44 months old

Emily is now 44 months old and developing faster than ever.  She has now officially entered the 20 1,000 questions stage.  They aren't all "why?" but they may as well be.  Sometimes they are funny.  Sometimes they are interesting.  Sometimes I don't quite know how to answer them.  And sometimes I just want to pull my hair out.  Here is a sample conversation from snack time today involving crackers:

"Mommy, what shape are the crackers?"
"It's called a hexagon."
"What shape are they?"

"A hexagon."

"What shape are they, Mommy?"
"What do they look like?"
"A stop sign."
"It's kind of like a stop sign." (Yes, I know a stop sign is actually an octagon, but we weren't going to even go there.)
"What shape are they?"

"I already answered that question."

"What shape are they?"
Silence
"What shape are they?"
More silence
"What shape are they, Mommy?"

"I'm going to answer one more time.  It's called a hexagon.  Now you may not ask me again today."

"Okay. I won't, I won't.  I'll ask you tomorrow."
Ack!!!!

Some other funny Emily-isms: bresbeck = breakfast, beh-zert = dessert.  When buzzing Lincoln's hair with the clippers over the weekend she asked why we were sawing Lincoln's hair off.  On a couple of occasions I have called Lincoln, "honey".  Emily immediately corrected me by saying, "No, Lincoln is 'buddy', I'm 'honey.'"  We're trying to figure out hot & cold.  I'm not sure if Emily has them straight yet.  She talks about being "brr," but not always in the right context.

We solved a big mystery this month.  All during the school year Emily has talked about "Camry" from Sunday School.  She always had to show things to Camry and thought that Camry would like her dress, etc.  We just always assumed there was a little girl in her class by that name and they were friends.  However, while paging through the new church directory last week Emily stopped and pointed to "Camry".  It turns out that she had been referring to her favorite teacher who had kind of taken Emily under her wing.  Her real name is Deb.  She laughed when I told her about it last Sunday.  She had never heard Emily call her "Camry".

Emily is big into dreams lately, probably because of The Berenstain Bears and the Bad Dream. We're not really sure if she actually dreams or not, but when asked in the morning if she dreamed the night before she usually has an answer.  It's usually about foxes and/or birthdays.

Emily is also suddenly really into Thomas & Friends.  I'm sure this is in large part due to spending a lot of time lately with her cousins, Asher & Seth.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that one of the engines is named Emily. ;o)  It's what she requests to watch while I'm showering in the mornings (PTL for DVR).  She randomly bursts out singing the theme song.  And she likes to draw lots of little dots and connect them to make a picture.  It took me a while to "connect the dots" and figure out what she was doing.  Sometime I need to actually sit down and watch a few episodes with her so I know what she's talking about!

One skill Emily has practiced a lot this month is holding her pencil/pen/crayon/marker correctly.  She's doing really well.  She has also switched from single-color solid-coloring to multiple color selection for different objects more-or-less in the lines (see examples).  The whole drawing/coloring development pattern fascinates me, so that's why I'm recording it here.