She'll Hate Me Later for This, But...

... I have to post this!

Emersyn has been doing so great potty training. She goes all day on the potty, except when it comes to pooping. Lately, she's been telling us after she goes in her pull-up, but for some reason just will not poop on the potty. We've started giving her stickers to put on her treasure box whenever she goes on the potty. She gets two stickers if she poops on the potty. But still, Emersyn just won't poop on the potty. (Has anyone ever posted a single entry with "poop" so many times?!?!)

Today, however, not only did Emersyn tell us she wanted to go on the potty, she told us she needed to poop on the potty!!!

Yay!!!!

So, even though I know she'll hate me for this later, when she's older... I have to post that Emersyn pooped on the potty today after telling us for the first time!!!!

Thanks Aunt Shannon!

It was absolutely gorgeous today, so we headed over to the neighborhood playground after an early dinner. Emersyn got to rock one of her new outfits from Aunt Shannon, so a big THANK YOU to Aunt Shannon for the super cute and blue outfit that Emersyn wore today. :)

Guess Who's Old...

In honor of someone getting old today (I won't mention who, but most of you probably already know), we had some ice cream cake today. Emersyn sang "Happy Birthday" to me, Daddy, "me", Maw Maw and both the puppies. It was awesome. She also kind of liked the ice cream cake a little bit!

Kinder Farm Park

It was such a beautiful Fall day today that we decided to do something different to enjoy the weather... well, kind of...

So we brought a change of clothes for Emersyn to gymnastics this morning so that we could over to Cameron's soccer game afterwards. Unfortunately, since there was rain in the forcast, his game was cancelled. Then, after getting changed out of her leotard, Emersyn completely crashed out in the car so we ended up driving around for a while to let her sleep. In the process, we came across a sign for a Fall Fest type of thing at Kinder Farm Park that's going to be on 8 October. So we drove over to see the park, figuring Emersyn would have fun there when she woke up.

Oh we were so right! Emersyn loved it and we're definitley heading back over for their little festival thing in a couple weeks.

It's not the greatest farm, but they do have some animals so Emersyn was enthralled. They also have a really nice playground that she loved. We were able to pet a few of the animals like the goats, a couple sheep and even the ginormous pig who's head alone was bigger than our two year old! Emersyn even made a little friend while we were looking at the bunnies... A little boy, probably close to Cameron's age, found a worm in the dirt and picked it up. He was very sweet and held it for Emersyn to see. He even told her what it was and then that the worm was lonely so it needed to go back home when he put it back in the dirt. Emersyn, of course, was mesmorized by the boy... and the worm too, I guess. :)

So here's a few pictures from our day. There's a ton more (duh) at www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com in the September album, along with all the pictures from this months' adventures. &*(&***

Big Girl Underwear

So we're not really starting on the big girl underwear yet, but we tried them out for about an hour today. Emersyn loves them. She even uses the very taboo term "big girl".

Ok, here's the deal. Emersyn went ALL DAY totally dry in the same pull up. ALL DAY. She asked to go on the potty at school and even woke up from nap dry. When Chris got her on the potty at home, Emersyn didn't want to put her pull up back on. It was still dry, but she just didn't want it at all. Chris asked if she wanted a diaper instead and she said no. Then, on a whim, he asked if she wanted big girl underwear. Emersyn said yes. She got to pick out which pair she was going to wear from the small selection we have, and that was that.

Then I came home to this standing in the window at the front door, belly stuck out so I could see her underwear. After about an hour, Emersyn said she need a new pair. I tried to explain that we only change underwear when they're dirty and not just because we want a fashion show, but she insisted. Well, come to find out when she said "these dirty mama" it was actually true. She peed just the tiniest bit and didn't like the feeling, so she needed a new pair.
Probably about 45 minutes after donning the new pair of big girl underwear, Emersyn said she wanted her pull up back. We peed on the potty again and then left the bathroom with a pull up... only for her to promptly walk in the other room and poop. Ugh! Why couldn't she just go on the potty when she was sitting right there?!?!?! So, that's the latest chapter in our potty training adventure. :)

Happy Birthday Mak!

Today we headed over to Makaela's house to celebrate her 3rd birthday. Emersyn had a blast and was so much better behaved than we could have expected... especially with barely a half hour nap, cake, new kids, plenty of new toys and a whole butt ton of excitement. She totally impressed us.

I have to back track for a quick second though... we started the day with a last minute trip to Toys R Us since someone (me) is a total slacker and kept putting off making the trip. Emersyn surprised us by totally "understanding" she wasn't getting a toy, and didn't fuss once about wanting what she picked out for Mak. Although she tried to pick every single Belle princess item in the isle. After being a very good girl in the toy store, Emersyn got to ride one of the little fifty cent "rides" outside the store. She finally allowed us to make it move about a week ago, and she picked the Elmo and Zoe car to take her first moving ride in. This time, she opted for Spiderman. Needless to say, this whole moving ride thing is kind of a hit.
Then it was off to Makaela's party. We played with Callum on the piano... Ate cupcakes with the birthday girl... And played in our new favorite thing - the bouncy house. This was actually while Mak was opening her presents. We figured we'd save everyone some drama and just separate Emersyn from the gift opening... She's smart, but Emersyn was very excited at the presents and started singing "happy birthday to me". We're not sure how much she'd get that she couldn't help open presents, so we made our way outside to take advantage of the empty bouncy house. Emersyn L-O-V-E-D playing with Cameron ("mah Key") and Dominic ("dah ick").We also made a new friend... And Emersyn witnessed a pinata for the first time! This is her pulling her string... ... the birthday girl pulling the last one (with help)... ... and Emersyn's reaction to the pinata opening up... While everyone else collected candy (Mak sorting through all the candy so that she only got the pink pieces), Emersyn picked up the strings from the pinata to put in her goody bag. Sometimes I wonder if she's really my kid. LOL!! Yeah, so all the pictures are up in the September album at http://www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com along with all our videos! :)

A Real Miracle!!!

After what happened with Brinley, and all the things we learned from our Angel, we really took to heart what a miracle Emersyn is. It just because that more apparent, she is a miracle. But today, we found out Emersyn is even more of a "fluke", even more of a miracle than we ever could have expected or known without Brinley.

A couple weeks ago Emersyn got her blood drawn for routine testing in lieu of turning two. At our request, they took a little extra to see if she had the translocation like Chris. We weren't that hopeful, but we kept our fingers crossed awaiting the results... which finally came just a few minutes ago...

Emersyn is perfectly normal. Her results are "46XX". That's it. No t's, q's, or anything else. She's genetically normal. Absolutely normal! The pediatrician even sent the results to a friend that's a genenticist at Hopkins to make sure. Emersyn is a healthy, wonderful, genetically normal,
perfect miracle!!!!!

She's normal!!!

I was so happy I could have cried. I even told the doctor that I wish I could hug her "right now" because that is the absolute best news we've had in about 9 months, pretty much all this year. She's normal. Emersyn can have all the babies she wants (which looks it's going to be a lot considering that she consistantly says "I love babies" even when nobody's around her) and she doesn't ever have to worry about it. She'll never be faced with what we went through. She'll never know the loss of kissing your baby goodbye. She'll never have to deal with the heartbreak, the allconsuming saddness, the fears... that loss. She won't have to be watched like a hawk, waiting to see if she has any health issues that can be the result of a genetic defect. She can be healthy. She can have healthy babies. She's normal.

We had a 25% chance of having a baby that was totally, genetically normal. Emersyn had a 50% change of having a balanced translocation. If this news isn't a miracle, I don't know what is.

Finally Caught Back Up (For Now)

Well you can all finally rest easy again, as I am caught back up on the videos. I know it's been rough and you've been losing sleep over it, but rest assured that all the videos from the last week-ish are finally uploaded and here...

7Sep11 --- Emersyn tells us what the Noisey Ducks say... One of her favorite books is called Five Noisey Ducks, and it comes complete with a little push button speaker that quacks. Needless to say, ducks have been one of the first animals that Emersyn can tell you what they say... go figure, dogs were also at the top of that list. :)

7Sep11 --- Ah, what a silly girl our Emersyn is. This is just another little clip of a day in the life of our two year old...

12Sep11 --- Well, it's safe to say that Emersyn likes football this year. So much so, that Monday after the Ravens played game one on Sunday, Emersyn refused to take her jersey off... the jersey that she wore all day Sunday and insisted on sleeping in that night... yeah... Finally convinced to swap out her jersey for the (too big) jersey Cameron passed down, we got this little gem.

12Sep11 --- Ah the joys of bubble wrap! Emersyn discovered this simple pleasure today after we received a few packages and one item was thankfully overloaded with the stuff. As you can tell, Emersyn thinks bubble wrap is kinda cool. :)

Kinda Into It

Yesterday, Emersyn insisted on sleeping in her jersey (a.k.a. "mama sirt" and "go A-ins sirt") so we agreed that she could. This morning, that came to bite us in the butt... Emersyn begged and cried and please-d to keep her jersey on. We tried explaining that it has to be washed. We tried reasoning with our two year old (yeah, I know). We tried letting her pick out a different shirt to wear. We tried bribes. Finally, we tried to trade one jersey for another and that worked.

Emersyn was just given Cameron's now too small old Ray Lewis jersey, and luckily it fits okay. So we got to trade out hers for "muh Key go A-ins sirt". Today we also got a couple packages of things that I ordered for Emersyn with all the sales going on... A little thing I picked up for Chris to put away fro Christmas came wrapped in bubble wrap and, well, Emersyn has discovered the simple pleasure of bubble wrap. She's also become a little bit of a hoarder with her new clothes... All the "go A-ins sirt" pictures and the bubble wrap adventures are at www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com so you can see more silliness there. :)

Who Was That Crazed Team?!?!?!

Aside from New Orleans and Green Bay, today the rest of the NFL kicked off week one of the season. Baltimore got to start the season with quite possibly the hardest game they'll have, hosting Pittsburgh. I'll admit, I was a little nervous for us. We have a new offensive line, our QB is such a pocket passer, the Steelers are always a force to be reckoned with, and this is the first real game we're playing together.

Boy was I shocked!!!

But, I digress... Our day started out with getting our little fan dressed in "mama sssirt" and heading over to drop her at my parents' house. Chris and I were going to the game, and as much as we both really want to take Emersyn to one, this rivalry game was not the appropriate place for a baby. We were only for a minute and Maw Maw said she had a present for Emersyn... which of course got a very excited response. Aunt Densie and Uncle John weren't able to make it to Emersyn's birthday party, but they wanted to make sure she got a little something special. Molly, my parents' dog, also likes presents though and she couldn't resist helping Emersyn open this one! (Which Emersyn thought was the greatest thing ever.) Chris and I snuck out in the comotion when Cameron ("muh Key") walked in, and we were soon at the game. Normally, Chris hopes for injuries during this match up, but he was still excited to see the blood bath that is a Ravens-Steelers game. Neither of us were disappointed there... Smart boy that he is though, Chris actually thought to bring the camera so we got a few good shots during warm ups. Especially today, isn't the Color Guard just a beautiful sight?!?!?! The Baltimore Ravens' introductions... They've always done the defense and much to my dismay, they did the fricking offense this time. I guess it worked out considering how the game went, but I still would've rather had Ray Lewis, Ed Reed, Terrell Suggs and those guys introduced. In honor of 9-11, all the NFL games today did this same "ceremony". Members of the armed forces, the city's police department and firemen brought out this ginormous flag. They had a little video speech from Ground Zero, a moment of silence, a very moving TAPS performace broadcast around the NFL games, and then the National Anthem. Even Chris got teary eyed, but I wasn't supposed to notice that. A lot of the teams stepped up to hold the flag as well. You can see the entire Ravens' roster touching the flag in honor and in the memory of 9-11... I definitley not say the same thing for their opponents though. In all the action we kind of forgot to take any more pictures until closer to the end. But here's one of my most favorite images ever - Big Ben getting sacked (again)!!! I have to say that I was beyond impressed with the Ravens. Even Chris complimented them over and over again! I was not happy about the horrible lack of calls from the officials. If you want to let them play, then just let them play. Across the board. That's fine. But you can't call one thing on one team and then not call the exact same thing on the other team. And, yes, it does go both ways. Baltimore had a very obvious pass interference that they ignored. Pittsburgh let the play clock expire twice, and wasn't called on it once. And I don't mean like they just got the snap off; I mean Big Ben had a solid 4 seconds after the clock hit zero!!! The biggest thing for both of us came during a big fight around half time though. Not a single player was ejected from the game even though three - yes 3 - infractions punishable by ejection happened... that we could see, I'm sure there were more... A Pittsburgh player closed fist punched a Raven in the side of his head, after the play, while the Raven was still down. (That's what caused the fight.) Then, another Pittsburgh player laid out the ref. Not bumped into the ref during the scuffle, but hands on the ref knocked him down. And, off to the side, a Steeler picked Ray Rice up of the ground and body slammed him down, after the whistle and away from the play. Yeah.

All in all though, I guess we got even in our own way. We absolutely embarrassed Pittsburgh. This is the biggest deficeit in the history of the Baltimore-Pittsburgh match ups. Ever. Big Ben was on his back more than his, um, well I'll just let you put your own example in there so this stays clean... Baltimore forced 7 - SEVEN!!!! - turnovers. Our offense looked better than anyone could have expected and our defense kept the legend alive and strong.

I think it's going to be an excellent season. I'm just so happy the NFL is back and in full swing... and I absolutely love the Emersyn is all kinds of into "fuhtbool"!!! She even says "go Ravens". Anyways, as always there are more pictures at www.theswaderfarmily.shutterfly.com if you want to see more.