Mr. Personality

Emmett's personality is growing larger every day, a fact that is first indicated by his ever increasing vocabulary. These are a few of our new favorite words:

Alright!
Okay!
Oh man!
Whoa! (usually exclaimed while riding his rocking horse, playing on the rocking chair, or swinging outside on Mom/Dad's lap.)
Cat
Meow
Dog
Woof!
BOO! (He never figured out how to say "Peek-a-boo" and now just shouts "BOO!" whenever he wants to play. This can be somewhat disruptive during sacrament meeting, but very endearing when directed at strangers at the grocery store, etc. He and the two-year-old upstairs will shout this at each other and giggle hysterically. It's pretty much adorable.)
Bye Bye Dadadadada (When Casey goes to work.)
Hi!
Hi-low (Hello)
Cra-cra (cracker)
Dar-Dar (Darwin)
Mi (milk)
Wawa (water)
E-moe (Elmo)

Emmett's new favorite pastime is waving at anyone who makes eye contact with him, then pulling his shoulder up to his cheek and smiling at them shyly. It's a game I think, because he knows that no matter who he waves and smiles at, he can get anyone he sees to copy him.

Emmett also has two favorite songs that he likes to "sing". The first one is one that we sing with him frequently at bedtime... the one that goes "I love Emmett he loves me, we love Dada, yes-siree, he loves us and so you see, we are a happy family!" Emmett has a hard time with the words, but all through the day you can here him randomly start singing, "I luv dada hm hm hm I luv hm luv mama hm hm" We also here the theme song from Elmo's world a lot, but Emmett's version goes more like this, "La la E-moe la la la E-moe hm hmm".

He's discovered toy cars as well... actually anything with wheels is heaven for Emmett. Trains and cars are pretty equal in their ability to entertain for several minutes at a time and the bigger the better. Anything he sees also seems to instantly turn into a telephone. Emmett has picked up on the fact that you say hello when you pick up the phone and bye-bye when you put it down. He practices regularly with keys, toy cars, bean bags, bottles of lotion, etc. Oh, and also with my old phone which he broke a couple of weeks ago.

We try to give Emmett healthy alternatives to some of the fun things he would like to do:

Play in the toilet bowl: Bath time!
Climb on the table: Climb on the coffee table... still a little scary, but much closer to the ground.
Climb over the back of the couch: Climb on Mommy & Daddy's big bed.
Scream hysterically: Watch Elmo until crisis has passed.
Eat rocks and bugs: Crackers!
Beat up Darwin: If the cat doesn't have sense enough to run away, well, maybe someday he will learn. In the mean time I'm sure we'll continue to fail at teaching "nice touches".

We're enjoying watching our monkey grow and the challenge of keeping up with his adventurous little heart!