Emily and Michael

Emily and Michael are my niece and nephew. My pride and joy. When I am mad at the world and just want to be left alone, their smiles are what can bring me out of my funk. I can just eat them up.

Emily will be 5 in August. She has a blanket she calls "mamie" and she takes it everywhere she goes. Right now, she wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. She's been addicted to Elmo and Dora the Explorer and her current fascination is Tinkerbell. She wants to fly like Tinkerbell and on rare occasions, she'll switch personalities on us and be Tinkerbell. She'll walk into the room as Emily and just like that if you call her name, she says, "I'm not Emily." That's when you know to apologize and call her Tinkerbell. And daddy is Peter Pan and I am Wendy. "Tink" is also her pen name. When she makes me books from colored construction paper, she'll draw pictures and will tell mommy what to write. And on the cover, she will write the title of the book (mommy helps her spell the words) and she writes, "by Tink".

She loves Noggin, which I have come to learn is a kids cartoon channel on TV. She watches Franklin (a turtle)and Oswald (an octopus) and Dora and she knows that Auntie Jodi loves Blues Clues. On Tuesdays, Nana babysits for Emily and takes her to the park and sometimes to Plaster Fun Time where she creates art for the wall in her room. Her favorite colors are pink and red and she will be the first to tell you that she does NOT like orange. When she does something funny or even gets hurt, she always wants you to tell the story of each episode. "Tell me the story about when I fell off the swing and I cried." And each story has to start with "Once upon a Time."

Michael loves his big sister. He just turned 2 in February and emulates her like crazy. If she is playing with a certain toy, he plays with it. If she is eating Dora Fruit Snacks, he wants one too. And he is such a little boy. He loves banging things and airplanes and trains and trucks. He went on his first plane a few weeks ago to visit Grammy and Papa in Florida and he couldn't have been more excited. He also watches Dora and Oswald but because he can't anunciate his words quite yet, Dora is "Da-da" and Oswald is "Ah-Wah". Auntie Jodi is "Jih-Jih". If he hears Emily crying, he runs over to her yelling, "Oh no oh no oh no oh no!" And when the microwave goes off, he runs over to it and says, "Ready!" It's really cute.

That is just a little piece of my family.