put on your big girl pants.

Emily makes me feel like a kid. This morning, for example, she takes her blue crayon to my bathroom mirror with the kind of abandon that would put the most liberal of artists to shame, forcing me to step out of the room and swallow my laughter before taking the crayon box into the dreaded "uh-oh toys" area. But what did I really want to do? Grab carnation pink and join in. Then I remember my husband and the massive pregnant-belly-sized pot of boiling water I'd be home when he realized what I'd done. Aw, nuts. Uh-oh toys it is.

We now have a Big Girl in the house. No more binkie. Big Girl bed. Big Girl chair. Big Girl snacks. Big Girl plates. Big Girl tea parties with real marshmallows. She makes a hundred 'choices' for herself each day (the carefully crafted kind that we give her to choose from). Where is my baby? Someone stop the presses. Yeah, now would be great. Thanks.

She knows how to use a Blackberry. This isn't news in the Lenke house, however. She sent Daddy her first text around 15 months. She has rearranged contacts for me, and called my friend Emily Wells on several occassions to say hello. She also knows how to look through videos and photos. Several times a day she'll come to me with my phone and say, "veeyos?" or "photows?" I call up the menu and off she goes. Last night David was cuddling with her looking through old videos and he said he couldn't believe she was ever that little. Me? I can't believe she's this big. I still think of her as this baby peanut with the bright blues and big smile, weighing in at 6lbs 15oz.

As if I needed another reason to love her, my OBGYN is loving and gracious with Emily. Last month at my checkup Dr. Stewart offered to put the monitor on Emily's tummy and listen to her heartbeat, just like she had done with the baby in mommy's tummy. She was excited until she got up on the exam table and froze. Every other day since, it's been (while lifting up her shirt or dress to whoever would take notice) "baby dawtor? Emi tummy? yeah!" Let's just say she was dragging me out of the elevator toward the doctor's office this morning.

(please excuse the I-just-stuffed-a-huge-strawberry-in-my-face face)

Em grabbed the jelly before Dr. Stewart could get to it, and hopped up on the table. She lit up like a kid at Christmas. Naturally, I immediately called David and said we needed to begin saving for medical school.