Happy 2nd Birthday, my dear Amelie

Well, I can't help myself but to say I feel bad that I have not been able to chronicle Amelie's early life in as much detail as I did with Alia...but who knew two kids would be so much more than one! Especially now that they are soooo busy.

Well, lets start with right now, since that's what's on my mind. Amelie turned 2 last week and this weekend we had a wonderful birthday party for her at Alta Laguna Park up the street from our house. I hoped to have the important people in her life there to celebrate and we weren't let down...nearly forty people showed up and it was seriously a wonderful day. The sky was bright blue, big white puffy clouds sprawled, and the sun was as bright as a November sun could be. Amelie was in heaven since she was surrounded by all of her favorite people...Jessica our nanny, Kori our former nanny who moved away about 5 months ago, and of course Mommy, Daddy, Aunt Carol and Uncle Jim, and let's not forget her big sister Alia. All the rest of the people were very comforting to her because they were all the people Amelie has come to know in her life, but let's just say Amelie is a small pack animal.

Developmentally, right now Amelie amazes us. She began talking in sentences at about 18 months. Way ahead of the curve. She has known all letters and numbers up to 20 for at least 6 months. She sings Old MacDonald Had a Farm on key. Oh, yeah, and she also speaks Dora Spanish (counts from 1-10, colors, up, down, yes, no, good morning, good night, hello, goodbye, and anything else they teach). She is a very early talker. Amelie expresses herself very well...she never had the frustration-based tears Alia had before learning to talk. I remember teaching Alia to sign because her cognitive skills were so far ahead of her verbal development. Not Amelie...sure she signed because her sister did, but she also learned to speak so early that she's been able to articulate her thoughts with ease.

Physically, Amelie is tall and lean. She is the same as Alia height-wise, but a little leaner in stature. She walked a little earlier than Alia, too...she had some one to catch up to and that really has been the motivator of her life...keeping up with Alia. She walked at 11 months, and since then has been very physically active. She runs so fast that she shouts "Slow down, Mimi!, Slow down!!!" as she rounds corners without slowing. Her favorite thing is to run with her favorite bear held high above her head at full speed ahead and shout "slow down Bear! slow down!" She has quite the sense of humor. Oh, and did I mention she's already showing great progress with potty training daily? Mommy likes this!

Personality wise, Amelie is pure love. She warms my heart with her sweetness. She is loving, funny, and hilarious. Her sense of humor is beyond her years. She hugs and kisses and so far has not shown too much of terrible in her 2. Although I do see signs of her asserting her independence daily, it's not quite so hostile as Alia's display. Amelie's favorite expression is "Mimi does it byzherself!!!". This is shouted any time she is struggling with something and I try to help. Getting something on a fork, unzipping something all the way, unbuttoning something, fitting one thing into another thing.

Activity wise, Amelie has taken toddler gymnastics and toddler ballet through Laguna Beach community programs. She attends lots of play dates with the parents club, and loves going to the park and the beach. She loves television although I limit it to one or two shows like Dora the Explorer or Calliou or Max and Ruby per day, and she loves to draw, paint, and work puzzles. And I cannot believe I am this far into the post to mention her loooooove of the iPad. and iPod. and YouTube. And anything technological. In fact, her technical savvy is frightening.

Her favorite people are 1) Alia her sister 2) Mommy and a close 3) Daddy. She prefers women to men in general. She  loves her Noni (my Mom), her Aunty Carol, and Aunty Tina. Amelie really connected with her Aunty Merfe this summer, and always asks about when we see her 'gain.


My last year with Amelie has been a joy. She is so loving, so smart, and a joy to be around. I cannot imagine life without my little love.

Amelie is 14, no 15 months old!

As I sit here to write about Amelie's 14th month, I look at the calendar and realize it's her 15th month birthday today! So, it's official...the months are slipping by and I really need to challenge myself to keep up!

As mentioned in my last post, things here are busy, but my little Amelie does her best to assert herself and keep my focus. She is still my baby. She still loves to cuddle on my lap before bed every night. She has a favorite bear that makes her shriek every time she sees him. I recently bought a couple of identical back-ups because we learned this is imperative when Original Froggy began showing his age and busted a few seems.

Amelie is incredibly bright and social. She can read books hour after hour. She refuses to be fed anything and happily uses a spoon and a fork with very little assistance. Sometimes she'll allow help with extra slippery food like ripe mangos, but basically, she wants to feed herself and she wants to do it just like her sister...no fingers. Amelie loves greeting people on the street. She waves and smiles and does little circles to get attention. She is a lovely little human being!

Amelie has lost her hero-worship for her sister to some degree. After a year of marveling at Alia's superiority, and taking Alia's rejection, she seems to basically be over it. Sure, she's interested in what Alia's up to, but for the most part, she's got her own stuff to do. And now, instead of dying for Alia's love and mutual respect, Amelie greets Alia with a strong "NO!" every time she sees her. Perhaps her independence could use some tempering. Amelie's independence is really amazing...she jumps right into the middle of things that she's interested in....many times ahead of her sister who contemplates from the sidelines.

Amelie has suffered through more than her share of illnesses this winter. Unfortunately her sister brings every little germ home from Montessori and Amelie is right there swapping slobbery items and catching every last bug. So in addition to new molars keeping her up, she's also suffering from cold after cold. Let's just hope that this means she'll have a better immune system when she starts preschool!

Amelie still loves Elmo. She can say roughly 15 words...Mama, Dada, Lala (her name for Alia), Elmo, walk, sock, shoe, No, hat, hot, cheese, shirt, bow wow, wow, and a few others that are escaping me right now. She also signs like a champ. She basically signs every sign on Baby Signing Time. She's very communicative.

Amelie's walk has graduated to a full blown run now...she will run to see Daddy when he comes home, and likewise anyone she hasn't seen in awhile. I can't believe she's at the age Alia was when Amelie joined us. It forced Alia into being a "big girl" and big sister role model  while she was just a baby herself. And now that Amelie is that same age it's apparent that birth order dictates the role each plays in our family...Amelie is still very much a walking talking baby! Who feeds her self with a fork. And stops at nothing to get her way.

Amelie is 13 months old

So where were we...oh, yes. We're at 13 months for my little bitty baby. Of course, she weighs more now, but in my heart, I'm holding on for dear life for her to remain her sweet baby-self. I still hold her in my arms  for her before-bed bottle every night. It's my favorite part of the day! Alia would have nothing to do with this feeding/cuddle session after about 6 months old...she was a big girl so fast.

Amelie has 9 teeth, including one big, bad molar that gives her endless pain. She "talks" constantly. When she's upset she will look you right in the face and cry and shout "baba-baba-baaaa! boka boga!" as if we're having a conversation.  Amelie loves to look at family photographs in frames. Every morning when I wake up and pick her up from her bed, we walk by a series of our framed wedding photos on the wall just outside her door. She insists we stop and she points to each and every face and I name the person. When we get to Daddy, she says Dha-Dha! and for Mommy, she says "Ma-Ma!". For everyone else, she just looks directly and intently at my mouth to get maximum understanding of what I'm saying and how to say it.

Amelie has a few new favorite things to do...the first is she zooms away after we get her dried off after her nightly bath. We have a happy streaker on our hands. And if you try to stop her? She goes completely limp and falls to the ground and cries. So best to leave her to streak for a few minutes and then basically work her into her clothes without disrupting whatever she's engaged with...which, after her bath, is usually the ball-popper in the hallway where the balls can't get to far away (we used to play with this in the play room but all the balls end up under the desk and result in head bumping and tears). Amelie also loves television. I know...I silently and unsilently judge myself for this fact. Alia wasn't even allowed TV until she was 15 months old when I decided to allow her to watch Baby Signing Time. But Amelie has been watching and signing for quite awhile. Amelie also loves my best home-made toy ever...I stuffed an old wallet with old and useless cards (grocery store club cards, etc.) and let her pull them all out. Every trip to the grocery store ended with her pining for my wallet, and once she had it she disassembled it....thus, the creation of her very own wallet. And the neat thing is? Once Amelie takes all the cards out? I can ask Alia to put them all back and it's just the right task to challenge her dexterity! A win win! And Mommy gets to keep her platinum card where it belongs!

Amelie is a lover. She hugs. She cuddles. She tilts her head to the side and rests it on the couch while looking up at me with her sweetest little Amelie smile.

And when she's tired? She likes to walk around and around and around while shouting aaaaaaaaaaah! aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! It's quite a sight.

Amelie transitioned away from formula last month and has a love of whole milk now. In fact, as of today, we're re-strategizing her feeding times and volumes because she would basically go without food entirely (except for her beloved Cheerios) in favor of milk. Which has had some issues, mainly of the tiny little constipated poop variety. But all in all, we're progressing. I know she's a toddler now. But not in my head. In my head she is Baby.

Amelie is 12 Months!

I have a new one year old! Amelie has left her infancy and babyhood and has now entered the world of toddler! So what's new with Amelie?

Amelie has a definite sense of humor. Among the funnier things she does (after refusing to lie down during diaper changes a couple of months back) is she demands that I sing to her while she has her bottle and gets her diaper changed...on my lap. Her little maestro finger bobs up and down while her little mouth forms a milky smile. Sing, Mommy, sing! And not that song!
Amelie plays keep away with whatever object she gets her hands on...be it Alia's beloved Froggy or a piece of fuzz off the floor.

Amelie signs for sleep, banana, stars, more, and says "Yeah, shoes, bow wow" of which bow wow is her first real word.

Amelie walks around like crazy...we have counted 50 little wobbley steps in a row. She enjoys being in the center of groups of people. She is truly a social little girl when surrounded by people she is comfortable with.

Amelie, too likes to be tossed in the air when daddy comes home, although is quickly and easily frightened when there is the slightest bit of air between her and daddy's hands...unlike her sister who isn't happy until she hits the rafters.

Amelie now eats on her own and hates to be fed; if we put something on a fork, she gets it in her mouth. Amelie loves eating anything from pouches...you know, the Ella's Kitchen pouches? We take the top off and she sucks away happily. Amelie also drinks from sippy cup now, and has transitioned off formula for most part; in the interest of using up the last bit of formula, she still has an a.m. and p.m. bottle. She loves to eat smoked turkey breast, cheese, avacado, goldfish crackers, and as said before, anything in a pouch.

Amelie is outgrowing clothes left and right and is in the 97th percentile of height and 80th percentile of weight, which is what she has always measured.

Amelie is still much more of a baby at one year than Alia was. She still loves to be held during her early morning bottle, and cuddles in to my chest and drifts back to sleep when she's done. I have to say, the second time around, I'm not in such a hurry for Amelie to hit milestones and grow out of this phase....although she is hitting all of her milestones ahead of time. I treasure her little body going heavy on my lap after her bottle. I drink in the way her little pudgy hands grasp things. I know our time in this little wonderful part of her life is going to be gone before I know it so I'm focused on filling my heart with her sweet baby-self.

Amelie is 11 months old!

This month, Amelie turned 11 months old. Another cold came and went (and oddly, we found Benedryl hinders her sleep, unlike her drug addict sister, who wants nothing than to be sick so she can have "meh-cine"). She has 7 teeth...two more teeth came in and another is approaching. She is growing like crazy. Her hair is thickening, and she's started to scoot along the couch like a pro. Oh, and did I mention? At just 10.5 months old, she began signing for milk, thanks to Baby Signing Time. Yes, the same program that taught Alia to sign at 15 months? Has proven to be totally effective with much younger babies! And now she can say "more" and "ball" in sign language. Pretty impressive!

Amelie likes nothing more than to watch her sister. She thinks she's terrific. Amelie also feeds herself like a champ (cheerios and organic puffs) and no longer wants to be fed like a baby. Amelie is fast...she crawls across the room making an "ahhahhahh" noise matching the beat of her crawl. Amelie is the warm spot in my heart that makes me almost want to cry when I think of her. I love her more every day....if that's possible.

Amelie is still gentle and delicate. She hates when anyone takes something from her. She gets her feelings hurt very easily. In fact, when she was gnawing away on her crib today, I said "no, no, Mimi" in the softest voice possible and she still burst into tears. She doesn't like to be told what to do, apparently.

Amelie has also laid claim on people, too. Daddy now belongs to her, too, and she's not afraid to compete for his attention. She does this by shaking her head back and forth, back and forth while smiling and giggling while sitting on the floor. It's the best trick she has and she isn't afraid to use it to detract from Alia's attention.

Amelie no longer lets things stand in the way of what she wants. She has decided she wants in the tub with Alia every night at bath time, and will stop at nothing...she practically launches herself over the tub wall and into the tub fully clothed. The only problem? Sometimes she refuses to sit down, which makes it quite a slippery and dangerous event!

Amelie is pure sweetness. She still likes to jump like crazy in the Jumperoo. She loves the Leap Frog music table as well as pressing the keys on the keyboard. Amelie likes to pull the board books from the shelf one by one and then scoot them across the floor. In fact, scooting things across the floor is one of her favorite pastimes.

Amelie still drinks her share of formula, although next month we'll be switching over to milk. She has taken to a red monkey stuffed animal as well as a tan bear that she now sleeps with every night. I suppose we should name them, huh?

So that's it in a nutshell. As we approach her first birthday, I am so sad to realize my baby will be done being a baby so soon. I'm just fortunate enough to be here to be her Mommy.

here, Amelie sits happily with her favorite flashcard....

...until Alia notices Amelie is so happy

...and decides she too would like the flashcard....

...and takes it from her sister

...and Amelie strikes back with her best weapon....

...the saddest little face in the world....and Amelie wins!

Amelie is 10 months old!

Well, here I am typing because I have 14 minutes before picking Alia up from Montessori and Amelie is down for a nap. Let's talk about Amelie!

Amelie points. Amelie giggles. And Amelie crawls----fast. She feeds herself puffs and Cheerios with her little dimpled fingers. And given any opportunity, she pulls to a standing position. In fact, I've even helped her to balance and let go and watched in amazement while she stood for 2 seconds before realizing it.

And sleep? weeeeell....let's just say we're hopeful. At this moment, Amelie has pushed 6 little teeth through some very agitated little gums, and for the moment (i.e., the last two nights), we've had an honest night's sleep. But the nights before that? We were up at 11, 1, 3, 4, 6. You get the idea. These have been some very tired days. And the funny thing is that every day I'm becoming more experienced as a Mommy of two babies, and yet I don't feel too much more confident that I know the real reasons why we're having sleep problems. Could be teeth? yep. Could be a phase? yep. Could be hungry because her teeth hurt and she doesn't like eating on those days? yep. Could be a disruption in sleep pattern and overall sleep confusion? yep. So my answer to all this is to treat it like jet lag and try to retrain her on when she should be sleeping and for how long. I started this two days ago and knock wood, it's working. See, since she wasn't sleeping well at night, she'd want to take a two hour morning nap. So I'd let her seeing that she was exhausted. But then she refused to take any meaningful afternoon nap at all. Thirty minutes was a gift. And you know what? Reflecting back to Alia at the same age, she wanted to do the exact same thing. Which is not what you want when it means that they're so exhausted by 6PM that they're spinning and then basically too tired to sleep by the time it's bedtime. So. I limit Amelie's a.m. nap to an hour and fifteen minutes. She goes down at 10:15 and we wake her up at 11:30. Then she's good until she goes down again at 3. This time I let her sleep as long as she wants to, which is usually and hour and a half or two hours. And something amazing happened. By shortening that morning nap by a simple fifteen minutes, she sleeps in the afternoon! She sleeps at night! Her sleep is better distributed over the 24 hour day. So that's where we are. At the moment anyway. Who knows, maybe the 3rd day is a charm or maybe the 3rd day isn't.

Amelie's favorite things are watching Alia, her Noisy Farm book, Alia's Froggy,  the Moo, Baaaa, La La La book, going Costco and any other store where people admire her, and riding in the shopping cart. Amelie loves her new big girl car seat that allows her to see out---who knew that there were rear-facing car seats that convert to a toddler seat?! Okay, well, I knew this, but I never really understood the benefit before...but that's a whole different blog for another day. Amelie also loves to go to toddler soccer on Sundays and watch all those silly big kids chasing the soccer ball. And last night had to be the best thing ever for Amelie....getting in tub with Alia. Oh, and I almost forgot the most important favorite....Amelie is craaaaaazy about her new nanny!

Amelie is 9 months...and we're busy!

With Alia beginning Montessori and Amelie getting active, oh, yeah, and transitioning from one nanny and finding another one to replace her, we are busy.

But Amelie?

Oh, she is sweet. She is ready to crawl. Only her current crawl looks more like a downward dog pose and then collapses to her bottom. She repeats this over and over and moves across the floor in a random direction at a very slow pace.

Amelie is pointing. Her favorite thing to do is explore the inside of my mouth with her cute little pointer.

Amelie also likes *gulp* Elmo in Grouchland. Yes, remember my strict rules for Alia that she should have no TV until the age of 2? Well, now Alia's 2 and the TV is on from time to time, and guess who loves it!? That's right.

Amelie is 8 months old!

This summer has been wonderful. First there were 3 weeks in Turkey, and then a week after returning, we headed out for another week in Napa. With all this together time, Amelie has really thrived!

Amelie sits up. Amelie has two teeth. Amelie says MAMAMA! She loves her sister. I mean, she has always loved Alia, but all it takes to perk up a cranky Amelie is to put Alia in front of her and the world's biggest baby smile spreads across Amelies round Charlie Brown face!

Amelie is now a bona-fide member of our family. She has her likes and dislikes, and has begun to express them, albeit in a much more subtle way than her sister Alia!

This month Amelie has changed to four 8 oz. bottles per day and three solid meals. Unfortunately, she's not eating them together, so she actually has be be fed something or another ---count them---7 times a day. She's a grazer! Her stomach isn't quite big enough to handle the big bottle plus food, but when I look back at Alia's 8-month blog, she was exactly in the same spot!

So there you have it...my little baby is actually getting quite big. We are 2/3 of the way through her baby-year. It's gone by so quickly, and to be honest sometimes I feel guilty that I haven't been able to celebrate each and every morsel of it because now there are two little ones to watch.

Amelie is 7 Months Old

Well. I have to say. Amelie is coming into her own. This past month has been an amazing month of progress. Amelie is happy. She is healthy. She has taken to eating solids. She has consolidated to two solid naps per day and sleeps through the night roughly all the time now. Exhaaaaale. Amelie now sits proudly in a highchair. She models designer scarves...there's nothing she can't do....well, except sitting up unassisted, which we work on daily!

Amelie rolls back and forth, and has become a tummy sleeper. She loves watching her sister above all else. Amelie is nuzzling her way right in to the center of things in our family.

Amelie typically goes to bed at 7 and wakes up anywhere from 5am to 7AM. If she wakes early, I feed her and put her back down. Sometimes she'll go back to bed, sometimes not. She is typically up before Alia, so every morning when Alia awakes, Amelie and I go to greet her. I put her in her crib, and she enjoys playing with toys there. She still does not sleep in their bedroom as we just have too many wake ups between the girls and don't want to risk the girls waking each other up. As it is now, we don't go to either girls in the night unless they don't settle themselves within 10 or 15 minutes.

So there we are...another month has come and gone and Amelie just keeps becoming more of herself. She is happy, sweet, and loves to be apart of things.

Amelie is 6 months old!

I sit here thinking about Amelie...reflecting on where she is and how far she has come. My heart fills with love thinking about this sweet little human being. Amelie weighs in at 17.15 pounds and is 27.5" long. That's right...another girl in the greater-than-95th percentile!

Okay, seriously, she's the sweetest little thing in my life right now. Of course Alia is sweet too, don't get me wrong...when Alia is sweet, she's sweet. But Amelie? She is sweetness....see?!

So what's new this month...well, for starters, Amelie is engaging a million times more. With everything! I have to feed her in an isolated spot because she gets too distracted to eat if she's not!  She loves to watch the palms sway in our yard. She loves to watch the grasses blow in the yard. She love love loves to watch her sister! 

This month marks a HUGE advance in Amelie's sleep. I finally got around to fully sleep-training her...even for naps. Yep, that's right. I put her down, and she now miraculously goes off to sleep on her own...every time. It is amazing to me how quickly she can learn.

Amelie also continued on solid foods, adding squash and sweet potatoes to her old repertoire of rice cereal. She's doing well...I offer her food twice a day (mid morning and mid afternoon) and she typically is interested in eating once, sometimes twice.

Amelie giggles with the best of them...her laugh is infectious. She enjoys being tickled. In fact, when she's really tired and cranky, a good old game of "tickle baby" does the trick every time.

Amelie began resembling Ajay this month...sure the nose is mine, but the eyes and brows are definitely Ajay. Oh, and did I mention this month she'll travel to Turkey for the first time? Here she is trying on her bathing suit....and can I just say how much I love that little body???? 

Amelie is 5 months old!

Last week, Amelie turned 5 months old. As always, I'm amazed at the speed that the months pass...amazed at the physical growth that seems to happen before my eyes, and amazed to watch her little personality develop day to day.

This month, Amelie began rolling over from front to back. While she, like most babies, is a hater of all things related to tummy time, she now rolls over with great squawks and fuss. Amelie also began solids in earnest this past month. The first few weeks of her fourth month, we started rice cereal from time to time, but now she's eating 2-3 servings of rice per day since her 5 month birthday. Amelie is also now a proud little hip monkey....her little legs have finally given way to allow for comfortable positioning on Mommy's nice soft hip.

This month we've notice more hair growing in, although from across the room, it's hard to tell. Amelie sleeps through the night maybe 1 in 4 nights right now due to some ferocious teething issues. I'm not sure when or where those teeth are coming, but my poor baby has been complaining like there's now tomorrow for a couple of weeks now. I half expect her to pop out a dozen teeth at once given the misery they are causing her.

Amelie is a delicate girl. She is sweet. She is interested in her sister. She loves to be showered with attention, compliments, and kisses. She smiles and laughs and reaches for things...mainly faces and toys and her sister.

Right now I'm struggling with naptimes. As with Alia at the same age, Amelie hasn't really hit her stride with naps. She prefers to catnap 3-4 times per day, with one nap being an hour or 90 minutes on a good day, and the remaining naps varying between 30 and 45 minutes. Amelie normally naps in her swing in our master bathroom because it is the most remote room in the house and well-insulated from Alia's shouts and squeals. Given our poured concrete floors, our house carries noises like no other. And while it may sound like a sad place for a nap, it's quite a lovely room and very peaceful! :) Right now I'm still putting Amelie down asleep for naps...I bounce her on the ball or even feed her to sleep. I know I need to crack down on my sleep training in this regard, but I'm telling you, Amelie's cries are the saddest! And she does put herself to sleep at night every night....until she awakes in pain from teething, that is. In that case I give her 5 minutes, and then intervene with motrin or tyelenol and rock her back to sleep. I also give her a little water to wash down the medicine, and that seems to comfort her.

Amelie is not nearly as round as Alia was at this age. While she in no way is a timid eater, she is not quite so demanding of food as Alia was. As a result, I'm currently feeding her 6.5 ounces every 3 to 3.5 hours during the day and rice cereal at 11 and 4 with no night time feedings. However, if it's a particularly rough teething night, I will offer her 2 ounces of formula mixed with 2 ounces of water, but that is maybe one day per week.

Amelie has slotted into our family just as Maya predicted. She has her own personality, her on likes and dislikes, and has planted herself so deep in my heart that I cannot imagine life without her. She is sweet where Alia is sassy. She is oblivious to Alia's No-No-No finger waving in her face and answers her big sister with a huge toothless circle-smile. She is my little bald sweetie pie.

Amelie is 4 Months Old!

Well, what a month this has been for Amelie. Gone is the newborn baby with misfiring neurons that cause her to burst into hours of crying. We now have a round little butterball that loves to smile. This month Amelie began smiling all the time, and even laughs now, too! She is ticklish under her arms, and loves to be kissed....especially on her toes.

This month I began playing our favorite game nearly every night...."Tickle Baby". As I change her for bed, and while on the changing table, while she's in between outfits and in only her diaper, I tickle her with the lightest touches from head to toe. Her body wiggles and tingles and little baby goose bumps pop up everywhere as she coos and giggles in response.  I could play Tickle Baby all day long!

This month, Amelie is now stable enough for toys. She sits upright in her Bumbo chair and spins the wheel so sweetly while making little guttural uh-uh-uh sounds. Amelie also is big enough for the ol' Jumperoo, which was brought out from storage in the garage. She loves to spin spin spin the little spinnies and smiles at the sight of the Jumperoo.

Finally, she interacts endlessly with her jungle activity mat....during the day she loves me to turn the music setting on, and at night she prefers the soft jungle sounds setting. Either way, she's happy under the dangling monkeys, elephants and other animals for quite awhile!

Amelie is currently a Mommy's girl...she tracks me constantly and smiles when we make eye contact. For the most part, she is immediately comforted when I pick her up. She is also sleeping better....she sleeps consistently from 7PM to 3AM, feeds, and goes right back to sleep.

Amelie is gentle, loves her sister, her panda bear, and holding things.

Something happened this month in my own heart...it's almost like my heart grew to accommodate a surge of love that I feel for Amelie. There's never been a lack of love for her, don't get me wrong. It's just that since she has come out of her cry-all-the-time infant time, I now have much more time to enjoy her and get closer to her. She is a sweetheart of a baby, and only seems to get sweeter.

Amelie is 3 Months Old

Amelie is three months old. It seems like every time I look in the mirror while holding Amelie, I'm shocked at how much she's grown. No longer a teeny tiny girl, Amelie is right on track, growing into and out of her three-month clothes. At her last pediatrician appointment, Amelie measured in the 50th percentile for height and weight, and in the 60th percentile in head-size. Could it be that she's grown by leaps and bounds due to the fact that she likes to eat every two hours and twenty minutes during the day? And if you don't have the bottle on standby, things might get really ugly really fast!

Amelie has come a long way in the last two weeks. In fact, sometimes I think she's an entirely different baby than the one of last month. Last month, it was all I could do to figure out how to soothe her and stop the crying. She was a newborn still. But now? Amelie is now making eye contact and tracking me all the time. She smiles endlessly when talked to. She does this full-body smile that includes an all-over wiggle that makes my heart melt. Amelie's personality is still very gentle, and she is still developmentally a little younger than Alia at the same age. That said, Amelie is showing us that she's her own girl. She's not to be confused with anyone other than herself.

Amelie is fascinated with Alia. She smiles when she sees her, which I have to give it to Amelie, I might not react the same way considering how Alia treats her! Alia is just as likely to smack Amelie's foot as she is to kiss the skin off her legs. It's very hard to tell which it's going to be, which means that from time to time, Alia makes contact of the non-friendly variety.

Amelie coos. Amelie smiles. Amelie wiggles. She is the cutest little kewpie doll. Seriously...just look at her....no really, look!

Okay, you got me, that isn't Amelie at all. Here she is, in all her round glory...

And here's Amelie looking like "What? Isn't this how people pass the time?"

Amelie is 2 Months old!

Where did this past month go? It seems like I blinked and now I'm clearing NB sized Carters out of Amelie's section of the closet. She, like her sister, is growing fast and is a BIG eater, as I've mentioned before. So now we're flirting with a size 3M while she's just 2 months old.

At the Lalvani house, things are busy. We're very tired. While I love that my girls are going to grow up so close in age, I sometimes wonder if we weren't a little crazy having babies 15 months apart. I'll probably continue with this thought for a few years.

This month, one thing became very very clear. Amelie is not Alia. They are two totally different girls. We've had to start from scratch on our baby wrangling...even down to how Amelie is soothed is different than Alia. Alia did well with the "Happiest Baby in the Block" method...you basically shoosh directly in the baby's ear while their swaddled, jiggle their head, and pop a binky in their mouth. Alia loved it. Amelie finds it a personal assault. Amelie is her own girl.

Amelie has taken awhile to "wake up". I figure, I had a c-section at 39 weeks. What if she wasn't ready yet...what if by her account, she wanted to arrive at 41 or 42 weeks? Because from what I can tell, she's about 2 or 3 weeks behind where Alia was. Amelie is now lifting her head. She is tracking my voice. Her eyes have recovered from the disconjugate gaze she had for the first 6 weeks (read: both eyes didn't always focus on the same thing when she was tired). Amelie is showing a lot of signs of maturing though.

While Amelie has a hard time consoling herself, I have to wonder if it's partly my fault and my own lack of time with her. While I am with her all day every day, my time is divided between Amelie and Alia, and my nanny spends much of her time with Amelie since Alia demands my attention. So even though I'm here, I don't have the undivided attention to offer her that I had with Alia. Take last night for example...Amelie had gone beyond her 2 hour limit of wake time. She just couldn't find her sleep. She cried and cried and cried. Nothing I did could help. And I tried every thing....from gripe water to and extra feeding to swaying her while swaddled, none of my magic Amelie tricks worked. And then...she drifted off...and the m*ther f'ing phone rang...and she woke up. More hysterical than I've ever seen her. Another hour past of her turning nearly purple from crying. I finally got her to calm down by giving her a bath. It was the saddest bath I've ever seen...her little lips having quivering aftershocks and her breathing would catch from time to time. Oh, and the phone that rang? It was a harassment branch of Chase Home Finance calling us for the 17th time that day wondering where our November mortgage payment was even though we have provided them with a canceled check proving our on-time payment six weeks ago. So yeah, hate them!

Before beginning this, I read Alia's two-month progress report. What I saw was two very different babies. As I said before, Amelie is a little slower to "wake up" from her newborn state. She's not as social yet...there's not nearly so much eye contact or engagement, although we're starting to see the beginning of this now. Amelie does not sleep in my bed like Alia did...she sleeps in the swing, bassinet,  and even car seat. While I've tried to co-sleep with her just like with Alia, Amelie's little busy hands will not quit until she's broken free of her swaddle, and that's when the little hands slapping my face makes another night's sleep a comical idea. That said, my one on one time with her is nights and weekends, so even the sleepless nights that Amelie is famous for are sometimes bonding, in a sick sick way. That said, physically speaking, Amelie is healthy,gaining weight rapidly, and had her first real smile on New Year's Eve. Although she is a little dazed when watching all the Alia activity, I'm sure she'll be her biggest fan in no time.

Size-wise, Amelie and Alia are neck-'n-neck. I am not quite as concerned with the huge volume that Amelie wants to eat because look at Alia...she did the same, and she's now a healthy and energetic toddler who has burned away much of that baby fat.

Amelie is teaching me that I need to be aware that I have two very different babies and they are going to continue to be different from one another. It's not fair to compare them because they are different people. Amelie will come into her own at her own pace. I'm just lucky to be her Mommy and to witness this incredible, beautiful and unique little life as it develops.

Amelie is 1 month old!

As a true reflection of our lives, here I sit trying to finish up this blog that I started several weeks ago...

Is it possible that a month has already gone by? As I reflect on this past month, a lot of things come to mind. First of all, I'm tired! Having a newborn baby and a 16 month old is insane. Although I try not to compare Alia and Amelie because they are their own individual self. I can however compare this time around to last time around.

First, I've learned the importance of convenience items and getting help. With one little one running around like a crazy person just looking for things to hurt herself with, and another teeny tiny one whose needs are critical and sudden, I've totally justified using the premixed/pre-measured formula nursers (mainly at night)...last time? I thought the price to need/payoff was way out of whack. This time around? I am just glad that the convenience item is readily available and I couldn't tell you the price difference because whatever it is, it's worth it due to necessity. I have also learned that if some one offers to help you, it's okay to let them. With Alia, although I had the same family members present, I still tried to manage on my own as much as possible. Now, if you come to my house, you're handed a baby, a broom, a chewed up banana...whatever. You will be put to work.

Amelie has transitioned from a teeny tiny newborn that sleeps and cuddles nonstop to a bigger newborn that loves her quiet alert time kicking her legs to exhaustion. She has developed a little inquisitive look whenever I approach, I swear as if to say "Mommy, is that you?". Amelie is somewhat skeptical of her big sister, but all the same regards her with an inquisitive look.

Amelie has rounded out nicely...her cheeks are full, her tummy is round, and her little tiny spider legs are gaining some bulk, too. No surprise since she eats 4 ounces every 3 hours! At first the amount she wanted to eat was a little alarming to me, but then I recalled her sister being the exact same way, and Ajay reminded me that our girls grow tall...always greater than the 95th percentile on the charts.

So although I could go on for days, the truth is I just don't have the time. Having Amelie has of course changed everything, including how often I can sit down and write about her and her sister. But I wouldn't have it any other way....I'm just so tired!!!