Mmm, minty dark chocolate lipstick. 

Big day with Amelia.

Mommy decided that today was the day she would take Amelia to see Santa Claus in the mall. I put on her cutest "off to see Santa" outfit and headed out the door.

I decided I would let Amelia walk for a bit today, thinking she was feeling a bit cooped up in our apartment. She did not walk directly to the car. In fact, she found an amazingly interesting hole in the sidewalk full of pebbles and proceeded to give them to mommy one at a time.

After a while I decided that Amelia had to be cold and picked her up to put her in the car. Once in the car Amelia cried and fussed and cried some more. Ugh! I almost turned the car off and headed back in the house, but I guessed she might be hungry and decided to take her for lunch instead.

Well, oddly enough, once the car warmed up Amelia was no longer unhappy. In fact, she was just fine once she was no longer cold. So, we went to the mall to see Santa.

We started at Target and I again decided to allow Amelia to walk to our destination. She had a good time wandering about the store and kind of meandered in the right direction for a while, but I did have to carry her the last several feet.

Santa Claus was happy to see Amelia, but she wasn't so keen on seeing him. She stood right next to mommy and buried her face in mommy's legs saying, "Up, up, up." She would eventually sit next to Santa on mommy's lap...once the photographer gave up her two squeaky, "Smile, please" toys.

After seeing Santa we headed to Moe's for lunch. Getting out of the car I heard Amelia say, "Ice cream, ice cream," but told her we would have to eat lunch first. Amelia ate almost all of her cheese quesadilla and several chips and was ready to go. Heading back to the car I heard again, "Ice cream, ice cream," so I took her into Cold Stone.

This month's "red pan" flavor at Cold Stone is dark chocolate mint. Let me tell you - it's really good. Amelia and I got a small "after dinner mint" mixer and she wandered all about the empty shop taking bites of ice cream as she passed.

All in all, it was a fun afternoon. Yes, Amelia is getting to an age where she sometimes drives mommy nuts, but she's still a lot of fun and her parents still love her a lot. Oh, and I'm glad she "forced" me to have some afternoon ice cream.

Lisa

Off to see Santa Claus. 

Amelia loves a warm hug. 

"Ta-da!" 

quick snow story

The other day we had a small snowstorm, the first of the season. About four inches of snow accumulated, which made for some potential fun for Amelia (and for Lisa and myself).

It took Amelia awhile to get into the whole concept of snow, though. Even though she is a native Hoosier, she has her parents' California blood running through her veins. We bundled her up in several layers and stepped out on our back patio. After Amelia stood there for awhile, looking uncertain, I decided to bulid a small snowman. Lisa and Amelia watched me run around, trying to gather snow - it wasn't easy to get it to stick together - but finally Amelia had a little snow friend.

Later, after we went inside, Amelia felt more excited about the whole thing. She looked out the back door and excitedly rattled off several words: "outside," "cold," "snow," "man," "hi!" So I guess, like her mother, Amelia prefers to enjoy the snow from afar. But we'll see - she hasn't had her first snowball fight yet!

"I am beginning to think that removing my glove was a mistake..." 

Battle of the bed.

There for a while Amelia was pretty good about going to bed at a decent time. But somehow she's reverted to her old habits of fighting sleep with all her might. More than anything it seems she does not want to sleep alone. She can't be without mommy and daddy at night.

When I came home from Great Lakes Sunday night I found Amelia curled up and asleep on daddy's lap. She looked sweet as could be, but when time came to put her in her crib she fussed and cried. I held her and played with her, I sang her songs, and she would be great until I tried to put her down - then the waterworks would start. In fact, when I hold her on my lap at night she'll fuss and fuss for another "book" until all her stories are read. If she really doesn't want to sleep she'll grab my hand in the dark and put it back around her waist if I attempt to move it as if to pick her up and move her to her crib.

She was the same way when we first brought her home from the hospital.

This morning Amelia woke up and fussed a bit at 6:30 in the morning. Daddy went to check on her, with the best of intentions, but as soon as Amelia saw daddy it was all over. She simply refused to go back to bed. After several minutes of crying accompanied by "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy..." we thought we'd let her try to sleep with us. Mike brought her into our room and she was the happiest girl in the world. She wouldn't stop grinning. She would look back and forth at daddy and mommy counting, "one, two...one, two." Then she started wiggling and squirming. Eventually she started standing on the bed between us and then falling down on her butt saying, "boing!" or something to that effect.

So none of us have had much sleep. Around one this afternoon Amelia started asking to go outside. I realized that this was often toddler code for "I'm sleepy" but dressed her for the cold weather anyway. We went outside for a bit, but I think she was too cold to have much fun. At one point she became irritated because she didn't think she could pick up a leaf with her mittens on so she rubbed one of them off. After removing her mitten and feeling the frozen, snowy ground she actually brought the mitten to mommy with a gesture that definately meant, "Could you please put this back on, mommy?"

Back in the house I asked Amelia if she was sleepy. Her response was, of course, "No." So I asked her if she wanted to go to the store with mommy. We got in the car and headed off to Target. After leaving a short message on daddy's phone I became suspicious at the silence in the car. Amelia was fast asleep in the back seat. Oh well. I certainly wasn't going to wake her up just to go to Target. Instead, I went through the drive through at Starbuck's and headed home.

Carrying Amelia in the house she could not seem to open her eyes. I pulled off her shoes, hat and mittens and took her up stairs. As soon as I put her in her crib she stood up and cried. I waved good-bye and headed downstairs. She screamed (yes, she's screaming now if she isn't happy) for less than five minutes and fell fast asleep.

I guess we're going to have to get tough with Amelia again when it comes to bed time. It's not easy when you love a little girl and you don't want her to be mad. But I guess being mad is a big part of a toddler's life. We just need to choose a deadline by which she should be in bed...like ten o'clock. Then leave and not cave in to the cries of "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, daddy, mommy." Wish us luck.

Lisa

Coming home from drill late Sunday night I woke up daddy, but Amelia remained snuggly and asleep.