Remind me someday

My sweet Emma,
You're 21 months old TODAY.  That means the big 2 is just a few months away and I'm already feeling like I'm forgetting moments of your babyness that I promised myself I would remember forever.  While I have little snippets on camera that I can look back on, nothing compares to the real moments experienced with you.  Here are some things I don't want to forget...

- The first time I heard you sing yourself to sleep with "Jesus Loves Me" on our deep sea fishing trip earlier this year.
- How you say "Bless you" to yourself every time you sneeze (you also say it to us to when we sneeze, cough, or make any other noise besides speaking).
- When we say "I love you," you respond with "too" because you're a woman of few words and you know that we know what you mean.
- That the first book you asked me to read was "Brown Bear."  I couldn't understand what you were saying at first and then you pointed to the book and kept saying "bunbay" which I then interpreted to mean "Brown Bear."  Now you basically have it memorized.
- Every time I pick up my computer you ask to watch "Harry the Bunny" on Baby's First TV website (that's what grandpa lets you watch when you're at his house...such a treat), and you ask for Boos Poos, otherwise known as Blues Clues all.the.time.
- You love tomatoes and pick them off my plant when they're two days away from being perfect, but sit on your playhouse steps and eat it all with the seeds squirting everywhere.  I guess if your guilty pleasure is a tomato off the vine then we're okay.
- You still crawl in the dog crates and close yourself in when I'm not looking.
- The main reason you like having stuffed animals in your crib when you fall asleep is so you can play with the tags, and if I hand it to you the wrong way you say "tag" until I turn it around.
- You love music and the other night when your dad was playing his guitar you went to the living room and got your own instrument (don't know what it's called, but it's from Africa) and started playing along with him all on your own.
- You think most little things that you pick up are "buggies" including watermelon seeds.
- I've caught you at least four times (so far) with a mouth full of dirt.
- You can put your alphabet puzzle together with one hand tied behind your back.  We have not, in fact, tied your hand behind your back, but considering that you usually just use one hand to put it together anyways I'm pretty sure you could do it if the other one was tied behind you.
- Your friends in the church nursery say that you walk around the room like you own it, and you're always soooo happy to go play with the other kids.
- When I walk around our yard picking up dog poop you stop every three steps, point down and say poopy even if there's nothing there.
- There have been several times when you adamantly say something and we just don't understand.  You're obviously much smarter than we are because you will learn our language so quickly and we will never learn yours.
- Your version of tickling is walking up to us and just poking our leg or foot.  We don't tell you that it doesn't actually tickle because it's just so funny seeing you giggle and "tickle" us that we laugh out of sheer joy.  You just walk up and say "tickle" and start laughing hysterically.
- Sometimes when we pray before dinner we ask you to pray and you just say "Jesus."  That's the perfect prayer in my humble opinion.

Sweet girl, if you can't tell, there are so many things I don't want to forget and I'm sure so many things I already have forgotten.  I want to savor every second with you knowing how fleeting this time is, and even though each moment can't be etched in my memory forever I know that every experience we have is building on the one prior so the end result will be one amazing person with memories of your own and fun stories to tell.

Love you tons,
Mommy