Amelia Takes On the World

Dearest Amelia,

On Saturday you became 1 1/2.  Eighteen months have passed since you were born.  Its hard  to imagine you not being in our lives, which on the one hand seems like you’ve been here for so much longer than 18 months.  On the other, I remember you being so tiny and unable to even situp and that wasn’t that long ago.

We aren’t going to get your 18 month appointment until next month due to scheduling & shots, but we think you had a growth spurt.  Per your cousin’s growth chart you made it up to 32 inches, a big jump for you.  (And still around 26 lbs as you have been for over a month)  You wear 18 – 24 month clothing even if it is a bit long, the younger clothes just don’t fit anymore.  You still have your toddler belly and it is so adorable.  You apparently think so too since you show it to us all the time.  I love giving you zerberts or chasing you with the tickle monster, and I think these are some of your favorite activities as well.

Every day it seems you surprise me with something you know.  For example, today you picked up your blanket and said ‘blanket’ – I had no idea you knew that word.  And it was clear as day.  The other day you found sheets of paper you had colored on and wanted to ‘color’.  I just can’t keep track of the words you know anymore.

Sometimes the words aren’t quite so clear – for example you say ‘Elmo’ for Elmo on Sesame Street, but you say ‘Alimo’ for animals and ‘Almo’ for Almost… they sound almost identical.   Usually we can figure it out by context thankfully.

We brought you to the neighborhood playground on Saturday and I hate to say it was one of the first times since you’ve been a true toddler.  Its just been winter and icky – thankfully daycare has a great playground you get to use.  Apparently you have no fear – because you went down the slide and loved it and after a couple times decided head first was your preferred way.  (Didn’t know I had a daredevil!)  Luckily we were there to catch you and you wanted to do it again and again.   We will definitely seek out more parks to play on this spring.

We had a couple rough weeks during this past month that started with a stomach virus.  Ever since then you haven’t quite been yourself – you don’t want to eat foods you used to eat, and you aren’t sleeping as well.  And when you don’t sleep well, you just aren’t yourself.  Its amazing the difference sleep makes.  We’ve made great progress the last few days with both eating and sleeping so I think we’re about back to our happy toddler days.  Hopefully as you learn more words when you get so frustrated and upset, you can tell us what’s wrong.  I think that is the hardest part of it – you can’t tell us why you are upset and so we don’t know how to help.  But with the rate you are talking, I’m sure we will get through this soon. 

Partially due to when you were sick, but this is also the month you seemed to really discover the TV.  Elmo is the favorite, along with Sesame Street, but you will happily curl up to watch PBS Kids or Sprout. While I don’t want you watching too much TV, its fun cuddle time to watch with you, and its good to see your attention span start to grow.

I’m happy to say you are still very loving, and give great hugs.  I hope this doesn’t ever change.

You have gotten to really know who your friends are – you can say Meredith (Well mere-ry), Graham, Carter and Bailey’s names, although with prompting.  When I mention the names you look around to see where they are.  You also try and say Aunt Ann – its really cute – ‘An An’.  You can probably say more but I think you like to be stubborn.  Along those lines you still find it fun to call Dad ‘mama’ even though you will call for ‘dada’ as well.  You know exactly who he is, and you can just see that you think its funny.

Probably your favorite foods right now are potato, in any form (sweet or regular); chicken nuggets and deli meat both go over well; sweet peas are still the preferred veggie; and strawberries are always a big hit as well (they have probably surpassed mandarin oranges even).   We try to offer you a variety and you were doing really well before you got sick.  You even ate broiled tilapia with a steamed veggie medly of cauliflower, broccoli and carrots at a Mexican restaurant not too long ago – and loved it.  So hopefully that eater comes back to us soon.

I love you baby girl, and you bring me so much joy in my life.  I love seeing you grow and learn.

Love, 

Momma

Here are a few pictures of Amelia being silly and doing one of her favorite things – coloring!

Amelia also got to see her cousin on Sunday – here are a few fun shots from that.  Aunt Ann gave Amelia her first pigtails!

I just wanted to share what Amelia and I got Baby Dad for his birthday. I found a site called Kiki and Polly -and thought how special it would be for him to have a little portrait of him with his baby girl.  So I sent in this photo, and we got this wonderful 8×8 line portrait back.

Hope everyone has a good week,

Kelly

Just some fun pics from the weekend.

Below is what I got when I asked for a smile this morning:

And lastly, asking for a cracker – what she does all day long.

On Saturday we went over to a friend’s house, and our friend (and Amelia’s babysitter) Stephanie was dressed just like me.  I think she looks more like me than Amelia – so here is me with my mini-me.

Have a good week everyone!

Baby Momma

PS Wish Baby Daddy a happy birthday today if you have a chance.

Amelia is my adorable dancing girl – and I think that’s what struck me most about these photos – she really looks like a little girl now. 

And one of our fun things we do – we ask where her belly is… she likes to show us.

And you can see she is wearing jeans!  She rarely gets to wear jeans, but this pair fit – I think she is growing a little taller and leaner.  Or it could be that she hasn’t really wanted dinner for 3 days now.  I love jeans on kids, just think its too cute.

And last but not least – a video of our dancing baby.

Have a good holiday weekend,
Baby Momma

Unfortunately I’m so far behind in capturing Amelia’s words that I don’t think I’ll ever catch up – but here are a few recent ones:

- Brolli (broccoli, she loves the stuff); I L’ ou – I love you, I have to say this one first but she knows it goes with the sign – so wonderful, can’t wait til its un-prompted; sit; chair; outside; upstairs; pa (for paci, with hand gesture at mouth); bath; coat (needed to go outside she knows)

- The one we here the most – Cracker, sometimes with the sign – usually with the sign for please and saying ‘more’

- We recently got the best flash cards, easily one of her favorite things to play with – I’ll put a link to them – but they are touch and feel cards.  From these she can name (without prompting, just the card) doggie, car, jelly, mirror, keys (and there is some she already was good at, like baby and ball).  She says ‘meow’ for the cat, and ‘duck duck’ for the duck – I guess she combined quack quack with duck.  She calls the fire truck and tractor a ‘car’ as well.

- She still has up, down, mama, dada (though she likes to call Chris mama for some reason), milk, diaper, baby, more, please, hat, eyes, nose, ball, me, shoes, apple. (She’s convinced pumpkins and oranges are also apples)

- She loves fish but won’t say the word – only will do the sign and do the fishy face sound – its really cute though.

I know I’m missing some – but hopefully this is a decent list to capture her growth.

Baby Momma

Today at Amelia’s school, in honor of next week’s inauguration, they are having an inauguration of their mascot.  With a CNN camera crew.  So they requested red,white and blue – and so Amelia went to school all in red today ready for her TV debut.  I doubt the younger kids who can’t speak well will really get on TV – but we’ll let you know when it airs.  Here is a photo from BabyDaddy’s iPhone (the outfit is really red – this doesn’t quite capture it):

One of the reasons Primrose was selected to be on CNN is the ‘200 Wishes’ Campaign launched in 2008.  Children old enough were asked to call and leave messages about their wishes and a voice quilt will be made and sent to President Obama as well as the governors of the states that have Primrose Schools.  You can view some of them at: http://www.primroseschools.com/200wishes

Amelia wasn’t quite verbal enough to participate, but its a great cause and a wonderful way to get children involved in the political process.

So Happy Inauguration Primrose Mascot!

Baby Momma

I don’t know if I ever posted a picture of Amelia’s nursery, and we just happened to have a photo we took the other day.  So here is Amelia’s nursery, so you can see where she naps and sleeps the night away.  We also read books and cuddle in the rocking chair, its a fun cozy space.  You can’t see the rocking chair, but above it we have an awesome dragonfly on the wall – and above her closet is her name.  Otherwise you can see its a fairly simple room – neutral walls with pink accents and a focus on ladybugs and dragonflies to match her bedding.   The crib becomes a toddler bed and then a full bed, so this furniture will be with her through high school.  Hope she likes it!

Not only did Lena, Amelia’s cousin, come over – but her friends Graham and Meredith too! Here are a few more fun pictures from that day.

Here is Amelia not understanding why she had to share.

After a few minutes she got excited to share with Lena and they would take turns.

They even played together on another favorite toy.

Graham and Meredith have fun playing with AMelia’s toys.

Meredith was helping to push Amelia around on her push toy.

Meredith smiled pretty for me in her red dress – aren’t the pigtails adorable?

You can’t really tell in this photo, but Amelia and Lena were loving playing with Uncle Benji.

After a hard afternoon of playing, Amelia and Lena were ready to curl up on the couch.

Lena was curling up with me, so Amelia curled up with Aunt Ann – who really does look like she could be Amelia’s mom don’t you think?

A couple last random pictures – Amelia likes to say ‘touchdown’! (Even if its basketball on)

Doesn’t she look pretty in pink and chocolate?  Thanks to our friends the Kellers for this adorable outfit.

Hope everyone’s New Years is going well.

Baby Momma

I apologize its been slow on the blog – but its been busy lately.  However, we were lucky to have Amelia’s cousin over just after the New Year and its so much fun to see how they are learning to play with each other now.  They took turns on Amelia’s pony and enjoyed chasing each other to the door and back (I think they ran back and forth 20 times, it was adorable).   I am really looking forward to them developing into true friends this year.

Here are some fun pictures from the chase game:

Its 2009 – wow, how did that happen.  2008 was a wonderful year – we saw Amelia blossom from a baby learning to sit up to a toddler that doesn’t sit still.

A couple cute things from the last few days:

She is getting into taking care of her dolls – walking them in the stroller, handing them their bottle, trying to change their diaper – its really cute.

She’s teething the canine teeth – I think we are going on two months and I’ve heard it can take a few more – see the drool?  At least she was dressed up pretty for church.  We are trying to make an effort to start taking her on a more regular basis, as well as saying nighttime prayers.

We have begun a mission in our house to be more organized and simple – so all of Amelia’s toys in our living room went into bins in the cabinet – she actually loves having her cabinet.  This is her swinging the doors open wide – but then she can’t decide what toy she wants.

Here is a silly grin while playing.

Trying on daddy’s shoes – she really likes shoes right now.

A new game with the bowling pins.

Here’s my cutie-pie, with another silly grin – her two top teeth sticking out.

I don’t have this on film yet, but something Amelia has started doing is calling daddy ‘mama’ this week – she knows he is daddy.  If I say bring this to daddy – she will.  She thinks its funny – I didn’t know sense of humor could start so early!

She is also starting to copy and help with a lot of what we do around the house – she can bring things to the trash can to throw them away, she tried to bring Chris’ glass to the fridge to get water, and she helps me bring laundry to the couch to fold. 

This is a really fun age, but I’m sure each month will bring even more fun as Amelia continues to grow and take on the world.

Here’s to another fabulous year!

Baby Momma