In an attempt to restrain myself from blabbing on and on about the rugrats, I've started a blog to upload photos and videos and the occasional story for your internet browsing pleasure.
These pictures have no particular theme, but I'm posting them anyway in an attempt to get caught back up with the lady baby updates.
She's making a break for it with Mama's car keys.
It's getting hard to take a picture without her grabbing for the camera. "Cheese!"
Amelie's new favorite activity is looking out the front door.
She's stubbornly protective of her two bottom teeth (her only two teeth so far) and will only let a few people see them on very rare occasions, much less consent to a photograph. Here you can kind of get the barest glimpse of white.
And, I suppose it's safe to say she's persistent about a lot of things. "I will figure this out!"
Story 1: When Sam was brushing Amelie's hair the other day, she stopped, looked offended, and then immediately messed it back up again -- rubbing her head with her hand. To top it all off, then she took the hairbrush away and proceeded to brush her own hair.
Story 2: Yesterday, she was crawling around the house and from the living room I hear the toilet flush. Usually the bathroom door is supposed to be closed, but I guess for a period of time yesterday it was not, and she cruised right around and tried out the handle on the commode.
Story 3: She's started dancing around by wiggling her body to music. It's hilarious and we really need a video.
Story 4: Speaking of videos, just now, only moments ago, Amelie was standing up next to the sliding glass door (one of her favorite spots). I thought, "I should really take a picture of this," and before I could go get the camera, she turned around and stepped toward me! She took 8 steps in a row!
Story 5: She still hasn't said "Mama." Right now, her favorite noise is "Blub, Blup," which seems to me to be more difficult than "Mama," but what do I know?
It was brought to my attention that though Amelie started regular cross-motor crawling (and not just army crawling), there was no accompanying blog post.
So here's a video from this weekend of Amelie crawling-crawling at the hotel where the International Caesarian Awareness Network conference was held. She was very good listening to the speakers and attending the panels with Mama (and it helped that she was in the sling almost the whole time).
Since Sam and I share childcare responsibility, Amelie doesn't get to really play with other babies very often. Her cousin Ellie is just a little to young to play, though she sure looks cute. Thirteen-month-old Remington is quite the gentleman, however.
This is how Amelie likes to sleep in her crib. I always put her down on her back, and for a little while, she'd roll immediately onto her side. Now she moves around quite a bit in the crib, though.
In the morning, she's always wedged up against the corner of the crib on her tummy with her rear end sticking somewhat up in the air.
It's a little hard to shake the feeling that she's trying to escape.
Here are two pictures from the other day when we had dinner over at Luke and Barb's, just because.
The exersaucer is a much more interesting toy from the outside than the inside -- and playing with Ellie's is so much better than the same old boring one at home.
At least she's still a good sport about all of the tumbles that come with learning to walk. I think the fluffy cloth diaper bum helps to pad the fall.
I bought Amelie a push toy because she enjoys going around the coffee table so much. Here are a couple of videos of her the very first time she used it:
Amelie was graciously invited to her very first baby shower, which Sally quite conveniently timed to fall between her two naps. She looks just a little out of sorts in this photo, but she had a wonderful time hanging out with mama and mama's good friends.
We are all very much looking forward to meeting Hannah!
Here are a couple of pictures of Amelie doing her new favorite activity. As soon as I set her down, she's pulling up on whatever's closest.
Ta Da!
This video doesn't quite convey the ease (and quickness!) with which Amelie can pull up on the nearest piece of furniture, baby toy, or person (I think the feet on the footie pajamas were getting in the way), but it does show the persistent way she wants to crawl/climb all over everything instead of just scooting around (apparently cruising is so last week).
I also like the way she tries to use her teeth on the step stool right at the beginning -- to help pull herself up, maybe?
Here's a post just to get me caught up with a bunch of photos (and one video!) with no particular theme.
Horsey Giraffe is still fun, even if Amelie no longer has dangling toys on the carseat. (She's still rear-facing, but has moved to the convertible carseat that says put in the car, so there's no carrying handle to dangle toys from.)
This one looks just slightly maniacal.
We recently moved the baby gate from Amelie's door to our door, so that she can crawl on the whole top floor, but not into our room. Before, when she was confined to her room most of the time, she looked like a forlorn little prisoner.
Even though Amelie is 9 months old, she still loves to use the bumbo chair. (This is a product typically marketed towards babies who can't sit up well on their own yet.) I think she likes to be up high on the table top or counter, plus it makes a handy and compact high chair. I do have to poke her chubby legs down into the holes, but once she's in, she's comfortable. We'll see how much more use we get out of it!
A lot of Amelie's sleepers have animal faces on the feet. This new one from Grandma Mary Beth has fuzzy duck faces on the feet and Amelie gets a big kick out of them.
Amelie loves, loves, loves to feed herself. Here she's eating beans and peaches and mum-mums.
Why don't they get this baby a bib?
And, finally, the promised video of Amelie laughing like crazy at Sam.
In what has become a familiar theme, Amelie had a grand old time at J.C. Penney's waiting on her turn for photos, then clammed up as soon as the camera came out. I promise that she was not sad or fussy, she was just super-serious about this business of getting 9-month photos made.
Look, can we just get this over with? I've got an important date with Sophie giraffe and some mum-mums coming up.
Amelie hasn't quite gotten this all figured out just yet.
Oh so composed.
We might get a smile out of her eventually ...
"Okay, you know, maybe this isn't so bad. I like standing up!"
"You know what's even better than standing up? Standing up all by myself!"
I like this one the best.
And, as always, we'll wrap it up with the (now infamous?) love photo:
If you're reading and would like a copy of any of the photos (or would like a different size than the ones I mailed you), just let me know and I'll get them ordered right away. Since we have copyright permission, it's really inexpensive to get reprints ordered at Walgreens (or your developer of choice).
Amelie has discovered that the buttons and toys on her exersaucer really do things ... right when I thought she was about to grow out of it, tired with the standing-still-in-one-place business.
Some still photos of the same darn thing:
What I like the best is how proud she is of herself after she figures it out.
