational games - he rocked! I sent that bit of information along to my Mother-in-Law because I wasn't sure if she had an idea for him or not for his birthday.

He's going to have an awesome birthday. I want to have a pinata, also. My Mom took him to a birthday party a few months ago where there was a pinata and it was reported back to me that Elijah was just ecstatic over it.

Time to catch some ZZZZZs. I'm exhausted after going to the chiropractor, the post office, Target, and the post office again (the first post office had a sign up inside that said their credit/debit machines were down and I never carry cash on me) with the kids in tow.