This has to be one of my favorite pictures EVER!While yesterday was nearly a picture perfect morning, today was the exact opposite. Emmy Ruth loves to wear dresses to school. Sparkly ones, preferably. She wore her super sparkly dress yesterday and was quite disappointed that I had not washed it again yet. So, we set out to find something to wear. I try to give her some options and let her choose from them… there was a sparkly skirt with a sweater, a floral dress and a pair of leggings with a matching shirt. None of these would do. She went to pick out something for herself—and it did not go well. We finally settled on a different sparkly skirt (think of a pink tutu with glitter hearts) but it’s a little bit. She put on a Hello Kitty she got for her birthday with it—really sparkly and very fitted so it helped the skirt from slipping down. But then she decided that she didn’t like the skirt with the shirt. Eventually, she wore it—after time out for throwing a fit. Nothing makes a day swell like starting it with time out.
She is four. FOUR! I often have these type of dressing sessions, and there are sometimes tears and fits by me, when I can’t find something I want to wear and nothing looks like I want it to look, or the shirt doesn’t look just right with the pants. I sympathize with her on this but I don’t want her to have these thoughts and insecurities so early. She’s FOUR!
I somehow doubt this is something we will discuss in the parenting class I am taking at church.
I had some ideas for what to say about Emmy Ruth and how she is right now, at this very moment. I want to never forget how funny and sweet and charming she is. Oh, yes, and mischievous. Then, on her actual birthday when we were taking photos at the playground, I thought I could just write an entire entry just on funny things she did that day. By the time we got home, I had forgotten some of them, even thought John and I literally were laughing out loud at the time.
I guess that is what happens when she just says and does so many things to make us smile—it’s hard to keep up with all of them. She makes us both just cackle out loud and then gets her feelings hurt because she thinks we are laughing AT her. We tell her we aren’t—she just makes us smile and laugh and that is a wonderful trait to have. The girl loves to sing and dance, that’s for certain. We listen to the Tangled Soundtrack in the car and she sings along. She often wants it louder and she will say in her biggest voice, “I WANT IT LOUD LIKE THIS!” At the playground, they have this stage with a big chalkboard behind it. Emmy loves to get on the stage and dance but she is very particular that everything is just as she wants it to be. She placed her daddy on the audience bench just as she wanted him to be and then I was to dance in a very specific spot, doing very specific dances. And I was not allowed to sing—only dance.
I have no idea where she gets her bossiness…. Perhaps her daddy.
At home, Emmy alternates between sleeping in her own bed and our bed. I know she should be in her bed all the time, and she often is, but it is just so comforting and soothing to have her in bed with us. I love to cuddle with her. We call it Snuggle Buggle. “Mama, can you snugglebuggle me?” is about the sweetest thing ever. When I was a little girl, I often stayed with Grandma Ruth and I would ask her to “hold my back”. Emmy and I often do that too. It is my most precious time in the day. As sweet as she is at night, the mornings are a different story. She does not wake up well. Sometimes, I carry her into the living room to wake while she is watching TV and she sometimes jumps up and runs back into the bed, pulling the covers over her head. She piddles around so much until we are late almost every single morning. I hate to start the day rushing around and with arguments so I am working on waking even earlier and getting her up even earlier.
We are still working on our alphabet—it is just not something she is concerned with right now. At all. She does not want to work on them and I am pulling back and not pushing quite as much. I am sure she’ll learn it eventually… She loves to play on her computer, but only for a bit. When she can’t get the mouse to work just right, she gets very frustrated and just stops. I don’t want to encourage this but I also don’t want her to see working on it as a chore so I don’t push too much. When she wants to stop, she can.
The house is a wreck all the time, there are dresses and Barbies and dolls and crayons everywhere. One day, John and I will be sitting awake, waiting on her to come from a date, and long for the time that Emmy Ruth put on her sequin Hex Girl dress and sang “Jesus Loves Me” on her makeshift stage. Having a few crowns and magic wands and plastic dress up shoes just really seems like a small price to pay for such a wonderful life.
I took this picture this morning on my cell phone so it's not a good one, but I couldn't resist those curls. Emmy Ruth is doing a pretty good job of sleeping in her bed but last night she slept with us. We went to see Ferdinand the Bull at the Orpheum with Sol and Rose and Julia. She was so excited and wound up when we got home, I knew she would never go to sleep in her room. When I woke this morning, she was lying with her head on my stomach and her curls falling everywhere. It was so precious and I hope I never forget moments like these. Sometimes when we are lying together, she will go to play with her and twist my hair instead. It's a Jackson thing. I do it, Neall does it, our cousin Cathy does it. Some people have tried to tell me she learned it from watching me but she did it as an infant so I am pretty sure it just comes naturally to her.
We have had quite the drama with our wardrobe lately. Emmy initially refused to wear any jeans. Now, she wants to wear dresses all the time. Not skirts but full dresses. We had a major meltdown yesterday when she threw a complete fit to wear a dress. It was hard to reason with her that she had all these adorable Valentines and heart shaped clothes to wear this week before the holiday. I did stand my ground, simply because she threw a fit and she has to learn that is unacceptable. This morning, I convinced her to wear pants since it is supposed to snow but she drew the line and refused to wear the adorable cardigan I had for her. I let that slide... this time.
Last night, Emmy told me a bed time story.
“Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess named Tara.
A dragon took her!
A handsome prince named John came to save her.
They kissed and got married and had a beautiful daughter named Emmy.
She wore a dress and it was PINK!
When they kissed her, a crown came onto her head.
Everyone was so excited, they threw their socks and panties into the air.”
Oh my! That is pretty darn excited!
Then I thought I would just swing by the Lasting Impressions photo studio since her birthday is coming up and I haven't had her portraits done in a while. Of course we got some cute pictures and spent way too much money. 
This weekend, we discovered that a lot of the activities in Memphis were free on Saturday in honor of the inauguration of Tennessee’s new governor. We were lucky enough to have family and friends with whom to enjoy the good times!
We kicked things off Friday night by visiting Sol and Rose and Julia (oh yeah, and Neall, Becca and Joy) downtown at the condo. They kids had fun pretending to be monster under a big blanket and scaring us all. I swear, we are going to have to cut back on the Scooby Doo she’s watching!! Saturday morning while we were at ballet class, the rest of the group went to the Civil Rights Museum. We all met back up again (with Mrs. Debbie and Laura Ruth) and went to the Brooks Museum, to lunch at the India Palace, and then to the Botanical Gardens to see “My Big Backyard”. We had so much fun and the kids are just absolutely adorable and play so well together. It was so cold and the girls kept sticking their hands in the water!
Rose Ryan looks so much like Neall and Momma in this picture. She is such a delight and I just adore her.
After a quick round of shopping, Emmy Ruth rode to Arkansas with the Jacksons to spend Saturday night with nana and Sunday night with Sol and Rose. I did have some concern that Aunt Becca wouldn’t let me have her back but late Monday afternoon, they came to eat in Memphis and I got to hang with the three munchkins at the house. They are a hoot! Between the dancing, Rose trying on everyone’s shoes and the chocolate milk, we had a big time. Becca kept telling me that Emmy was being ‘perfect’; I was slightly afraid of what child they were going to return to me!!!
We are so very lucky to have so many precious friends and family. I can’t think of anyone that I would have rather spent this past weekend with and I know Momma was smiling seeing them all together.
Every night Emmy Ruth and I talk about one thing we are thankful for and one thing that needs prayer. When I asked last night what she was thankful for, she said she was thankful for her beautiful hair. Well…. That’s not exactly what I had in mind when we started this routine. But, she quickly redeemed herself. Because AunTee and Emmy both have blond hair, Emmy said she gets it from Tara. So, she said she was thankful for her AunTee for her beautiful hair, Nana for her pretty singing {no offense to Nana but I didn’t know about this singing she does!}, Mama for her best kisses and Daddy for his best hugs.
In keeping with her thankful heart, here we are on the eve of the fifth anniversary of Momma’s death and I am thankful that she gave me her compassion and zest for life, hopeful that she gave me her wit and strength and encouraged that she gave me her love and family.
We have only seen Tangled twice so far, but we can’t wait for it to come out on DVD. Any time I refer to it as “Tangled”, Emmy Ruth corrects me that it is Rapunzel. I don’t have the heart or the energy to argue with her. J I bought the soundtrack on iTunes last week and she has loved it.
I think that is one of my most favorite things about our time right now—her love of music. She loves to dance all the time (she loves to show us her booty dance). Last weekend, Lucas and AunTee came to visit and the kids and I had a massive dance party while AunTee went to run a few errands. She was a little perplexed with the noise when she pulled up in the drive way but was not totally surprised to see me, Lucas and Emmy dancing in the living room to Elvis tunes. I think that counts as my work out for that day. Another funny story about their visit… there is a picture of Emmy and her friend, Alex, from school in her bedroom. Lucas picked it up and asked her who he was and kind of looked at her funny. Then he asked her if Alex was nice to her. I hope he always is such a good “big brother” to her.
One of the best songs on the Tangled soundtrack is “Mother Knows Best”. It’s really not very nice, in regards to the movie; the witch is trying to keep Rapunzel trapped in the tower and she tells her that she knows what’s best for her, but it’s a cute song. The chorus is “Mother knows best, listen to your momma” and I sing it to Emmy every now and then. Emmy has turned it back on me and sings “Kids know best, listen to your kiddos” now. How can I even compete with that?
And in other princess related news…. Emmy Ruth wants a princess party for her birthday this year. We are having so much fun planning it. I know that I am going overboard (which is really no surprise) but I feel like I have waited my whole life to plan a princess party like this! While I don’t want to ruin any of the fun for the festivities, I can say that there are lots of fun things planned, like a scavenger hunt and crown and shield decorating. We want to make sure that all the boys in Emmy’s life enjoy the party too, so we are doing it as princess and knights. So, while the girls are decorating their crowns, the boys can decorate their knight shields of armor. Emmy and I are having a lot of fun working on decorations at night together; this week we are making a piñata. She is certainly a handful sometimes but I can’t even begin to say how much I love this little princess.
John and Emmy Ruth got to enjoy a snow day yesterday. I am so thankful that not only is John able to stay home on snow days with Emmy, but that he wants to stay home with her. They had so much fun and I think our little Snow Diva is adorable! However, I am not sure the snow angel turned out as an angel or more of a snow slug.
The kids loved the cake--even if it was a slight disaster.
