Little Miss, getting big!

Amelia LOVES her big brother. Now that she is on the move, she wants to be near him all of the time. I laugh at the stories told by my parents of my brother often saying "stop touching me". This reminds me of what we are going through with these guys. Amelia is so enthusiastic about wanting to be near him, wanting to touch him, wanting to be part of everything he is doing. So we had to take drastic measures in order to avoid mommy from having to separate them every other minute of the day..........

For the most part, this has worked. G feels "safe" in his play area. We don't do this all day, just part of the day. Most of the day, we are trying to get him used to the idea that Amelia has just as much right to crawl and play in the house as he does. That not EVER time she even looks at him or starts to simply crawl in his general direction, that it isn't appropriate to yell out "NOOOOO!!!!, or STOOOOOOOP!!!!!!!, "AMELIA, NOOOOO!", AMELIA, STOP!!"or "MOMMY STOP HER!!!!"

She cut her first tooth around Nov 22nd (date of it's first sighting). Her Lower front left tooth was her first to show, and shortly after that one was noticed (about a week later), we felt that lower front right one come in. So she now has two that have broken through and are well on their way. It is VERY difficult to actually see her teeth. She is a tong pusher. She sticks our her tongue. ALL of time time and it is almost always over those teeth. She is a stubborn little miss too (no idea where she would get that from), so getting an actually visual on these teeth is almost impossible, so getting a picture of them IS impossible. Sorry! So at a whopping 8 months old, her teeth finally made an appearance. Gabriel was a late teether as well, so no surprises that she had a gummy smile for a long time. What an amazing gummy smile it is! Amelia has a bit more trouble with teething than her brother did (thus far anyway). She is drooling like a St. Bernard and seems to been in more noticeable pain. She is more fussy and doesn't sleep as well when she is cutting teeth. With Gabriel, we hardly noticed he was teething. We wouldn't know until a tooth showed up, then we would say "well I guess he has been chewing on things more often lately". A bit different this time around. This is the closest I could get for you and my best attempt.

She is forever putting things into her mouth (no surprise, I know) and getting into mischief. She LOVES to tear up magazines, her brothers art work from school, and pretty much anything she can get her hands onto. We are of coarse going through a phase now with Gabriel that he is starting to put stuff in his mouth just to get attention. He is slowly starting to realize that the attention he is getting isn't the kid he wants. We explain to him that we are trying to teach Amelia not to put things in her mouth, like we did with him when he was her age. That he is a big boy and he knows better. So now, we put him into time out whenever he puts something in his mouth that shouldn't be there. Needless to say, he doesn't like time out, and he is starting to show progress here. He still has moments of weakness, nothing we are surprised at though. :-) There are also some very cute moments, however short or infrequent, that they play together. Laugh together, pat the doors and floor together. Crawl together even. Those moments are super fun and huge smile makers! I am hoping that those moments just keep getting more and more frequent.

Gabriel often stops and gives her one of her own toys, which is really cute. He does this a lot when she is in her high chair. He feels the need for her to have a try full of toys while she is eating! :-)

She is eating really well. I have been making her baby food and freezing it into ice cube trays. This has been super handy and has been working out quite well! She LOVES her fruit, no surprise there. Very much unlike her brother, she likes Avacado. Especially when I mix it with yogart and banana. Banana pretty much makes everything tasty. She doesn't like her veggies thus far and is OK with her starches. Mango must be her favorite flavor

She is going through a big mommy phase! She has some separation issues with mommy right now, that we are hoping will pass soon for many reasons. I am sure it is just a phase, but she is most defiantly a mommy's girl right now!

Checking out her world outside of the crib before we had to lower it!

Peek

A

Boo!

Amelia went through this frustrated phase where I noticed her smiles were replaced by groaning and grunting. She would just sit there and grunt and grown in pure frustration. She wanted to get places but couldn't. Well, after a little time, practice and a whole lot of effort, she started to officially crawling on October 29th, at 6 1/2 months old. She was slow and slipped often to begin with, but now she is a champion crawler that is fast and manages to always get into the things that she shouldn't. Seriously, this child could have a massive pile full of things she can play with and have just one thing that is not appropriate for her her to play with, and she will be drawn immediately toward the toy she should not have. Not an exaggeration either!

I wanted to post the video of Amelia's first crawl, but I am having issues getting videos on here lately. I am not sure what changed, but it takes FOREVER and they have yet to actually download. So until I figure this out, we will be video less.

I had a bit of a deja vu moment a while back when taking this picture of Amelia. It just so happens that I took a very similar picture of Gabriel around the same age in the very same place. I guess once you learn how to crawl, the window is a very logical place for babies end up. Makes total sense! I thought it was cute and wanted to share it with you!

Gabriel at about 6 months

Amelia at about 6 months

Just being cute and silly Amelia!

Amelia's eyes are still big and blue. Her hair has sadly lost most of it's red. She now has very blonde hair, but in the right light, she has some red highlights! :-) She LOVES to look at herself in the mirror. Now I know that most babies like this, but I have never seen one like it to the extent that she does. She is pretty darn cute, so I can't say that I can blame her!

She LOVES kitty! Madison is such a good sport!

Amelia falling asleep during one of our walks with a friend who was visiting. This was taken seconds before I realized I had locked us out of the house, and I needed to pick Gabriel up from school in 20 min! Locksmith came and had to drill through the door! Total air-headed moment! All I can say, is thank goodness for cell phones! I was able to call Gabriel's school to explain why I would be VERY late and was able to find a locksmith who could come quickly!

There is no fooling this little one. Baby containment unit #1 (exer-saucer) is not tolerated very well. She would much rather crawl underneath it!

Pre- crawling, she would scoot herself under the chair and get stuck!

Not sure what it is about this chair, but Amelia LOVES sitting on her brother's chair! She just gets so excited when she is sitting in it! And she has more recently started to climb it and use it as a way to get at things. So we were forced to turn it around so she can't get at it in order to prevent serious injury. This baby has hit her head soooo many times. She is fearless!

The little stinker started pulling up onto things! She started very early December at about 8 1/2 months old. She gets so excited to see another world on different surfaces, especially her brothers train table. As you can all suspect, Gabriel has not enjoyed this milestone much...especially considering the train table is often where he places things that he doesn't want Amelia to get to. She has had lots of spills and head bumps thus far, and I along expect many more. She is a very daring little baby, no fear really. Then she gets excited about what she is doing, so excited that she often bounces and looses her balance. Poor thing! But it is very excited to see her get stronger and explore her world with so much enthusiasm and excitement! She just started cruising the other day at just over 9 months old. She is a very determined little lady! Nothing gets into her way for long. She is not afraid of pushing things to the side or traversing over things.

Amelia is a noise maker especially with her tongue and gives and excellent raspberry! She does say Mama the most, but she says Dada as well. Amelia has the cutest little "HI"! When you enter the room, I swear she says hi that sounds a little more like "I"! Adorable of coarse! She is now waving and clapping her hands when she sees something that she likes. She has been working on her sign language and knows/does "milk" and "all done". Although I am not sure she will need all of the traditional signs because she is not afraid to express what she wants or doesn't want. Between grunting and gowning, to pushing things and you aside when she is all done or doesn't want something. We pretty much get the idea without her signing.

Much, Much more to come! Hugs to all!!!