The potty training is going better. Emily is actually asking us to put her on the toilet now, instead of the potty. She also able to flush the toilet and then she says goodbye to whatever she did and waves. lol

However, she's not able to tell us when she needs to pee, but she sometimes can tell us if she has to so to be safe we have to just put her on about hourly intervals or our best guess to when she might need to pee.

She's developed some bladder control as well, so I'm quite happy about that.

So yes, it's taking awhile, but there is definitely some progress occuring!!!

So far, one accident today, but I think it was my fault, because Emily left the room, and I should have followed her and put her on the potty.

The next time, she told me she needed to pee, so we ran to the potty and I have put her on it. However, she did not pee. >:(

I've been repeatedly emphasizing to her that when we have big girl undies on, it's GROSS and doesn't feel nice to pee in our pants. Otherwise, I don't think she will get it. She won't know, right?

Just set her up with lunch . . there will probably be a ring around her ass from being on the potty so much today. :(

Basically, everything anyone has told us about potty-training has been true. We should have started her in the big girl undies from the start.

We *had* a schedule drawn up and everything -- put her on the potty every two hours and then also put her in undies once a day.

Scrap all that. It did not work.

So now she's in undies, and she has been ALL DAY, but we've been putting her on the potty every hour and she's still wearing the same pair -- meaning, NO ACCIDENTS!

She KNOWS what is expected of her, but to wear something she can pee in will not work for her because she will immediately backslide and not do her business on the potty, and will just think she can piss in her big girl undies too. So we've started with the clean slate.

I suppose we've probably waited too long to do this, but at least we're getting it done now. Now that I've quit Cinema 1, I will have more time to spend with my Emi bums. Hopefully, with the kind of progress we've made today, we can continue the great work and be potty-trained shortly.

I'm not sure what prompted me to start playing again, but I'm freshly obsessed with the Sims 3. Gah. :(

My household is doing interesting things right now, so it's not like I can help it. :D

Practiced and mostly mastered Barracuda (by Heart). My timing is messed up in some parts, but I'll iron that out.

When I analyzed the song, I was like, "Those notes are to going to fuck me!" but I did it! Yay for having more range than previously suspected. My voice sounds VERY powerful lately . . it's CRAZY . . I was at karaoke last night and I was holding those notes and they sounded so gorgeous and pure.

I think I gave up on my dream too fast. I need to keep going.

The withdrawal from Celexa is going much smoother now. Woohoo!

No more abdominal cramps. Very slight dizziness and tingling sensations -- not very bothersome at all now. I sleep like a champ at night.

Just because it's smooth sailing now does not mean I recommend this to anybody. Learn from my stupidity. Don't try this at home. Ever.

Emily had her third birthday yesterday. She had a small gathering with her family and the next door neighbours and their kids. They brought her a Leapfrog number puzzle and a baby doll with a stroller.

I totally did not think she would like the doll and stroller since she's always been such a tomboy, but she was pushing that thing in circles for houuuuurrrs. She also insisted we bring the baby doll to dinner with us. She LOVES it -- my neighbour Bethany has spot on instincts.

If you push the doll's belly, it either laughes or cries (it alternates back and forth). If you make it cry, Emily gets really upset. She is so sensitive that it makes her sad when the dolly is crying. Poor babe.

I got Emily a HUUUUGE plastic food collection for her play kitchen since she was so psyched to see it every time we passed it in the toy store. She would march over and point at all the foods and say their names: "NONUTS!" for doughnuts, "TOOTIES!" for cookes, "DENCH FIES!" for french fries and so on. I think it's so cute how she pronounces things right now. Her english is still pidgin english but she's gotten so much better this year. She's just starting to string two words together: i.e. You ask her how old she is, she says " I'm FEE!" (her way of saying three -- R is such a hard consonant for her).

Grammy and Rob got Emily some puzzles and a Dora outfit. Emi wore her new outfit today.

I did Emily's hair (I suck with hair, so it's not exactly gorgeous) and I neeed neeed neeeeed to upload the photos so you can see how big she's gotten.

Anyways, that's it.

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!!