Amelia bee crams her face full of beans while daddy poses at the Roadhouse. 

Happy Halloween!

I hope all of you had a fun and safe Halloween. We all went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and Amelia got a free meal because she was in costume. You should have seen how cute she was sitting in her car seat dressed like a bee when they pulled up to pick me up from school. Then we went trick or treating at uncle Mike's house. Amelia got some candy (almost all of which will be eaten by mommy and daddy) and had a great time petting and chasing Mike's cats. We then moved on to the mall where many other kids in costume were trick or treating from store to store. Amelia loved the colorful store displays and, as usual, we could barely tear her away from the pet store. All in all, it was a lot of fun.

Lisa

Cold weather doesn't prevent little Hoosiers like Amelia from wanting to play. 

Amelia's turning into a little girl.

This weekend has been a fun one for our family. Despite the work that Michael has had to do this weekend, we've taken time out and time off to do some fun things around town.

Yesterday, we wanted to take Amelia to the park, but decided to wait until after her afternoon nap to do so. Well, her nap was later than expected so we ended up alone in the park as the sun was setting and the temperature was dropping. None of this changed the fact that Amelia hated to leave the park behind when it was time to go home. At least I thought to bring her new mittens along with us. The baby was great about wearing her new pink mittens, but they look just humongous on her - very funny.

Today we went back to the park, out to lunch and out for ice cream. Amelia sat in a booster seat for the first time. She did really well, too. She didn't squirm too much and did not try to get out of her seat. As long as she isn't feeling too rambunctious, we'll have to try this again soon.

I bought Amelia her first necklace last week. It's a delicate chain with a gold heart. When I put it around her neck so that she could try it on at the store, she beamed. She fussed and cried when I tried to give it back to the sales lady so that it could be rung up. Obviously, Amelia can't wear her necklace to bed; in fact, she only wears it a few hours a day...but she loves having a necklace like mommy and seems really excited about her first piece of jewelry.

Other funny news, Amelia's latest thing is answering questions in the affirmative with an "okay." I don't know why, but her saying "okay" to questions like, "Would you like a cookie?" just strikes me as terribly funny. She's also playing at swimming in the bathtub these days. She goes through phases where she loves or hates the bath. She's in the "love it, can't get enough of it" phase now. She's completely prunified by the time I manage to get her out of the tub at night. In fact, tonight she wouldn't even leave after all the water was gone. She sat and played and slapped her hands and feet against the floor of the empty bath tub a good ten minutes before I finally coaxed her out.

Oh, and I can't forget to tell you about Amelia's exciting adventure with the escalator. Amelia and I ran around the IU library while daddy was scanning documents last night. When we found the escalator that leads to the building's basement cafeteria, Amelia was intrigued. We watched a couple get on the escalator and slowly glide down. Amelia clung on to mommy and stared at the moving stairs. I asked if she wanted to ride the escalator and she said, "No." Well, once I talked her into riding in mommy's arms she thought the escalator was the coolest ride since Space Mountain. We went down and up three times before I got bored. I walked away from the escalator, put Amelia down so she would walk, and she rushed right back to the moving stairs. I was impressed she found them as quickly as she did. I took her down and up again and then found daddy. When Amelia saw daddy, she got excited and made it clear she wanted to show daddy the escalator, so we took a fifth and final trip down and up before leaving the library.

I wish I got that much fun and excitement out of a visit to my campus library.

Lisa

"Clockwork Orange...this sounds interesting." 

"Enjoy the show."

Our toddler is easily bored. You can tell she's bored if she's constantly begging to see Barney and Teletubbies. An even better indicator that Amelia is bored is when she clears shelf after shelf of DVDs and tosses them on the floor. She did this repeatedly today with mommy. It was cute the first time, but after picking them up again and again, it lost a bit of its charm.

The weather's getting colder, so it isn't much fun to go outside. Other than eating, I can't think of much else to do with the baby outside of my apartment, so we spend the day indoors watching Barney and Baby Einstein. I think, however, we may be watching just too many videos these days. One indication that this is so came when, while watching the opening to a Baby Einstein DVD, Amelia turned to me smiled and said, "Enjoy the show."

It's funny some of the things Amelia can say. She can say "DVD" because she's always asking to watch one. She also knows "mocha." Just as her quoting of a Baby Einstein video may be an indication that she spends too much time in front of the computer screen, the fact that she knows "mocha" may be an indication that I spend way too much time and money at various Starbucks locations around town.

So, once I began to feel crazy and frustrated with the clutter in my living room I put on our coats and took Amelia out doors to play and explore. She played with leaves, rocks, acorns and bark as usual, then proceeded to dig small ditches in the dirt with her fingers (sigh). I was freezing the whole while; she seemed happy and warm somehow.

She's in bed now; tomorrow is another day. Eventually, the weather will become warm again and we can go back to the park. Until then, I suspect we'll be taking many trips to the shopping mall and Target in an effort to keep the level of boredom to a minimum.

Lisa

Amelia the bee with flowers. 

Halloween comes but once a year

The weather forcast called for sporatic rain today, so my expectations weren't high. But the rain didn't come, so Mike and I took Amelia outside for her long-anticipated flower photo session in her Halloween bee suit.

Ever since I first saw Amelia in her bee costume I have wanted to take her picture with flowers. The first time I tried to do this, at Sears, she was a little sick and her slippers wouldn't fit on her feet - so things didn't go quite as well as I knew they could.

Today Amelia had her new, larger slippers and a happy-go-lucky bounce in her step so we took her outside for pictures. And here's the result...

(If the people at Sears want to hire me for their portrait studio, I'm in the book.)

Lisa

Daddy the bee keeper. 

When in Indiana visit Eeyore's roadside pine cone stand. (As usual, Amelia had great fun with mommy in the damp, cold, October weather.) 

Who needs blocks when there's a whole set of stackable condiments in the fridge? (This is what happens when you leave the refridgerator open in my apartment.) 

But through it all, she took the fall, and did it her way!

Amelia's developing personality is really showing itself in unexpected ways. Today, I believe she had her first toddler temper tantrum. She wanted to see the black ball point pen I was using to write a shopping list this morning, so I capped it and handed it to her. Once she had the pen, she promptly uncapped it (much to mommy's surprise) and grinned mischieveously.

Now, Amelia has raked things along the walls in our apartment before, so I was certainly not going to risk her drawing big black lines along the wall. So, I took the pen away, and she got mad. I had never seen her act this way before. She walked over to the wall and bumped it with her forehead. Then she lay face down on the carpet and started fussing and crying. Wow!

Of course, I did not over-react to this little display. To do so would have ensured a quick repeat of these actions, but I had no idea she would be this mad about a pen. Maybe she was just feeling grouchy this morning.

This isn't the first time Amelia has displayed displeasure in a funny or overly dramatic fashion. A few days ago I was playing Barney's Old MacDonald sing along and Amelia was happy as a clam. Then I thought I would try out the "sing by myself" option and sing the song without Barney, Baby Bop and the kids. Amelia did not like the change. She quickly let me know that this was not how she wanted to experience the song. I had to stop the video immediately and restart the song with Barney's accompaniment.

Now that I think about it, she gave me a funny look today when I was singing along with Barney. Maybe she's getting old enough to realize that mommy REALLY can't sing.

Lisa

Amelia almost looks as if she's enjoying her first carousel ride. 

Our sweet girl

No one doubts that Amelia can be a big bag of sugar when she wants to be, but here's more proof of her sweetness...

First of all, if you could watch Amelia as she blows kisses with a loud smack, you'd know she was a real doll.

But when I put Amelia to bed tonight, she did something that I thought was so darling it made my eyes water. While Amelia was sitting on my lap after her first story she said to me, "I love you."

"Ah," I said, "Did you say you love mommy?" She then leaned over and lay her head on mommy's shoulder. It was so special. She's such a wonderful daughter.

Lisa

A very exciting day for the little one. 

The best way to view animals at the zoo is from daddy's shoulders. 

Amelia's first trip to the zoo.

The weather was great yesterday, and it was expected to be great again today. So, suspecting that great weather days would soon only be a dream I decided today would be the perfect day for Amelia's first trip to the zoo.

My plan had been to get up early, hit the road at eight, and arrive at the zoo shortly after it opened at nine. My thinking was that if we left for the zoo early we could come home around two o'clock and Amelia could get her full afternoon nap in and I could get some homework done this evening.

Well, that was a lovely plan.

Instead, we left here at 9:30 and stayed at the zoo until closing. We then made the relatively short drive over to the Cheesecake Factory and arrived home about 12 hours after we left.

Amelia was a wonderful baby all day (especially considering how tired she must have been). One of the first things we did at the zoo was feed the giraffes. Amelia was not too keen on feeding these long-necked horses. In fact, she seemed a little put off after the first one stretched toward her when she held out a piece of sweet potato.

Amelia's favorite animals at the zoo included the exotic Mallard ducks, the fish, sea lions, penguins and the goats at the petting zoo. We saw some bunnies in a bunny house and Amelia got so excited she started begging, "Down, down." I'm sure she would have crawled right up the ramp to the elevated bunny house if I had put her down in the pen.

Amelia did take one decent nap during the day. Poor sleepy girl fell right to sleep in mommy's arms while we were waiting to get into the dolphin show. She slept through the fun "rev up the audience" Macarena / YMCA / Chicken Dance songs (Mike made the comment that it was almost like experiencing our wedding reception all over again). The dolphin show was almost worth the free admission (though we all liked the Indy zoo, this was not exactly a Sea World, San Diego, dolphin show). As tepid as we found the dolphin show, Amelia thought it was really cool to wake up in a big stadium-type room and see dolphins swimming and jumping down below.

And while the show was kind of weak, I have to say that the dolphin observation dome was really cool.

Another highlight of the trip for me was holding Amelia while she rode the carosel for the first time. We chose a lovely dolphin to ride. Amelia was NOT happy about being on this false dolphin's back. She fussed and squirmed and asked mommy, "up, up!" but I was certain she would enjoy the ride once it started moving. It took a little while, but eventually Amelia became relatively comfortable on the merry-go-round and, in true Amelia form, she fussed when we had to leave the ride behind.

So, we all had a great day. Amelia absolutely loves animals, but she is respectfully cautious around critters of all kinds. She didn't even reach out to pet the guinea pig at the "animal encounter" until she had watched the little guy for a while and had determined that it was all right. I was, in fact, a little concerned that the zoo would be too much for her when she froze at one of the first animals we encountered and clung to mommy in fear...the lemurs were really loud and their yelling scared her.

I hope all of you enjoy the images we brought back from the zoo as much as we enjoyed making them. We took tons of photographs and got some great mini-movies. We will share them with you via e-mail (and maybe here) little by little throughout the week.

Talk at you again soon,
Lisa

Babies size one another up at the zoo. 

Amelia watches Elmo with mild amusement. 

Good news.

Happily, Amelia is no longer sick. Her fever went away Tuesday afternoon. She's been tired and grouchy much of the time since recovering; but at least she doesn't have a fever.

So what was she sick with? We'll never know. She keeps getting sick with "viruses" of various kinds that we can't pin point or identify. I have to believe that her being sick so often now will help protect her against illness when she's older.

Despite her recent irritability, Amelia is demonstrating her usual cleverness at home. This afternoon, while she was enjoying her lunch I noticed her looking at the bunnies on her sleeve and asked her, "How many bunnies are there?" She thought about the question for a moment and then pointed to one with her index finger saying, "One," then moving to "Two." I notice that she will only point and count to 2-3 items, but it's still very impressive for a baby who isn't even a year and a half old.

Amelia used a new word correctly for the first time after lunch. I had just changed her diaper and asked her, "Are you ready for a nap?" to which she responded, "Poop." Well, based on her stature and the sounds she was emitting I was pretty sure she was, well, doing just that. So, I gave her a moment and then changed her diaper a second time before her nap. Such a clever baby. I wonder where she gets it from?

Lisa

P.S. Because of the number of spam messages ("I don't like Spam") I receive on this blog, I have added security features in hopes of reducing the garbage I am exposed to here. Please continue to feel free to post to this blog as you like...as long as you aren't selling or promoting anything.

"Trees...seen it. Can we get back in the warm car, now?" (See why I sometimes say Amelia is part Vulcan?) 

Always lovely Brown county

Since we had friends visiting from out of state yesterday, we decided to take a drive to Brown county. We've all gone to Brown county before and we always enjoy the trip. Of course, we usually try to time our drives with the changing of the leaves. As you can see in this picture, the leaves are still green, for the most part, here in Indiana. Still, the scenery is awsome.

The weather is getting cold here in Indiana. Because it's dropped 20 degrees in one week, 55 degrees feels terribly cold. Amelia didn't seem warm enough in her knit sweater, so I put her coat on last night. The coat's terrific but a tiny bit too small (she got it last year). It might be time for a new coat for the baby.

We all went to dinner together at Casablanca. I discovered that speaking Arabic is especially difficult when you have a fussy baby to tend to. The food and company were great, but Amelia was obviously tired and having a bad time, so I was happy to get her home. At home she seemed much happier taking a bath and playing with her toys. She didn't get to sleep until eleven. She's taking an extra long nap now to make up for yesterday.

This morning Amelia had some oatmeal and a lot of juice. She seemed very hungry and thirsty. Her fever has gone down a little bit and she seems to be in a slightly better mood. While I was feeding her oatmeal the phone rang. It was the funniest thing. Amelia stopped abruptly, just as I was about to put the spoon into her mouth and said, "Phone" pointing to the living room telephone. Maybe she thought I didn't hear it.

Anyway, I'd better get back to cleaning up. I do what I can around here while the baby's asleep. I'm sure you'll hear from us again, soon.

Lisa

The way she holds her wrist, a vampire costume might have been more appropriate. Oh, and her bee slippers were the wrong size...oops! 

My little trooper

Amelia's a little trooper, as most of you know. She woke up with a fever today, but seemed to be feeling better in time for her photo shoot at Sears. Amelia had fun playing at the store, in fact she seemed to enjoy everything except having her picture taken. She refused to stand in her spot and smile. Requests that she do so were met with persistant no's and foot-stomping.

So, we did what we could. A couple of the pictures still turned out really cute. I have already ordered several for each of you. I don't want to ruin the surprise and give you the link to ALL the portraits just yet, enjoy this one for now...

Lisa

So frighteningly cute, it may not be safe to view this toddler, once fully clothed, from the front.

may cause cavities

Warning: If your doctor has warned you to lay off the sweets, you may be unable to see photographs of Amelia in her Halloween costume.

Amelia's bee costume came in the mail today. I have had plans to take her to the rather exclusive "Sears Portrait Studio" once her new outfit arrived in the mail. But, I thought, just to be on the safe side it might be a good idea to check and see if the body of the costume fit. Well, I put Amelia's "bodice" and antennae on and she was just cute as a bug. Plus, she didn't seem bothered one bit by the strange ensemble. I can't wait to see her in the whole thing. Mind you, it may be a while before I can show you her cutie pie professional portraits, but here's a glimpse of what's in store...

Lisa

Mike and Amelia at "the Roadhouse." (And no, Mike isn't drunk...he just seems to have a very difficult time keeping his eyes open for the camera.) 

Amelia's first baby sitter.

Because Michael left for a conference in Las Vegas this morning, I needed a baby sitter to watch Amelia for the couple of hours I would be in class this afternoon. Luckily, Mike was available. "Uncle Mike," Amelia and I have been out to lunches, dinners and trips to the park together before, so he seemed like the perfect person to watch her. In fact, Mike is the first person outside of our immediate families to ever baby sit Amelia. I have to tell you, I wasn't worried in the least.

Amelia didn't seem concerned about being left alone with Mike, either. While Mike fed Amelia lunch and she watched Barney on DVD I attempted to get her attention and let her know I was leaving. Her attitude was pretty blase. Her biggest concern seemed to be that my big head was between her and Barney.

When I got home, everything was fine. The living room was even still pretty well organized. I guess Mike doesn't put up with as much monkey business as I do. He also doesn't change diapers, which resulted in his having to tolerate a very stinking baby for an hour and a half.

I took Mike out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse to thank him for watching the baby. Amelia had a great time at dinner. She seemed very energetic and I thought that might mean that she was extra tired. After her bath, stories and milk I picked Amelia up so that we could say, "good night" to her room. Normally, this part of the routine consists of me bidding everything good night while Amelia fusses and says, "Down! down!" Tonight, when I picked her up, she looked at the kneeling baby on the cross her grandma gave her and waved, saying, "Bye, baby." It was very sweet. She also said goodnight to Winnie the Pooh ("Mee Mew") and the moon.

Amelia's a wonderful girl. We're lucky to have her.
Lisa

I thought apples were red?

I'll take this one! 

Amelia on the farm. 

Amelia on the farm

One of Amelia's favorite videos is "Baby MacDonald" which is all about the farm. In the video, there is a big red barn, lots of fruits and vegetables, and of course the farm animals. So when there was an opportunity to visit a REAL farm, I thought it might be something Amelia would enjoy.

Lisa was working in Chicago so Amelia and I went up to Wisconsin to visit our friends Jason, Ruth, and their newborn Leah. We made plans to go to a farm where you go and pick your own crops and pay on your way out. So I dressed Amelia in her "farm clothes" (overalls) and we were on our way.

It was a beautiful, clear day, perfect weather for a farm expedition. We parked right next to a big red barn just like in Amelia's video. As soon as we got out of the car Amelia made a mad dash for the pumpkin patch. She learned, very quickly, that pumpkins were fun to touch and to sit on. She also learned the word, "pumpkin." We found a small pumpkin and Amelia picked it up, walked over to our cart, and put it in. That pumpkin is in our kitchen now.

We then went by some of the animals. There were several chickens and a couple of roosters. Amelia was playing in the grass when she heard the rooster's "cock-a-doodle-doo!" She looked up, then whirled around toward the direction of the sound, and froze. The rooster called again and you could tell she knew what was going on. So we moseyed over and Amelia was excited to be looking (through the wire fence) at all of the chickens and roosters. She would point and say, "chicken" and "bock-bock." They were giving her lots of attention and some other children were feeding the chickens through the fence. Amelia put her hand up to the fence and one chicken thought Amelia had some food. Long story short, Amelia got pinched. But she wasn't hurt at all, she just stared at her hand, then back at the chickens, then at her hand again. At that point we moved on to the apples.

The main crop at this farm, apparently, is apples - lots of different kinds of them. Amelia enjoyed running among the apple trees and picking up things off the ground. Every time she finds something she runs over to me, holds out her hand and, while giving me the stick, leaf, or blade of grass, Amelia says "thank you." This time, she played this game with apples. Amelia knew about the red apples, but here she learned that apples can be green, too. She gave me a couple so we added them to the cart.

It was pretty sunny so Amelia and I spent some time in the shade while Ruth and Jason went to pick some vegetables. Here we found a few more animals - some rabbits, and a pig. When we came across the goats, Amelia wasn't sure what they were so she called them "doggies," "sheep," "horses," and "cows" (they were black and white). What also confused her is that they sounded a lot like sheep ("BAAAAA"). I'll confess, I didn't know for sure what they were either, until I saw the sign "Don't feed the goats!"

We also saw some ducks in a round pen. Amelia thought it was fun to chase the ducks around the pen. She and another child were at one point on opposite sides of the circle. Those poor ducks didn't know what to do with themselves.

By now Ruth and Jason were ready so we went into the big red barn to check out. While we were waiting a couple of farm kids (a boy and a girl) played with Amelia. The little boy had a toy car with flashing lights which he shared with Amelia. She was a good girl, she took turns playing with it and gave it back without a problem. Amelia was also patient with the little girl who was trying to play with Amelia's hair. Eventually the boy ended up chasing his sister around and around Amelia who was in her stroller - it was pretty funny to watch Amelia taking all of this in - just staring at them with a look of bemused curiosity.

After paying for our one pumpkin and five apples (only 75 cents!) our day on the farm was finished. So we said goodbye to the animals, plants, and the big red barn, and left to pick up Lisa. It wasn't long before Amelia was asleep in the car. An exciting day on the farm.

The daddies take their girls for a walk while mommy's defending democracy. 

Weekend fun

Mike and Amelia traveled up to Chicago with me this weekend. It was really nice to have my family around. Of course, they continued up to Wisconsin and visited with Jason and Ruth on Saturday while I was at work. There they got to see baby Leah and pick apples on a local farm whle I was doing my Navy thing.

Mike had Ruth take a picture of the daddies with their daughters out on the farm and I thought it was great. Hopefully, Mike will write more about his trip to Wisconsin while I'm bathing Amelia.

Lisa