More About The Moving

Yesterday, I tried to go to the new house to unpack some kitchen boxes. Got Emma and her snacks and me over there and Emma clung to me and wrapped her legs around me like we were chimps or something. Great - I thought I was going to get something accomplished. Emma has other plans. Ok plan B. Go spend money! We went to get Emma some new shoes in Kilmarnock and had lunch with PopPop, Susan, and Joe.
In order to move, we have to leave Emma with someone while we pack and move and unpack. She doesn't like the new place - it kind of scares me too, with the steps. I hope everyone likes it there. I know Chucky and I will, I'm just concerned over Emma's reaction and all the animals, too.
With the move, we will be bringing our three pets. Shelby, female fawn pug - 6, Odie, male black pug - 11, and Dot, our calico female cat - 3. I am concerned about how they will behave, where will we put the dog crates, how will we keep them in the yard and not in the nearby-road-where-cars-go-fast? Emma LOVES the animals! She tells them "aht-aht" when they are bad. Odie is older and keeps to himself. He's pretty good about tolerating Emma but he doesn't seem to love her the way she loves him. Shelby still acts like a puppy when given the chance, so she loves all the activity. Emma brings her bones and balls and pulls her fur and Shelby tolerates it all very well. When they play together, Emma is the one who gets upset when Shelby takes a bone that Emma was not ready to give her yet! Dot is another story. If Emma can get her hands on the cat, Emma is lucky. Dot doesn't tolerate too much from anyone, but is good about just walking away when she's had enough instead of scratching. Emma is most enamored with Dot these days. Maybe it's because Dot is mysterious and is outside most of the day. Or maybe it's just because little girls are supposed to like kitty cats. Dunno, but it's sure cute. "DOT!"

Accident Update

Today the nice-rental-car-guy found me a minivan, so I traded in the mini-Jeep. Now that I don't have too much more to move, it's great. Just great. At least I should be able to pick up my new table and chairs in Newport News tomorrow . . . that is . . . if we go. We are going because Emma has a dentist appointment, but she has been sick with a runny nose and cough this week that seems to be getting worse. Emma's upper left front tooth came in with a brown spot patch thingy on it. We went to the dentist right away, before the tooth was all the way in, just to make sure it wasn't decay or disease or anything. It's just a fault in the enamel and it's been six months since our first visit, so now that her tooth is all the way in we are going bakc to see if there's anything they can do for it. Some of it has chipped off so it's not as dark.
Emma fell over in her booster seat last night after dinner. BOOM! She was "all done" and wanted to get down. I asked her to sit until mommy and daddy were all done and she calmed down and was playing with crumbs. I got up from the table to get some rolls out of the oven and heard a loud boom! Chucky reacted slowly and after figuring out what happened rushed over to pick her up. The whole chair fell back with the booster seat strapped to it and her strapped in the seat! She pushed back from the table with either her hands or her feet and went too far backwards! We don't think her head hit the floor or the wall, though. There are no bumps or swollen areas and she didn't cry too bad, I think it just really scared her. It really scared me. I don't want to put her back in that chair! Now how am I going to feed this child? The highchair is in storage and anyway that's going backwards. She still doesn't understand about climbing and falling and steps and couches and things like that. I wonder when she'll get it, I will love that day.
Emma says: all done, thank you, love you, buddies, boom, bug, outside, and BYE-BYE really loud!

The Accident

It has been an interesting few days. Thursday morning while getting ready for work, Chucky goes out to his truck to leave but comes back inside to tell me I have a rear tire very low on air. I’m supposed to take Emma to Urbanna, then go to work in Kilmarnock, then come back to Urbanna to get her, and return to Hardyville that evening. I don’t know if it has a leak or what so we decide I should take it to Chucky’s uncle, Tuna, who has a service shop. I drive it down there with Emma in tow (it’s early in the morning so she’s in a great mood) and Tuna declares there is a leak. He patches it up and we are ready to go! Thanks Tuna for fitting us in without an appointment and not taking our money. So we head to Urbanna – we are almost to Ghee and PopPop’s house when we slow down in front of the Exxon station because someone in front of us is turning left. The BAM – we get hit in the rear. I am momentarily in shock and surprise. I look around to see what happened and can see the lady that hit me in her minivan clearly upset. Emma is screaming so I jump out of the car and head around the back side to get to her door on the other side. The other woman is out of her car and asks me if I am okay. I am on the verge of tears now (Emma is still screaming) and without slowing down my run, I say to her “MY DAUGHTER!” – I get to Emma’s door and after making sure she’s not clearly injured I pull her from the car seat and hold her tight. She stops crying quickly and I just know she is okay. I apologize to the other lady for my crying and she apologizes for hitting us. We are all okay and she calls 911. I tried to move the van out of the road but the tire (yes, the tire that Tuna just fixed) goes flat because the rear bumper is all mushed up on it. I call Ghee and PopPop and they say they are on the way. After calming down some more (Emma is now playing in some rocks in front of the thrift store) I call Chucky and tell him we are okay and he doesn’t need to come. He sounds like he is in shock and also like “Geez, what else is going to happen today?” He also sounds like this is typical Kate which I guess I do always have a lot going on. Anyway, the ambulance shows up and we don’t need them but they stay until the state trooper gets there. We call a tow truck and line up a body shop and move all my stuff from my car to Ghee’s car. We go back to Ghee’s house (after stopping for juice and milk for Emma) and then I decide I need a rental car. So I try to track down the woman that hit us and get her insurance claim number and try to find a rental car (scarce in this area). I will say that the woman that hit us was very nice and very upset and it totally could have been me in her situation. I work a while at Ghee’s house and we all go to lunch, then I ride with PopPop to work in Kilmarnock – where I pick up my Jeep Liberty rental. Great. We are moving this weekend and instead of my roomy van I have a mini-Jeep. That day I was happy – we were both okay and I got my work done. The next day I was irritated about the van being messed up. The appraiser is coming Monday to check out the damage to the van. I hope it’s totaled so I can get a new one!Saturday we moved stuff and more stuff. PopPop, Joe and Ghee came to help and Nannie came to play with Emma. Sunday we moved more stuff but only in the mini-Jeep. Nannie came over again! Emma says “pocket-book, outside, no, blueberries, snack, lunch, cereal, tractor!” She gives high-fives, hugs, kisses. She says trash and mess and likes to clean up messes with napkins. She does not like to pick up toys!

Music In My Life

Today was Emma's first Kindermusik lesson. I expected clingy Emma but was delightfully surprised at outgoing Emma! She danced and squealed and smiled and laughed and enjoyed every minute (except when Miss Jennie turned the music off). She even surprised me by not throwing a fit when it was time to put the musical instruments away and tell them bye-bye. Phew. I was prepared for a crying fit then. Early in the morning is always her best time so having class at 9am is definitely in our favor. Yes, OUR - not her. Her moods are my moods, didn't you know?
Emma is going to be a bunny for Halloween. I've gotten two different costumes and tried them both on her. They both fit and look adorable and she doesn't want either one on for more than 5 minutes. Halloween should be such fun. She says the word bunny so cute! "Bu-eee!" She has a lot of words now and will try to say almost anything. Another of my favorite words is bug. "Buh-ckkh!" She says juice, mickh, down, no, ma-ma, da-dad, stroll, rock, roll, open it, shoes on, shoes off, bath, brush, spoon, night-night, elmo, baby, push and lots more I can't think of on demand. When she is ready for bed she says "mickh". Once she gets her milk, she says "rock-rock." Ok of course I will rock you! As long as you want. 'Till your 20. Don't you know you are my music?

Trying To Move

We are in the middle of a move. We bought a house not far from the one we are in now, it's just bigger with more land. We have had the inside of the house painted and this week a gentleman is building cabinets and bookshelves in the den. There is some fungus under the house because apparently the drain in the downstairs shower was never hooked up and all the water and gunk has just been pouring into the crawl space. Lovely. Also we had an electrical problem to fix. Chucky has been painting the room over the garage and installing light fixtures in the house that I've picked out and hasn't been home much. That's why I have time to write this tonight! I am supposed to be packing up this house but somehow I am finding more interesting things to do. It's hard to pack during the day with Emma at my feet and besides, there aren't enough boxes for all the JUNK in this place. There is no microwave or washer and dryer at the new place. They've been ordered, but will they be there in time?I've been trying to pick out curtains - I feel like that's all we'll be missing when we move the rest of our stuff. Of course I can't find any curtains I like. Not online, not in the stores or the malls. It's a big hunt and a frusterating one. I am giving a baby shower at the new house in one month. So I would like to have some curtains up. But I am willing to wait for the perfect curtain. So I am searching, and searching. Oh yeah, oh yeah, the most stressful part - we have not sold the house we live in now and we have bought the other one. Yup, we have two houses.

First Entry

It's my first entry in my first blog ever! This blog will be used primarily to write things about Emma that she may find interesting when she's older. And to jog my own memory about all the things she does that I'll probably forget about when she's 16 and in big trouble. I'm sure I will also write about other things but mostly it's All About Emma. She's 17.5 months now and I am way behind but I'm just going to start from here and go forward.