She's on the move more and more. She full on army crawls her way around the house, finally gets to the sitting position on her own, and pulls up on any and everything. She's not yet fast enough for me to be concerned about her getting away from me, but she can explore on her own so she is quite happy. It's pretty great for both of us. Her sisters, though, aren't as pleased. Suddenly, their precious toys are fair game and they don't yet understand how to truly keep them out of reach. It's entertaining (and frustrating) to watch them move their toys over two feet, only to then see Amelia scoot the two feet and grab it over and over again. I keep telling them that they need to put it away or get it up higher, but it hasn't really sunk in.
We did a massive clean up this past weekend where every little toy got put in it's rightful home. The rules have changed again - now anything that is in the big game and puzzle closet is only usable with an adult's permission, in hopes of it staying out of baby hands.
The main rule: Millie is part of this family so if she's up and playing, she can play with her sisters. It's their job to put away their toys that they don't want her playing with, because I'm not going to keep her away from them. I can see her always being excluded because she's not quite old enough and that's not going to fly. They need to get used to it early on. They get quiet time (her nap time) to play with those smaller toys. Otherwise, they can keep them on our new work table that is in the living room, which is currently out of her reach. There will be no door closing in their rooms, because again, Millie is just as much part of this family as the older girls are. We'll see how this concept goes. Hopefully smoothly!
Breastfeeding is going great. There was a week in the last month where I thought she was self weaning, but I persisted with offering nursing and she eventually stopped. There are just so many things to look at! I can't blame her. She still insists on eating right when she gets up (morning and after naps) and often times as a soother throughout the day, and then I always feed her before bed, just to top her off from dinner. I'm trying to soothe her in other ways so that we can start the weaning process soon, but so far that hasn't worked all that well. I'm not in a hurry to stop nursing, necessarily, but I also don't feel like we need to keep at it into her toddler years. We'll see what she ends up doing and preferring.
Eating food has been pretty good. She likes to take three or four bites of one thing but then wants to try something else. I've learned that I can't give her a whole bunch of one thing and count that as her meal. She wants variety. Again, can't blame her! She sees us eating different things and wants to try all of that too.
I'm being persistent with veggies but so far she hasn't taken to them all that much. She'll always try one, but often times it comes back out. She loves her carbs and most fruits, just like all of us, so I have to watch that I don't just default to those to keep her happy. Oh, and the girl loves meat. She fits right in around here.
We usually leave the house at least once a day, and I swear she thrives off of that. She is clingy and extra emotional when we stay home all day, which gives me even more motivation to get out of the house. We go to the gym, grocery store, friends' houses, church events... it's good. We don't do a lot of free community events because people...everywhere... but we do like to be out and about. She hardly ever gets upset even when she's really tired or getting hungry.
Amelia's hand-eye coordination has improved dramatically. Physically, this month has been huge for her. She is just changing and growing in leaps and bounds. Every day, she has a new skill for us to ooh and ahh over. She waves differently now, turning her hand back and forth, usually watching her little wrist work. She stares at her hand, smiles, then looks at us to see if we see how cool that is. We see it, sweetie! It's awesome. With that new trick comes her signing, "all done" pretty easily. She doesn't always do it when she's actually done with something, but she understands that it means something and looks at me expectantly when she does it. She also watches me sign "milk" while she's nursing, and lifts her hands up, looks at it, then looks at mine again over and over again. I know it's only a matter of time before she'll be signing like crazy. She also mimicked "more" the other day, but hasn't yet done it on her own.
There haven't been any real words yet. She's saying "bababa" after I say Mama to her, and once in a while she mimics my "hi!" but none of it is really used as communication. Josie worked so hard to get her to say "papapa" which she does say a lot, but again, there is no context to it; she's just chatting nonsense syllables at this point. Frankly, it's just fun to hear her sweet little voice when she's not crying. For so many months, she was either quiet and watching or screaming. There was no sweet chatter. It's nice to hear.
Sometimes she'll make a face or do a certain expression that just looks like hubby. He didn't have much hair as a baby, so that's probably most of it, but there's definitely resemblance there that goes beyond the (lack of) hair. Take a look:
Can you see it? Her lips and smile are different, her nose is more feminine (good! ha.) but the eyes, the expression, the hair, it's the same, right? So cool. Genetics are cool.
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| She produces the biggest tears faster than any baby I've ever seen. |
Sleeping has been amazing. At least at night. She's been sleeping all night all month. She goes to bed between 7:00 and 7:30 and then sleeps great until sometime after 5:00 AM. Hubby goes in (I'm too much for her when I'm there but not feeding her) to change her diaper and reposition her with her blanket and pacifier, and then she often sleeps til 7:30 or 8:00 AM. This past week, she's even surprised us with skipping that early morning wake up and sleeping til 7:00 or a little later. It's so great. I don't have that super tired time of day mid afternoon because I'm getting a full night's sleep! Now, her naps are not as great. Maybe because of her great nights of sleep, her naps have been less predictable. I can count on her afternoon nap to be at least an hour to an hour and a half, but it's hit or miss if she takes a good one in the morning and she often seems to want or need one in the late afternoon. That's tricky because we aren't always here to do that so then she's super grumpy for that hour and a half before her bed time. I guess we're just in that in between stage between one and two naps. Not my favorite, but thankfully she's fairly flexible.
My attempts at great sister pictures this month failed miserably. Amelia was less than willing to sit with them and the big girls don't exactly cooperate all the time either. Gah! I will still post the best of the terrible bunch because this is life right now, and I want to remember it.
And here's the comparison shot of all three girls. So. very. different. It's just crazy. I can't wait to see what her one year stats will be in a month, because it just seems crazy that she's almost one. The other two seemed older somehow. Millie still feels like a legit baby. And that bald, bald little baby. It's comical (yet adorable), isn't it? Also, to understand how truly different in size they are, Amelia is wearing a 6-9 month onesie here and it's pretty loose. Audrey is in a 12 mo onesie, fairly loose, and Josie is in a 12 mo onesie, not loose at all. All very different. Josie had been walking for two months here, and Audrey was crawling around like crazy, kind of teasing us with walking. Amelia is moving a lot but not like her sisters were. In this collage, I can see the similarities between Audrey and Amelia a lot more than usual. Those eyes seem identical!
Amelia is such a light in all of our lives. I say that every month, but it's even more apparent as she gets older. She's such a gift to us! Love you, baby girl!
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