Congratulations!!

Congratulations are in order. No, not for me (at least, not for anything other than being my normal awesome self!). It's for my sister. She is now a published author!! Her book is available as of this past Monday. Hooray! So, if you are so inclined, go check it out! It's available at Deseret Book stores among others. And if you know Jill, definitely send her your congrats!

Emma's Obsession

Anyone who knows me knows I love playing games. My family gets together quite often and plays bunches of games. We tend to like the longer, strategy filled games better than games such as Balderdash, but we love those too, and we are all fans of poker (don't judge us). Many (but definitely not all) of our favorites come from Days of Wonder in case you were wondering.

So, with all this gaming, I guess it comes as no surprise that one of Emma's favorite things to do is play games. Some days she seems obsessed with it. She has nine games right now, and always welcomes more. Almost every day she asks either Eric or me (or both of us) to play a game with her. And lately Eric has taken it upon himself to teach Emma a new game, and one of his favorites. Chess.

I know how to play chess, but I just don't like it very much, so I don't usually play with Eric. Sometimes he'll play with his twin brother when we visit Colorado (which is awesome to watch, because they are SO competitive with one another - I laugh every time), but that's not very often. So I guess he wanted someone closer to play with. I was amazed at how fast Emma picked it up. I think by the second day she already knew the names of all the pieces, but also how each piece moves. The pawn gives her a little grief, but that's only because the way it moves changes depending on whether it's in its starting position or not, and whether it's attacking another piece or not. She's already got a leg up on me, because I can never remember if the knight or the bishop goes closer to the king. I know they are next to each other, and I know which two spaces they occupy, but I can't remember which one occupies which space. And I don't really care either, since I almost never play.

And ever since he taught her, she wants to play almost every day.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

Today at Emma's preschool all the kids were supposed to bring their favorite Dr. Seuss book. They had fun learning a little about him, and reading all these books. She came home with a Cat in the Hat hat, and decided that she wanted to wear all stripes to match it. Here is what she came up with.

My Sick Girl

Emma is not the luckiest person when it comes to sickness. I wouldn't necessarily say that she is more sick than the average kid, but sometimes it sure seems that way. After battling with being sick since just before Halloween until almost new year's, we finally had a break. Well, that break ended last Friday. Emma started coughing a little, and it just kept getting worse. Saturday night she was up most of the night coughing so hard she was throwing up. Not. Fun. Of course, any time Emma coughs she's likely to end up leaning over the toilet or her throw up bucket. You know your kid is sick when she carries her throw up bucket around like it's her best friend or favorite toy. And as all you parents know, the worst part about your child getting sick is how limited you are with what you can do the help them feel better. We've been trying to have Emma eat foods that might help and drink lots of fluid, but that'll only do so much.

Finally yesterday Eric took her to the doctor. Just as we suspected, it is viral, so there's not much we can do. The one silver lining is that she's now old enough to take a little codeine before she goes to bed. This enables her to sleep through the night without much coughing, and definitely without coughing so hard she throws up. While on the one hand I love the relief she gets when she can take some kind of medicine, I really don't like giving her drugs. I would rather skip that part. I will, of course, do what is needed to help her get better though. Her weak stomach has always been a problem for Emma. So this time, the medicine wins. It is the greatest thing to see your child finally get a good night sleep for the first time in 5 days. Now maybe her body will be able to fight off this illness.