What a sweet daddy

Yes, Russell, is a great daddy. But I'm talking about MY Daddy. Emma and I spent the night at my parents' house Wednesday night because I was working a lot closer to my parents' house than mine, and my mom was keeping Emma on Thursday anyway. I arose Thursday morning to a quiet house: my dad was at work, my mom was in their bedroom still asleep with Emma in her crib, which is also in their bedroom. Yes, Emma has her own crib at my parents' house. In the kitchen, my dad had left me the following note: "MB, I did not know if you wanted lunch fixed - I put fruit in a bowl (blue lid) for you and chicken salad sandwich on top of bowl. Also for breakfast - egg sandwich with little bit of cheese and bowl of fresh cut peaches and cottage cheese in bowl in fridge. You can take it with you or eat for breakfast. Dad." Then I turned to see the coffee already brewed, with a to-go cup, a spoon, Splenda, and sugar. What a sweet, sweet daddy I have. Here he is loving on my baby:



So then I ate my delicious breakfast and turned on my parents' video monitor that was in the den to see what Emma was doing...no Emma in her crib. I knew EXACTLY where she was: in the bed with my mom. Apparently Emma awoke at 6 am, and my mom put her in their giant king-sized bed with her. I snuck in there and found her laid out in the middle of their giant bed, snoozing away. So precious. And spoiled.

Emma has had a pretty good week this week. She has gotten upset and angry a little, but today was the first time she's gotten so angry (that we haven't been able to prevent) that she almost stopped breathing. But overall - a good week for Emma. She has run errands and gone shopping and been loved on by all kinds of people. She's really been interested in her hands this week - she can hardly keep them out of her mouth. She's been drooling like crazy, too, so all signs point to teething...except for the fact that there are no teeth, or even traces of teeth! She has gotten so much better with holding her head up, especially considering her head is in the 99th percentile of head circumference. Because she's figured out that life is more interesting sitting up, she now gets furious when we cradle her. Instead she wants to sit up on our shoulders or on my hip. The tricky part is that her ab and head control isn't perfect, so sometimes she nosedives and we have to be quick to catch her. Her most recent trick is waving her arm up and down, up and down, up and down. It started on Friday when she figured out that she could mess with the canopy on her swing. Then she started doing this ALL THE TIME, much to her daddy's delight (notice that Emma visibly realizes she's using her own hand at the end, tries to put in her mouth, but thinks that rubbing her sleepy eyes is better):



The other silly thing she did today was insist to be held with her head hanging virtually upside down. We have no idea why this was so comfortable; no matter how much Russell tried to move her, she just moved her head back into this position:



Lastly, Emma has done much better with her naps. She is the queen of fighting sleep, which makes for a grumpy baby at night. But here lately, she's been doing great with napping. She and I snuggled for a 2-hour nap on Friday; Emma has NEVER snuggled with me like this for that long, and it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Side note: Lola looks so desperate for attention, it's pitiful. I promise we love her, despite the look on her face, which seems to say otherwise.