I've been posting less frequently. I'm not sure why that is, but I think it is paradoxically because things are getting easier. You see, blogging is sometimes a release. And right now I don't really feel a whole bunch that I'd like to release. Okay, that's not true... anything I'd like to release to the general Internet populace. (And you thought I shared everything. Try not to feel too betrayed.) So yeah. We are all, indeed, still alive.
Good news! I am becoming more and more convinced that taking Amelia to the chiropractor has changed her disposition so that she's a super happy baby. It's absolutely wonderful. She smiles so much more. Now, when she smiles at strangers and they say she's a good baby1, I actually agree that yes, Amelia is quite the joy to have around.
She's so good-mannered that I think James has even succumbed to her baby powers. At least once a day I hear him say something along the lines of "She's SO cuuute!" in a high-pitched voice. Before he decided not to check Facebook so often, I had to be careful not to post too many cute baby pictures on Facebook, or else James would no longer be able to concentrate. Once he got Amelia cravings, so we had to visit him at lunchtime.
She's starting to get better at playing alone. And by alone, I mean someone is sitting next to her and she is ignoring them while playing. If you try to go into the next room to, say, cook up a masterpiece of a meal that will make your husband worship your shadow for 3.1415 years, SQUAWK.
Amelia likes books. She's sometimes quite adept at page turning. She's quite studious.
She's still fond of her potty, though yesterday she nearly stood up off of it. Her whole butt was in the air and everything. Eep! I also discovered that she can stand up by holding onto the couch. I guess it's only a matter of time before she's cruising and walking along the edges of furniture. Eep! She's not crawling yet, though. Maybe she'll figure out how to do that while we're at my parents house. There's a dog and some cats she might get motivated to chase.
Amelia can pick up Cheerios with her thumb and forefinger in a pincer grip. Our home visitor and a couple motor development researchers were super impressed. They tell me this takes some pretty complicated brain processing to do, so at her age, it's impressive. Maybe I should brag about her pincer grip more often if it's so impressive... Nah. My face (particularly my nose) does not appreciate that pincer grip very much. Oooh, and neither do my inner upper arms. She like to pinch me there while nursing. I've taken to wearing baby pants on my arms occasionally.
Still not really eating. Whatever. We offer her food to play with. Sometimes she will taste it. So far she seems more fond of vegetables than fruit. Weird. She has even less interest in baby food. Speaking of which, we'd decided not to bother with purées. So. If you live in the Springfield area and have an avid purée-eater, we have tons and tons of jars of baby food and a couple of packages of baby cereal that were all given to us. These need a home. Let me know.
She's making some very speech-like sounds. She sounds like many teenagers I know. ("Blah blah blah blah...") Hmm. What else... Ooh. Amelia reminds me of a little scientist carefully performing trials over and over and over again.
I'm doing all right too. I've been reading a lot. My goal is to read and return all my library books before I leave on my trip to Utah and Arizona.
Love and science,
Jenna and Amelia
1 I know they all mean "easy" baby, but I think it's awful to imply that any baby that isn't easy is a "bad" baby. All babies are good babies.↩
