Emily

Emily is loved.  So loved.  Sometimes slightly smothered with love.

She'll take the occasional smother, fingers on her face, inconvenience of being carried when and where she doesn't want to be.  She'll take it because it comes with being smiled at, talked with, pushed in the stroller and included in the make-believe play, art projects with papers and crayons everywhere.  She likes getting picked up out of the crib before I get to her, being fed, rocked, and played with and included. She occasionally gets hurt.  But she also gets comforted:  hugs, drinks of water to feel better, apologies, songs, toys, attention.  She follows Maddie and Lucy and Matt and I around everywhere.  She shows me that we really are meant to be with people, not alone.  She will fight to be included in every activity, every bite of something yummy to share, every chore, everything.






We're learning about what we like our siblings to do and what we don't like them doing!  She normally likes to be in the fray.  Although there are times she's content to sit back a few steps and watch the older two.



Oh I'm going to miss those little fingers.  I love watching her hands move.  I love to watch her wave, pick things up, feed herself, and reach.  She crawls over to me all day and stands herself up holding on to my legs, or the dishwasher door, or the chairs, or her sisters.



When Matt gets home from work he carries her around more or less the whole evening until it's time to go to bed.  She gets the mail with him, puts the garbage out with him, talks to me with him, plays with the girls in his arms.  When she was still tiny she was an extension of his arms.  Sometimes he'd be holding her so long he would forget she was there and then ask me, "Where's Emily?" She is usually totally content to be held by her dad.





I also find it really interesting that she keeps trying tomatoes.  She doesn't like to eat tomatoes.  It always ends up being spit out.  But she keeps trying them.  Maybe she'll like them one day?  She does love being in the garden though.  She loves feeling the dirt, picking the leaves and tomatoes; she loves being next to me.  And she keeps trying the raw onions and tomatoes and kale.  :)