.Amelia updates.

It's been a while since I did an update on the little one, and since I know that's what a good portion of you are on here looking for anyway I figured it was high time to give ya the latest scoop. No, she is not walking all on her own yet even though we are asked at least 10,000 times a day. She can and does stand on her own unassisted, cruises very fast along furniture, can bend and squat without holding on to anything, walks behind her push toys, and can take about 2 steps when we practice with her so I actually suspect that she CAN walk and is choosing not to just to vex me. In all seriousness, she's on the cusp and is thiiiiiiis close. When she takes those first real steps I PROMISE that I will take video and then call each and every person literally seconds afterward, so the answer is if I haven't called you to say that she's walking then the answer is that she is not in fact walking {can you tell that I'm loosing it being asked so often?}. Although she refuses to walk she HAS learned how to climb up onto the coffee table and both couches {in the living room and family room}. She's turned into a monkey overnight and is desperate to climb onto anything! In temporarily less happy news she's been cutting a new tooth. Her bottom left lateral incisor is erupting and although she already has 6 teeth this is the first time that teething has actually hurt her. She's been shall we say...."difficult" in the last week because of it. Poor thing. Luckily it's already broken the surface so the pain should be letting up pretty soon. Just yesterday she mastered the word "hi"! She can now say the following words: hi, Mama, Dad, kitty, doggy, bye-bye, yep & nah {these might be my favorite because it's so funny}, and just in time for Passover she's been saying Oy! My best friend Holly is Jewish and we try and celebrate Rosh Hashana & Passover with her each year; Holly's been having a difficult time lately so I taught Amelia "oy" just to bring a smile to my friends face...it's worked. She learned how to do a high-five months ago but only recently has she decided that's it's the most entertaining thing of all time. There are lots of high-fives and clapping nowadays. For those of you that know my husband you will not be surprised to learn that while I wasn't paying attention he taught Amelia how to do an evil villain laugh. It's super maniacal and hysterically funny - I'll try and capture video of it for you soon! Her schedule is still strictly regimented and she's thriving with it. She wakes up everyday at 7:15am, naps from 12:00pm-1:30pm, has a bath at 8:00pm, then after reading Goodnight Moon she goes to sleep at 8:30pm. I'm planning on slowly moving her bedtime to 7:30pm via 15 minute increments now that she's not really a baby anymore. I'm afraid if I go any faster than 15 minutes at a time she'll start waking up at dawn or starting being super super cranky so we're going to try and adjust the time slow enough that she doesn't realize it's happening. Wish me luck! We are pretty close to the one year mark in Music Together class and we all 3 still totally love it! We have a great teacher, a great group of parents & kids, and most important Amelia loves it more and more each time {she's always loved it but she now goes bonkers when we enter the building}. We are positive that we'll stay with Music Together until she's 4 or asks to stop {whichever comes first}. Her favorite activities are reading {both being read to and sitting on her own with a book and "reading" it to our cat who has the patience of a saint}, going to the park, playing peek-a-boo by crawling under an area rug or behind a piece of furniture and squealing with laughter when I ask "where's Amelia? Where did she go?" she pops her head out and screeches with joy then hides again. She has roughly 1.5 million toys and her favorite game is to tip over her toy box so that they all tumble out and then she puts them all back and starts over. Every single day she becomes more of a kid and less of a baby. It's bittersweet. It's so fun to watch her grow and she's so fun and active these days but it's a little sad to see those little baby days being farther and farther in the past. Everyday this quote hits home a little more... "Making the decision to have a child - It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”- Elizabeth Stone and it's totally worth it.