Thursday, March 06, 2008

Emma's personality has changed in two pretty drastic ways in the last month or two - one of which is a little sad, and the other of which is just plain annoying.

After years of looking as fancy as possible at all times, she is now actually content to dress like a normal person. At her dance class, the kids can wear whatever they want. Most of them just wear regular clothes, but Emma has always made a big deal of picking a matching leotard and tutu before class. The last three weeks, however, she has just worn normal clothes to class. Then today we were cleaning her room, and out of nowhere she said she wanted to pack away her dress-up clothes. What??!? So we went through her endless poofy, glittery dresses and with each one I asked her if she wanted to keep it out or pack it away. "Pack it away," was her reply for every single thing! She even wanted to pack away most of her dance stuff! I called Steve later and told him about it and we are both feeling a little sad. Her obsession with fancy stuff was so charming and quirky and such a big part of who she was for a long time. Sniff.

The other thing is not the end of something, but rather the beginning. In the first four years of her life, Emma has been about as un-picky about food as any one person could possibly be. She ate everything. The one thing she wouldn't eat was raw broccoli. Now, she has suddenly become a picky eater. She'll tell me she doesn't like something, without even trying it, even if it's something she's eaten many times before. Like last night, she saw me cutting sweet potatoes to make fries, and right away she said, "Ew, yuck. I can't stand sweet potatoes!" I reminded her that she's probably eaten sweet potatoes a hundred times and she's always liked them before, but she still refused to eat any. Grrr. I hope it's just a phase that will soon be over, but for now I'm just working on getting her to say she doesn't like something a little more politely. I can't believe how much it irks me to cook something and set it on the table, only to hear someone say that it looks gross.

Even if she is picky, she is still darn cute. Yesterday she was playing with Play-Doh and she came to me and said. "Mommy, I made something FABleeous! I know you'll want to take a picture!" Apparently it's me, wearing a dress, and playing ball with my friend Allison, who happens to be wearing overalls. (Because, according to Emma, Allison would look very pretty in overalls.)

7 comments:

Mary said...

Our kids have a "no thank-you bite". They have to take at least one bite. If they don't like it, they have no pressure to eat more. Hope that can help you.

Shawn said...

that is so cute I'll miss all of her cute pictures in those fancy dresses! Cant wait to see you all tomorrow :)

Anonymous said...

Jaime went through a dress phase but she wasn't into glittery or fancy. She has a favorite dress that she wears to church that is so short but the only one she likes and when it gets warmer it getting packed up.

I understand on picky kids it can be so frustrating to spend your time making a nice dinner to be asked what's that gross stuff? I use to have them say at Grandmas "No thanks I haven't learned to like that yet". Otherwise we had to listen to "When I was little we had to eat some of everything."

Do you have another friend named Allison or is it me? If so we better change our clothes and get together to play ball.

Allison

Anonymous said...

On, my. When we see Emma this weekend, she will seem like a different little girl! It's funny that we don't even know what kind of little boy Noah is going to be yet.
Mom

Hamons said...

Hi Sarah! Years behind the rest of the world, I recently discovered blogs have a feature alerting of updates. So, now I'm trying to follow a few (found yours on kcap) and I just love your stories and pictures! You make the mundane seem not so mundane and unearth the story behind a seemingly simple event.

Last night, dh served dinner and E said she didn't like it just by looking at it. She did end up eating the meat and bread, but she is certainly developing preferences about how her food looks. As in not touching or mixed together. =)

Anyway, I enjoy your blog and look forward to future posts!
Laura

Anonymous said...

Hope you are feeling much better by now and can enjoy rest of your term.
Sorry to hear E. doesn't like to dress up anymore I so enjoyed seeing her on your blog in the fancy dresses. Loved the outfits she put together.
Noah does have beautiful eyes, but so does E.
LJ

Anonymous said...

That's rough. Maybe the new kid will like wearing dresses, to compensate for Emma's change of heart...