6 to 8

The week we got back to America with Emma we went shoe shopping and bought her a size 6.  She can still squeeze her feet into those but we decided it was time for some tennis shoes.  A trip to Khol's this week revealed she’s now a size 8.  What happened to 7?  Without me knowing she just jumped two sizes. 

Is this what it’s going to be like raising them?  They’re just going to grow so quickly we hardly even notice!?  I really hope not.  I want to slow down.  I want to do so much more, so much better.  I want to be, no I need to be, so much more attentive.  I want to say “yes” as often as possible instead of “don’t do that” or “I can’t right now” or “I’m sorry, sweetie, Mommy has to…”  Do I really have to do those things?  Can’t I say “yes, I’d love to” instead?

Well, in an attempt to slow down today and share them with you, here are a few snippets of our girls currently…

Emma.  Not sure exactly when this happened, but she’s really only speaking English now.  Except for “还有呢?” (what else?) which she still says with consistency.  She’s a little sponge.  She’s asks questions incessantly and her favorite one is “why?”  She loves books and loves to pretend.  She'll pretend she’s a dog and she crawls on my lap and says, “Mommy pet doggy.”  I’ll rub her back and she says, “Feels nice.”  We've also tackled potty training, which we're doing as you're reading this.  Please take a minute to pray for us!  

Elsie.  She has a repertoire of tricks which I’ve attempted to capture here:

Saying “mom” is a recent addition and I cried when she first did it.  She still puts everything in her mouth, but she’s also tasting and eating more and more foods.  However at every meal, she tells us with sign language “more cracker” and will eat those non-stop.  She's constantly on the move but also focusing on one toy longer than she used to.  Maybe she's up to a 45 second attention span now!