My only princess is turning 6 this week! I’m in meetings all week long so I won’t be able to blog about her birthday on her actual day – so I’ll do it now. We’ll celebrate next week… don’t worry – she doesn’t miss out on anything!

Emma arrived on Wednesday May 17th, 2000 around 8pm. I’d know for sure if I knew where her baby book was… but it is still packed from our move 9 months ago!!! AUGH so anyways…. back to Emma.My big sis Tam Tam and my mom were out for her birth. I thought Tam Tam was going to miss it; Emma was a bit stubborn and arrived a week late and a day before my sis flew home. It took her a while to arrive even after contractions started! (At midnight on the 16th – after being there all day already – the nurses gave me a sleeping pill, to allow me to rest and to stop the contractions. They were short nurses and didn’t have the staff to induce me through the night, plus my doc had been up for 30 some odd hours straight delivering… spring time is a busy baby time) When she finally made her entrance… she was a big angel, weighing in at 8 pounds 8 oz. with chubby cheeks and lots of dark hair. My doc made the comment that she looked like she had been to a hair stylist – she had perfect hair. I had three names going into delivery – Emma, Hannah and Madison. In the middle of my labour my mom leans in and says, “I don’t like Hannah.” I’m like… “what…puff puff pant pant …huh??” said with heavy breathing noises. Even after I picked her name it took me a while to see her as an Emma – I almost changed her name to Madison a few weeks later. But she is Emma = “Nursemaid”, that is the definition I found and it fits her to a T.

When I took Emma home I had little Q waiting for us. He was 19 months old and loved his baby sister so much – not to mention… so very hard! It was a whole new experience having two kids now. I remember thinking while giving birth, “How can I love two babies?” I loved my first so much and I love my new baby so much too. She was such a good baby – my best sleeper to date! She loved to sleep but she also loved her mommy… it was very rare that I could leave her to go out for an evening. She’d scream and scream and scream. My mom was out from BC and watched her one time; she ended up having to feed (pumped milk) to Emma with a spoon. I went back to work when Emma was 6 months old. I hated leaving her while she was so little so my hubby brought her in on my lunch hour to nurse and to visit.

Emma didn’t talk much; she was and still is very quiet. She learned to sign at around 8 months old; the first word was “More”. She learned quickly how to say things with her hands and didn’t say much with her voice. When she did talk, it didn’t make much sense. We called it, “Emmaese”. She was 2 ½ before she really opened up and talked – a week after I was home to start my maternity leave with child #3 (a few weeks before he was born) she started using her words in sentence form. She knew them all along just chose not to use them. Don’t get me wrong she did say a few things, her first word (besides mommy or daddy) was, “Donalds!” and whenever she saw those golden arches she’d yell it out. She loved French fries and hamburgers.

Speaking of food… she loves meat of all kinds, she’ll out eat me when we have spaghetti or meatloaf or even ribs!! It probably comes from my extreme craving for meat while I was carrying her. We’d go through Donald’s on the way to Taco Bell. I CRAVED BEEF!

It has been a great joy to watch my little girl grow and change over the years. She loved to dance throughout the house and in ballet class. It was so cute the way she asked for cookies – “Tooties”. Her smile lights up the room and she’ll give you a funny look with her eyes from across the room. She is beautiful and graceful, petite and kind. She is gentle and softhearted but knows how to get tough with her brothers when it’s needed.

Sometimes I forget that she is only in the 6th year of her life. She loves to shop and has a great sense about herself. The two of us like to go have breakfast together and she loves it when Daddy takes her for tea. She would wear high heels and a ball gown every day to school if she could – tiara and all!

Happy Birthday Emma Shalise Joy. You are so very precious to me. I love you lots.