I have officially made it through my first year of pre-school. Except that I started a few months into the school year. And there were a number of breaks for the winter holidays, Passover break, and other minor holidays. And, for a while there, I only went two days a week or only for a few hours each day. Regardless! I made it through my first academic year at school. And (after I switched to my current school), I LOVE it! When we have vacations, I ask to go to school. Sometimes I am still upset when I get dropped off at school. But then when I see my teacher Ms. Adina, she picks me up and gives me a huge hug and I am all better. In fact, once I get that first hug from my teacher, it carries me through and I don’t even want to come home when Mom or Dad come to pick me up at the end of the day.

Anyway, back to my Graduation. We had a ceremony at school yesterday, and-along with my friends from the 3- and 4-year-old room, we sang and then accepted our diploma. When my teacher asked me what I wanted to me when I grow up, I said “Emmett.” Mom loved this. She prefers that we live our life defined by who we are and not by what we do. So I am, officially, going to be me.

After the ceremony, there was brunch and a petting zoo. And guess which I picked to go to first? That’s right. The food table. I ate a bunch of fruit and yogurt and cookies and eggs and bagel and then I hit up the animals. There was a donkey, a miniature horse, chickens, ducks, a lama, an alpaca, and lot of goats. I thought that the goats horns felt funny and I liked to try to pet the ducks. But, after that, I was good. I went and played on the playground with my friends for the rest of the morning.

Even though I finished the academic year, I am looking forward to continuing school through the summer. My school has lots of great things planned. We are going to swim, of course. But also, the Zoo, the Museum of Nature and Science, and other great local institutions are going to be bringing their great stuff to us! (Riley is going to LOVE shark week!) And I will get to keep chasing the girls around outside, dancing for my classmates, and painting with bright, cheery colors. It is going to be great.

Emmett out.

Some of you know that I have been a little slow to employ my verbal skills. At first, I wondered why people couldn’t read my mind and figure out what I wanted, like Mom and Dad do. But now that I am in school, I see the value of actually verbally communicating with other people. Mom and Dad love the things that I come up with and how I pronounce them. Here are some examples:

I named my bunny Unny.
I ask for a tiss goodnight.
I copy my Buzz Lightyear figure and say, I come in peas.
Instead of at the table, I prefer eating my meals on the chouch.
When I get ready for school, I put on my pack-pack.
Before we go to bed, Mom, Dad, Riley and I play a game of hide-and-seek meets peek-a-boo, and I call it wheat-a-boos.

Some of these things I am already correcting, but Mom and Dad think that these idiosyncrasies are so cute that they sometimes wish that I didn’t fix them. Like how Riley refers to himself in the third person, “Riley sees big trucks!” They sometimes wish that that would never end.

Check out the new pictures that Mom posted of us playing in the pillow fort. I am getting so big! I have lost most of my baby fat, and I am leaning out into a super, fantastic Pig! Riley too. But, to be honest, Tessa has enough baby fat for all of us right now. (I’m sure she’ll lean out soon, as she’s just started walking, but I’m just saying is all…)

Talk to you all soon,
E

I love drawing on the chalk board. Our friend, Ann, got us a chalk board for the birthday/holiday season and I just started to draw on it. Before I was mostly eating the chalk. But now, I am working on my shapes. I draw a perfect square, and then I say “skare.” Mom and Dad are very proud of me when I do this. I am also working on the first letter of my name, E. I draw the line down, and I say “down.” Then I draw three lines across, and I say, “aposs, aposs, aposs.” I am old-hat at circles, so I just draw those for fun.

We took swim lessons this month. (Mom got some flak about that from friends. Starting swimming in January in Colorado…) Anyway, I liked it, but mostly I wanted to go play on the water slide and with the water fountains. I was doggie paddling on the first day, and other moms and dads commented that it was very certainly not my first time in the deep end (which it was!). But my paddling was just to try to get me closer to the slide and fountains on the other end of the pool.

Riley and I both got LeapPads for the holidays. They are like iPads, but for kids our age. And I love the Art Studio application on it. I also love the animal flash card application. This is really super fantastic for Mom and Dad because they also loaded Toy Story and Cars eBooks on the LeapPad, and instead of those, I mostly choose the art and the flash card apps.

I am getting ready to wear big boy undies. I am not so fond of diapers anymore, which is a good thing because neither are Mom and Dad. But instead of just getting on with the potty training, I just take my diaper off when I don’t want to be wearing it. Sometimes I throw it down the stairs. This is about the time that Riley tells on me. He runs over to Mom and says, “Emmett poop, down.” We got these great Cars potties that make car noises when you flush them. But I’m not 100% on board with the program yet. Stay tuned.

As always, I love being outside. We went hiking the other day and it was all muddy. At first, I thought that it was fun. But then I got my boot stuck in the mud and I started to walk around the big mud puddles after that. I like going out on the deck and playing with my ride-in car. Also, playing with bubbles outside is still great fun. But now, Mom lets me hold the bubble container and the wand. I learned that if I dump out the bubble container that there are no more bubbles after that. So now I don’t dump it out. Riley still does, though.

Well, it’s not an exhaustive list, but there are some update for my Favorite Things list.

Take care,
E

So, I was wrong. In my last post, I said that I was over getting presents. That really wasn’t the case at all. When people came over to celebrate my birthday, I loved it! At first, I hid in the basement for a bit, watching a movie that Grandma Cheryl had given me. But then Dad brought me upstairs and I stayed upstairs for the rest of the afternoon playing with everyone.

Riley and I went outside and played in the yard a bit with Dad. But then when we came in, I started getting really excited. When everyone sang to me, I was kind of surprised. I am usually the one doing most of the singing, so when everyone else started, and it was clear that they were singing Happy Birthday to me, I looked around and was so happy! Then I blew out my candle, had a bit of my cheese cake cupcake, and got down to the business of upwrapping my gifts.

Each time I opened a new gift or card, I said “Oh, wow!” or “Oh, cool!” The faces that I made were priceless. Mom and Dad caught some of them on camera, so check out the pictures posted for December. I got a big, wood truck from my girlfriend Nicole, a tracksuit from Pop-pop, light-up race cars from Ann, a floor puzzle from Uncle Tom and Aunt Doris, a generous check from Great Grandma Betty, and Riley and I each got a coloring book and markers and fingerpaints from Grandma Cheryl. Grandma Cheryl also gave me a card that sand the theme song from the movie Cars, and I kept opening it and asking people to dance with me. Once I was all done opening gifts, I went around to each person and said “Kiss?” to thank them.

Then, the next day, I got some wonderful gift from our nanny, Elaine. She got us all a stacking block set that we had demolished a few months back, and also she got me a little computer that teaches me my numbers and how to draw them. So perfect!

Thanks to everyone who made my third birthday so special!

Love,
Emmett

I have made a great transition to pre-school. The day was a bit long for me, at first. So now I am only going for 2 hours a day, instead of 2 hours and 45 minutes. But it is working out nicely and we are all pretty happy with it. I am making lots of cool stuff to put up on the corkboard. I made a bookmark for Mom and Dad yesterday, with my picture and snowflakes and glitter. It was great.

What Mom and Dad love the best about preschool is that it is really helping me develop my language skills and my manners. I am asking for things nicely and saying please. I still use sign language for thank you, but they get the point. I know my entire alphabet and I amaze Mom and Dad by spelling out words that I see during the day. I spelled out, letter by letter, the kind of truck Dad drives: T-U-N-D-R-A. And I said and spelled my own name. I turn 3-years-old next week and already I know my entire alphabet. It’s great! I’m working on my numbers, too. I got most of them down, and I only started practicing last week.

I have a new favorite movie: Beauty and the Beast. I watch and act out my favorite parts. Which is kind of like when I dance for myself in front of the mirror, except I watch the movie and not myself. I like the dramatic parts: All the gasps and sighs. I copy what the characters do on the television. I play all the characters, so I will be acting out the part for Belle and the Beast at the same time. The dancing is great fun too, though. And often I point to Mom when it’s her turn to dance. But mostly, I make someone dance with me during the big dance number in the movie. I will hold someone’s hand, and parade them around the room. And then at the end of the scene, when the characters go outside on the balcony, I will lead my partner into the other room.

Since this is present-season (Riley’s birthday in October, Mine in December, not to mention Hanukkah and Christmas, and Tessa’s birthday in January), I’m kind of over getting gifts and having parties. But next week I turn three, and I am looking forward to seeing Pop-pop and some of my other good friends. I will charm everyone; we will play; it will be great.

I’ll tell you all about it soon,
E