Amelia Takes On the World

I’m reminded of the song by Johnny Cash - Ring of Fire - when I see Amelia surrounded by her ring of Pacis. Way back, oh before Christmastime, Amelia didn’t like her pacifier. She’d get very angry if we tried to give her one. Then she got a cold and realized hey, this thing is soothing. Well we’ve created a paci monster. She loves pacifiers and while after she falls asleep she spits it out, its a must when needing to fall asleep. And since mom & dad like to sleep, we give her many pacis to choose from during the night - it works, we rarely have to get up for her these days. But its pretty funny and I know it’ll mean trouble when we decide to wean. We are working on the fact that she only gets them while in her crib and not elsewhere and that’s going well. Most of the time. There are also a few other fun photos for you from yesterday. Have a great weekend.

Kelly

Amelia has really taken to finger food these past few days - so I decided to video her and share with all of you - sorry its a fairly long video, a couple minutes long.  And that’s edited down from the 15 - 20 minutes it took her to eat.  She starts clean and ends up pretty messy - especially with the black beans.  But she loves them all, and its fairly well rounded right?  I tried to capture her “all done” at the end as well - she kind of cooperated. :)  Enjoy! 

My dearest Amelia,

You are 11 months old today - I can hardly believe it.  You are truly becoming a little girl now, and this past month was significant more for the cute little things you started to do than any major milestones.

You have become very affectionate - you love hugs and cuddles.  I love having you curl up against my chest or snuggling next to you as you eat your morning bottle.

You’ve started really trying to communicate - talking in conversation, even when we don’t understand you, and using some signs - I’ve seen ‘eat’ and ‘all done’ recently.

You are really enjoying more finger foods now.  Just in the last two days you’ve done better at daycare with your diced pears and green beans - and at home you love any kind of meat (bbq chicken last night) and black beans were a favorite as well.  As long as you can feed yourself - you don’t really want any help.  I’ve found that almost everything goes in and comes back out the 1st time, but that if I leave it on the tray you then eat it, but only if you are hungry.  If you are ‘all done’ and I haven’t removed it, it’ll get smushed into the tray, hands, hair and everywhere else.

You started pulling up at the end of last month and now you pull up on anything and everything - even smooth walls.  You can cruise along a table but you haven’t shown much interest in letting go or swapping over to the couch - you will go to my knees if they are close enough.

This month has been the extreme month of dancing for you as well - you love to dance!  Anytime music comes on, and sometimes without it, you’ll start wiggling your shoulders and then your whole body - it is the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen.

Over the weekend we took you to the pool for a 2nd time, and this time you loved it.  Once you realized in the kiddie pool you could stand up and splash, you were so delighted.  We had a great time and can’t wait to take you back again.

This coming month will be exciting as well - you get to meet your cousins Mason and Madeline next weekend, as well as go on more hikes.  You’ll get lots of pictures taken, and attend more 1st birthday parties.  Somewhere in here we’ll start introducing you to soy milk - and maybe even real milk if that goes well.  We might even see you take a few steps, but I’m not pushing you on that one - its hard enough to keep track of you with crawling.  And I’m positive more teeth will come in - you’ve been getting teeth 5 - 8 for weeks now with no result, but I know any day now we’ll see them peek through.

And then, you’ll be one.  And its bittersweet - I love to see you grow and learn new things, but I will miss my tiny tiny baby as well.  In honor of the Georgia Bulldogs winning their 1st game in the College World Series, I’ll post one of my favorite pictures of my tiny tiny baby, and try to remember when you were actually that tiny.

Love,

Mom

I saw this cool map on my photographer’s blog so I thought I’d share my version here. This is everywhere I’ve been in the U.S. - that I can remember this morning anyway - you can see I’ve covered quite a few states, mostly due to long long drives. (We drove from Duke in NC up to NYC for a basketball game… I moved from Atlanta to California as a kid and we drove the whole way….). Some I’ve stayed in for weeks for work (Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota), some I basically saw highway and maybe a restaurant (Arkansas, Indiana, New Mexico).

Where Have I Been in the U.S.?

Where Have I Lived in the U.S.?

Outside of the U.S, I have gotten to take a few fun trips - Italy, England, France, Chile, St. Lucia and the Bahamas…. but that is a very small portion of the world. We’ll add Puerto Rico this fall!

Amelia dressed up in purple polka dots for her friend Meredith’s 1st birthday party. I was trying to use a sheet as a backdrop for some nice portraits but she had other plans, including pulling the sheets down. You can kind of see in two of these her new thing which is ’standing’ on one foot and one knee - she does that all the time now, without holding on to anything. Yet she doesn’t show any interest in letting go when she is really standing - so who knows! Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Baby Momma

when there is a tennis ball. She loves it and is learning how to throw!

Amelia’s cousin Lena turned 1 and she celebrated in style on Saturday. They were usually to quick to move from the really cute poses, so here are just a couple fun photos. Also - AMelia still loves her kitchen so a few from that as well. Its been a rough week of a virus, pink eye, night time fussiness for Miss Amelia, but hopefully we are on the mend now and will be great for a fun-filled weekend.

Baby Momma

when your baby holds up her arms and says mama.  I had a witness too!  On Father’s Day - haha.

Now we are home with a virus, should be a fun week!

We figured out why we thought of dad as babysitting - because when he is watching her, I’m usually out doing something fun with other moms, or like that night - a cocktail party for work.  When I’m watching her alone, he is working out of town or running to Home Depot - required things which are not quite the same. :)  Baby Daddy is a wonderful dad and he hates being away as much as his work requires him to be.  We hope we gave him a happy Father’s Day celebrating how wonderful he is.

Love,

Baby Momma

Amelia is apparently a dancer.  And a drooler.  So here is a video montage for all to enjoy from when BabyDaddy babysat earlier this week.  And why is it, when the dad watches the kids its babysitting and when the mom does it, its just the norm?

Any good weekend plans? We have Amelia’s cousin’s 1st birthday today, a tennis match and Father’s Day to celebrate.  Hope all of you have a fun weekend as well.

Happy Father’s Day to all the baby daddies out there.

Baby Momma

Last weekend we had a playdate with Carson, Carter & Davis.  Carter & Davis are just two weeks older than AMelia and in fact they were all due the same week.  They had different plans but….  At one point and time, myself, Carson’s dad and both of Carter & Davis’ parents worked at Delta together but we’ve moved on and left Carson’s dad there alone.  We had a great time seeing them and the kids enjoyed playing kitchen and eating together.