My daughter wants me to "breastfeed" her giraffe. She holds it up to my breasts and pretends it's feeding, lol.

I've been denying it for so long, but Emily is a little girl. Not a baby, a wee toddler girl.

It's easy to pretend sometimes because she doesn't talk very well and she's still in diapers, but she comprehends EVERYTHING, even things I thought must be too complex for her. She is so sharp!

She was very insistent that we play with her blocks last night. Watching her build was the cutest thing ever. After she put a block on, she'd get all excited and clap her hands -- just so happy about her blocks! She had very specific ideas about the structure and colour coordination, although she generously allowed me some minimal input. And as graciously as an empress bestowing favour upon an unworthy peon, she allowed me to place some of the blocks myself. She would hand me the block and nod at me.

I left the building out for Grandma and Rob to see. It was as tall as Emily! She built most of it herself. :D

I've been a shitty LJ friend recently. I've been so addicted to the Sims 3 that I barely check eljay. :(

In other new, Emily pooed on the potty for the first time a couple of days ago. New words are constantly springing out of her. She's turning into quite a little girl. :(

So the total pee-in-potty count is up to 3 times now. It seems to happen every time after Emily has a bath . .

I've been asking her to tell me when she needs to pee, but she possibly can't tell yet, although she has been sucessful after bathes. We haven't even broached pooing yet. One body function at a time. But this is tremendous for her . . it really speaks for her comprehension of what's going on even though she isn't really speaking.

Her vocabulary is starting to pick up. She's voluntarily trying new words. A recent word she decided to try is "owl" . . she says it so clearly. And to think, she was just mimicking the person speaking on tv!

Her animal sounds have expanded too. She loooves animals, omg.

I wish Jarred was here so I could molest er, I mean HUG him. In the pants. Hurr hurr hurr. . .

Emily is in a terrific mood this morning, even though she slept like total shit last night. She kept waking up and crying because she wanted to get up even though it was NOT time to get up. My rule of thumb for getting the baby up -- the sun has to have risen or if it's winter, be past 7 o'clock am. She usually falls within those parameters naturally, but we've had a few off-kilter days here and there (like today). Emily likes to take advantage of any change in the schedule so leniency is not an option! :D

I have a giant zit on my face that I have had for two weeks. I'm starting to look like Roseanne Barr's character in She-Devil, lol. I have not picked it or squeezed it, but I really must wonder when it's leaving!! :(

Emily is just all about Mama today. She cries if I leave the room even to use the restroom, so I'm hauling her (and her toys) around with us all over the house.

She's making a giant mess all over the room behind me with her Mega Bloks!!

I found some kind of grub or maggot on my duvet cover last night and I FAH-REAKED out. I have no idea where it came from, but I grabbed everything on the bed and put it through the wash and tore my room apart. My mom is going to help me do a deep cleaning on the carpets on Wednesday. I can't move some of the furniture by myself (the bed, the chest of drawers) so I need her help for that. I'm guessing the grub got stuck on one of the outdoor cats and they wandered into my room and it dropped onto my bed. I just have no idea where it came from, but I had a panic attack -- I was up until 2:30 am cleaning my room vigorously.

Ew ew ew. So gross. *skin crawls*

There are two AJs and two Julians on my list from the December mommies. :D Funny coincidence.

I guess it's time for me to post stuff about what Emily is doing, because I'm reading all this stuff on my flist about all my december moms kiddos and I'm like, "Emily is doing stuff too . . I should write it down before I forget all about it."

She does a Tarzan impersonation. She beats her chest and does her version of a Tarzan call. It's pretty hilarious. Rob taught her that.

He ALSO taught her to sing along to David Bowie's "Golden Years". He sings the chorus, "Golden Years, Gooolden . . " and Emily pipes up and goes "Wa-wa-wa" just like in the song, hahahah.

She can also imitate a bunch of different animals . . we have this little game her and I play. For example, I'll go, "Did I give birth to a . . monkey?" and she'll start pretending to be a monkey, making monkey noises. Then I'll go, "Did I give birth to a . . snake?" and she'll start going "Sssssss" . . . and so on . . it's so sweet.

She recognized me in this picture the other day and showed me then gave the picture a big kiss. She loves me so much. The feeling is very mutual. :D

Mother's Day was okay. I worked all day, so yeah.

Emily was acting extra clingy and whiny. My special Mother's Day gift I suppose to let me know how "wanted" I was. I was sort of glad to get to work, actually.

Although, she got me an AWESOME Mother's Day gift -- two giant Tootsie Roll bars and a cute card. I know it was from my mom and Rob actually, but it seemed like something a two year old might get their mom if they had the presence of mind. I had to wrestle the gift away from her so I could unwrap it because she wanted to run away with it, but I was very grateful. Those were my favorite candies to get when I used to go trick-or-treating. I faithfully consumed both of my Tootsie Roll bars at work. :D

I also got my mother her present while I was on break. Typical Amber, I procrastinated until the very last second, but I got her something I knew she would love. I got her a fancy box of chocolate covered maraschino cherries and a big mushy card. However . . . . I got sort of side tracked because Dynamite was just across the hall and I saw some shirts I loved the look of . . so I wandered in there and spent over a hundred dollars on shirts. . . Feeling guilty but pleased I set out to amble back to work . . . but I got distracted again by some cute dresses at Ardene (but they were TWO FOR 20!!). . I came back a little bit late from my break. I think that pissed Nate off. Whoops.

But he agreed to take the Sunday shift I asked him to take on the 24th of May. BECAUSE! I have plans to go away that weekend with my boyfriend.

We are going to go to Anime North (I'm not THAT big on Anime, but I know he likes it, so I thought I would broaden my interests on it a bit). We are going for two days, and we are staying overnight. This is combining another element Jarred spoke about -- he wanted to rent a hotel for a bit sometime for the two of us in Toronto. So VOILA! Done. Let the sexy time commence. With a bit of Anime in between, I suppose.

mood: amused

My daughter was bringing me strange handfuls of hair, and I thought maybe the animals were shedding and she was pulling them off the furniture, but I suspect she's ripping them off the dog . . . I hear some growling . . . GTG!!!!!!!!!

I just polished off one Easter bunny. Yay. Happy times. I seem to be an insatiable pit for chocolate.

I don't know why, but I feel pretty crappy and sad. Probably because I hate living here and want to move away.

My baby is going "EH!" at me, so I need to go. Ho hum, just another day. :(

A mother and her three kids and the kid's gramma came in last night. The kids were whining and being total nuisances. In my case, I would be like, "Alright Emily, we are going home right now" but in their case the mom and grandma buy them dvds.

The boy dumped popcorn all over the ground and was attacking one of our glass doors. Neither of the adults said anything to him for like 5 minutes. They also parked their strollers RIGHT beside the family new release shelving and the kids in the strollers started to pull stuff off the shelves and dump it everywhere.

The crowning touch came when they went to leave. The mother hoisted the rambunctious little boy up on her hip and was walking out with grandma wielding the dual strollers, when the little boy turned around and FLIPPED ME THE BIRD!! I was absolutely astonished!!

Just watched a tremendously moving documentary called Dear Zachary.

You ever watch something and afterwards, it feels like you have aftershocks going through you? I completely have that right now.

Dear Zachary was incredibly sad, but also beautiful, hopeful, loving. I recommend it a thousand times. It's emotional experiences like these that make life what it is.

mood: moved

I'm addicted to Pokemon right now, hahahaha.

I'm trying to get my third gym badge in Veilstone City, but Lucario is a fucking bastard to beat. He must be like Asshole Type Pokemon or something. >:(

I wish I could just snuggle with Jarred right now. I miss him. :(

Jarred came over Saturday, and since I luckily didn't have my period (took my last BC pill on Thursday), we managed to have sex. :D YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

However, I got my blob on Sunday. But it seems to be really light, so it's not so bad. I think the fact that I got my wish and had sex beforehand makes me more forgiving.

( And stuff about Emily )

mood: annoyed

The Scam Artist:

Yesterday, I was working with Alison and this guy shoves his way into the line and says "I was here first!!" My asshole sensors are going off.

He pulls out two movies and says "I demand a return" (that was his exact wording and I'll never forget it) so then I ask coolly, "Do you have the receipt?" and he produces that as well.

But then I look at the movies. They had obviously been opened and he re-packaged them himself. They were encased in what appeared to be giant sandwich bags with the open end folded over and glue-gunned shut on the back, and red-and-white labels on them which have obviously come from a label-maker with the price handwritten on them.

I said to him,"This isn't our packaging" and he says,"How should I know? I wasn't paying attention when I bought it, now I demand my return."

Alison gets all annoyed and pulls a product off the overstock shelf. She shows him our packaging looks nothing like that because it's shrink-wrapped. I explain to him that we have never received from our distributors a product that has been packaged like that. We don't out and out accuse the guy, but we make it clear that we know what he's up to.

And then he pulls out the whole, "Let me speak to your manager!" bit. He's obviously playing the irate customer hoping we'll get so flustered that we'll just process the return and give him his cash. But we both hold our ground.

I explained to him that Cam does not work on Sundays and wrote down the number and handed it to him and he did a flounce. Me and Alison were pissed off and we were kind of hoping he would come back so we could have another round with this bullshit artist, lol.

I cannot believe the nerve of some people. >:(

Rob's granddaughter Vaughn came VERY close to dying, but they moved her to another hospital and stabilized her. Turns out she had a very serious case of RSV.

She was just released from the hospital this week and is very weak, but on the mend.

I would not like this to happen to anybody else! It's scary!

The doctor's advice for preventing RSV? Lots of hand washing.

When we went shopping yesterday with Emily, she said the word "banana" clear as day.

Context: We were in the yogurt aisle, and there was only the banana flavour left of her favorite type (Danino) and we were wondering if she would want it. We did end up getting it, and it was when we put it in the cart that Emily voiced her assent.

It appears more and more that her language acquisition is purely coming about based on her own agenda. We will just have to wait until she's ready to give us more. :(