Thanks, Auntie

Auntie is gone, and it’s difficult to say who misses her the most: Emmie (because she adores Auntie), Azure (because sis made life easy for four weeks), or myself (because Az and I got to run out the door whenever we felt like it, whoohoo!).

Ah well. There’s a million little things to report. Emmie’s signing ‘bird’ all the time, though she’s admittedly liberal with its usage (along with the bird in her picture book, she uses it to mean ‘outside’ and ‘tree’, too). She also signs for ‘ball’ and ‘all done’, and I’m betting her next one will be ‘PowerBook G4’.

Emmie increasingly stands on her own, hands-free, but only if she doesn’t actually think about it. (It’s all reminiscent of old Looney Tunes cartoons, where Wile E. Coyote goes running off a cliff, but never actually drops until he looks down.) Emelyn will also walk short distances with a minimally-supportive hand-hold, although the moment she figures out you’re actually encouraging her to walk a bit, she sits down in protest. She’s got her own schedule for this stuff…

Emelyn is also turning mischievous - she can turn on the TV, open a laptop latch (rather impressive, that), and she won’t stop reaching for door handles, either. We’ve started re-arranging some of the furniture and toys into a kind of Victor-Hugo-inspired barricade, in response, and that keeps her from most of the consumer electronics. Baby gates are on order, too.

Well, maybe that isn’t a million things, after all. What to say? Life here just seems to be trucking along like normal; can’t really complain.