Happy 19 month birthday, Emily.

Traveling to far off places is one of the most amazing things you can do for a toddler. Their brains explode from all of the new sights, sounds, people, and activities. They develop impressive new skills, learn a plethora of new words, and that dangerous glint in their eye becomes that much brighter. After just two weeks in the US, our little girl has changed so much that you’d swear she was a different child. Well, maybe not a completely different child. And you probably shouldn’t swear. But I digress…

Half of Emily’s 19th month was spent in sunny Florida with the express purpose of celebrating GG’s (great grandma’s) 85th birthday. In the process, we got to spend quality time with my mom (nana), my dad (grandpapa), sisters, and all the cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends who traveled from near and far for the grand occasion. Sure, they came for GG’s birthday (and maybe a little Purim action), but we couldn’t help but feel that we were stealing some of the limelight. Emily is, after all, the first and only of her generation in a large and loving family.

When asked what her favorite parts of her trip were, Emily responded:

• climbing up new furniture and jumping off
• jumping into swimming pools
• brushing the goats at the petting zoo
• rocking out on the bema at nana’s temple
• riding in cars
• seeing cats, searching for more cats, following cats, speaking to cats, and poking cats
• spending time with family, of course 🙂

All 5 Zamryckis!

And then we came home. Oh boy. As you may have gleaned from my previous two blog entries, jet lag hit us pretty hard after the return trip home. It would normally take me just two or three days to get back into the swing of things but, with someone smaller and less adaptable than myself waking up all night every night screaming her head off (no, not Jan), it took us a little longer to sort ourselves out.

And then Ms. Hyde showed up – the moody, contrary, bossy, tantrum throwing alter ego of our lovely little angel. Yes, it looks like the Terrible Two’s have come early this year. Never before had I seen our little girl hurl herself onto the floor when something didn’t go her way. I don’t like it. But we don’t let it get to us. I’m pretty good at keeping my cool and talking her through some deep breathing exercises. New mantra: this is just a phase.

It’s all about the language skills this month. I almost feel like I can have a normal conversation with Emily! It’s a very one-sided conversation, but she’s very patient and is apparently able to follow everything I say.

Emily’s vocabulary has grown exponentially this month. OK, maybe not exponentially, but definitely cubically. There has been a trade off of quantity for quality, though. Whereas Emily’s vocabulary was limited before, she was able to pronounce all of the words rather well. Almost anyone could understand her. Now, she’s got tons of new words but isn’t paying as close attention to the correct pronunciation. I mean, what the heck is a “paba”? Oh, it means “pasta”! We know exactly what she means but visitors are clueless.

Oh, and she calls her dummy a “dadoo”. That’s not even close! I refuse to add this word to her vocabulary list. It’s simply unacceptable.

But it isn’t only the fact that she has practically doubled her entire vocabulary over the course of this past month. It’s what she’s doing with those words. She’s combining them into complex thoughts. Before, Emily would say, “more” and have to point at whatever it was that she wanted more of. Or she would just say a noun and we understood that it was a request. “Orange!” Now, we’re hearing things like, “More orange!”, “Bye bye daddy!”, “Mummy belly!”, or even more impressive, “More pasta, please!” (yes, she ends most sentences with an exclamation point).

I don’t know how much longer I can realistically expect to update Emily’s lexicon in these blog entries. It’s causing too much scrolling! Maybe I’ll come up with some sort of dynamic dictionary where you only have to click on a letter of the alphabet and all of the relevant words for that letter will pop up and you can select each one to get an interactive menu of its current pronunciation status, interesting anecdotes attached to that word, and hyperlinks leading to Emily’s YouTube videos where that word is featured. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

While I’m searching through my day planner for enough free time to create this new and fanciful bit of web wonderment, here is this month’s installment of Emily’s Communication Breakdown:

And, saving the best for last, here are two lifelike videos of our favorite little redhead… in stunning 3-D Dolby Digital Surround Sound!!!