New Activities

Emily is just so much fun these days. 18 months really is a great age. I’m trying to find activities in and out of the house to keep her entertained, learning, and interacting. It’s amazing how much of a sponge she is right now. She picks up on new words and new experiences so quickly and recalls them often. It’s so fantastic to watch her develop.

Here are some of her favorite new activities.

Climbing

Going down the slide all by herself

Driving the car!

“Coloring”

Watering the Plants

Playing in the reclaimed water in Ladera, with her buddy Charlie.

Making blanket forts

It just keeps getting better!

Horsies

Em is at such a fun age where she takes great joy in seeing and experiencing new things. She even remembers them and wants to talk about it later. We went to the horse races a few weeks back with my family and grandparents while they were in town visiting from the desert. She heard everyone yelling and cheering as the horses ran around the track. Then she got to see the horses close up and even got to pet one on the nose. Every day since she has said, “Horsie!…Trot trot trot…run around, run around…pet it…nose.” It’s pretty adorable.

One day, I decided that we would go driving around off Ortega to find some horsies for her to see, as I imagined it would fill her little heart with great joy. To my surprise we found horse stables just a few miles from our house. Now I don’t know that we’re allowed to be wandering around the stables. But nobody kicked us out. We got to wander through 30 or so horses while Emily stared on in amazement.

A few days later, she asked to see the horsies again. So we headed back down to Ortega to discover that they were setting up for a horse show! Free parking, free admission. She and I sat on the lawn while we watched the horses trot and gallop around, jumping over their obstacles. I felt like such a cool mommy, and she was so satisfied with the experience.

We went back the next day with our friends Beckey and Berlyn. We had blankets and lots of snacks this time. I only wish we had been wearing long flowy dresses and oversized hats to make the picture absolutely perfect.

My hope is to satisfy Emily’s horse fetish while she’s young so that she’s over them by the time she’s 5, to avoid those dreaded words “Mommy, I want a pony”. We’ll see, this could backfire on me.