The usual suspects. 

She keeps you running

Amelia is quite the little explorer. She has recently become fairly fast on her feet and is always in the mood to go "walking."

Yesterday, as we were out exploring, Amelia met an 18 month old girl who lives in our complex and her grandparents. At first, the toddlers were content to glance at one another from a distance, but after a while they grew curious and started getting a little closer. Eventually, the 18 month old was following after Amelia as she walked down sidewalks and back and forth over strangers' porches. It was pretty funny to watch. Amelia was faster and more agile than her little friend, but she would sometimes slow down and look behind her as if waiting for the little one to catch up.

Today I took Amelia to the doctor's office for my baby check-up. She was a good girl, as usual, but could not prevent herself from walking around and around the waiting room. Though a cartoon show was on the t.v., she kept encircling the room, occasionally taking mommy's hand and asking me to walk with her.

I guess at some point she got tired of wandering around the same chairs because she walked right out the front door and into the adjacent hallway. I got up and walked after her and found her half-way down a hall. I was happy that at least this was a dead end, but then Amelia found a door propped open and walked right on inside like she owned the place. I rushed after her and found her in the midst of an administrative office behind a door marked, "Private."

Though Amelia's awfully cute, the workers did not seem terribly amused with her arrival. Embarrassed, I excused us and brought Amelia back to the waiting room. She was content for approximately five seconds, and then made her way around the chairs and back out the door. Ugh! I followed after her again and passed a surprised couple who were pointing after her as she headed down the hall. I assured them I was on top of things and followed Amelia past the office doors in the hallway.

This time, all of the office doors were closed, and Amelia had no where to go. I picked her up and headed back to the waiting room. On the way I was met by a nurse asking, "Are you Lisa?"

After my appointment, Amelia proved her ingenuity by dropping her pig not once but twice, knowing that by dropping her pig I would set her down to get it. She would pick up her favorite piggy and immediately start to take off toward the examining rooms. If nothing else, she sure is a clever one.

In an unrelated story, as I was giving Amelia a bath I lifted my shirt to scratch my belly (pregnant bellies tend to itch) and Amelia saw my belly button. When I put my shirt back down she said, "Up, up" to see it again. She then sat in the bath, gestured toward my tummy and said (no kidding), "Baby in there." It was very sweet and again very clever for a little girl.

There's supposed to be some rain coming in tomorrow. I hope we can get out and walk before it gets wet. Mommy and Amelia look forward to daddy's return on Saturday, and mommy especially looks forward to some help entertaining Amelia.

Lisa

Mommy and Amelia enjoying the sunshine. 

Daddy's growing fan club at the park. (Amelia really missed daddy tonight. When we read "Pat the Bunny" and Judy got to feel daddy's scratchy face, Amelia was desperate to go downstairs and feel daddy's stubbly chin.) 

The long arm of Amelia

Amelia's reach is getting greater, which means that we have to exercise even more caution around the house than ever before.

For example, only a couple of days ago I was making Amelia a fried egg for breakfast. (She likes a hot breakfast like her dad does.) After scrambling her egg a bit I turned around and saw Amelia on the verge of pulling the carton containing the remaining half-dozen eggs off a kitchen counter. Luckily I moved quickly and prevented an awful mess.

A couple days later Amelia wanted some water to drink. I have been giving her small Dixie cups full of water hoping she would practice holding and drinking from the cups. So far, she only drinks from a cup if mommy or daddy holds it for her.

Well, she started to act disinterested in the water, so I sat it on the kitchen counter and returned to the living room. A few moments later, Amelia wanders out of the kitchen with the cup in her hand, a soaked shirt, and a confused look on her face. Admittedly, this was pretty cute.

At Texas Roadhouse Monday night Amelia was unhappy because she was unable to reach a pair of balloons tied to the opposite end of a neighboring table. Though she tried to climb over mommy to reach the balloons, she was unsuccessful. After mommy and daddy assured her that she would get a balloon after we finished dinner, she seemed to settle down a bit.

Then a terrible thing happened: The family sitting at our neighboring table got up to leave and took their balloons with them. Amelia began to cry desperately, reaching out to the balloons. Mike and I suspected that she may have thought those were the balloons we promised her for after dinner, and now they were walking away. She cried so hard and so pitifully it made a few other customers laugh. Again, she was awfully cute.

And she did get her balloon on our way out the door. This is a girl who really loves balloons.

Lisa

1, 2, 3...Amelia at a year old and now almost two.  

Licorice? Bleh! 

So much in common.

Sometimes I'm surprised at how much Amelia and I have in common. At the risk of sounding like an overly-indulgent parent, I gave Amelia the jelly bean she was asking for this morning. She carried the pink jelly bean around for a while, licking it every once in a while, but finally decided to give it back to mommy (which is what she usually does with jelly beans).

Since she had tasted, but not eaten, the first jelly bean she decided she needed a new one. I brought her back into the kitchen and pulled a jelly bean out of her Easter basket. I noticed it was black when I gave it to her, but didn't think much of it. Unlike the first jelly bean, she put this one straight into her mouth and bit into it. I caught a slight whiff of licorice and as I turned back to the cereal (we did eat a real breakfast today) I said aloud, "I didn't like black licorice when I was a little girl; I wonder if you'll like it."

The answer came quickly. After some contemplation Amelia decided that she really did not like licorice and spit the jelly bean out and onto the floor. Black candy juice was all over her face, but she didn't seem unhappy in the least. And admittedly, I had to laugh. I remembered a story about being a young girl and "sharing" a packet of candy coins with my little brother by giving him all of the black candies, which I didn't like.

To put your minds at ease, Amelia is now enjoying Cheerios, half a buttermilk biscuit and some banana. Believe me, we don't eat candy for breakfast around here (sweets on an empty stomach don't agree with me anyway).

Lisa

(From yesterday) - Mike enjoys birthday shortcake while wearing his cool new birthday shades. 

Happy Easter from Amelia. 

Happy Easter!

A very happy Easter from Amelia, Lisa and Mike. Hopefully by now all of the grandparents have received their Amelia Easter photos. It was so nice to have a holiday photo turn out well for a change.

I took Amelia to the mall on Tuesday to meet the Easter bunny. I dressed her in the pretty spring Easter dress I bought during one of my reserve duty weekends in North Chicago. I had no idea how Amelia would respond to seeing a giant white rabbit. When we went to the mall for a Christmas photo, she refused to sit on Santa's lap. Santa was a strange, bearded man in red to her - so she got her photo taken on mommy's lap, next to Santa.

Apparently, bearded men in red suits are scary for Amelia, but giant bunnies are fun and cute. Amelia started grinning as soon as she saw the Easter bunny. When I sat her on bunny's lap she just grinned and grinned like this was the funnest thing she'd done all day.

Still, it strikes me as funny that while a strange man is scary a giant "Harvey-sized" rabbit is not. Amelia just has a different idea about what's cute and what's not than mommy does. As another example, while we were playing outside last week Amelia noticed a large black ant on the sidewalk. Her first response was to giggle and say, "Cute!" She even reached out to pet the ant, but I calmly told her that ants can give a pinch if you pet them, so she left him alone. Still, every time she encounters an ant or a winged termite or another other kind of bug her first response is to smile and say, "Cute!"

Lisa

P.S. Coincidentally, Mike and Amelia came in the house from playing outdoors just as I was posting this entry. Mike told me a funny story about Amelia encountering a black ant, waving her hand over the ant as if to pet it and saying, "Soft!" Yep, she's a cutie-pie.

I guess it's mommy's turn to be silly at the park. 

More language milestones

I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but at Amelia's age children seem to learn words every day. Yesterday, as I drove to school to pick up Michael, Amelia asked repeatedly, "Where you going?" After a trip through the Starbuck's drive-through (where I normally get iced tea and a snack to keep me awake in class) Amelia started asking, "Where pound cake?" It was too funny. She knows a trip through the drive through normally means pound cake to share with mommy, but yesterday I was oddly not in the mood, so we shared an oatmeal cookie I had with me.

Last night we had a terrible storm. It hit Bloomington just before 4:30 a.m. I had been laying in bed watching the lightning outside my bedroom window when the lightning became so close the flash and thunderclap awoke Michael. Amelia awoke too, though she didn't seem too upset by the whole thing.

Mike brought Amelia into our room, in case she was scared (didn't seem to be) and shortly afterward the tornado siren sounded - great. So we all went downstairs (it is much safer to be downstairs in a storm) and Michael brought up weather.com to see what was going on.

A huge storm was then passing over central Indiana. The storm made a huge, colorful impression on the Doppler radar. Trying to figure out what the colored shape was, Amelia started calling it a butterfly. Admittedly, it did look a tiny bit like a butterfly...and it did flutter as it moved.

A few minutes later Amelia started saying, "Crap...crap." Mike and I laughed. Mike asked, "Did she just say what I think she said?" I told him, after some thought, that Amelia was simply producing a form that reflected her developing phonotactics, which included final consonant devoicing. (I bet you're all jealous you don't live with a linguist.) So basically, Amelia was just saying "crab." The storm was moving sideways...and did kind of look like a crab.

Once we discovered the error, and giggled a little more, Mike muttered under his breath, "No, you were right the first time, this is crap."

The storm passed. Amelia went back to sleep with no problem. She was never scared or worried, she was just thrilled to be able to spend some time with mommy and daddy.

Lisa

Amelia in a spring dress and sandles...something we haven't seen in quite some time. 

Belly comparison

I have been saying, throughout this pregnancy, that my belly seems to be bigger than it was when I was pregnant with Amelia. But, because that was almost two years ago, I couldn't be sure that I was right. So I decided to have Mike take a picture of me in the same maternity clothes I wore when I was pregnant two years ago.

Looking at these photographs it doesn't seem that there's much difference between mommy's first pregnancy at 27 weeks and this pregnancy at 25 weeks. Yet, I have noticed that the pants that fit me rather well two years ago now continually fall down (friends have suggested suspenders...not gonna happen).

I think I may have figured out what it is that makes my clothes fit so differently today than they did when I was pregnant with Amelia. The first clue came while I was visiting a Navy doctor so that he could sign my waiver for the coming Physical Fitness Test. (I know I would fail the weigh-in at this point, and I certainly couldn't do 60-70 sit-ups, which is my norm.) The doctor, whose wife is also pregnant, commented that second pregnancies often sit lower than first pregnancies.

Now, this makes sense. If you just look at my belly size, it seems about the same. But if you look at how much distance now appears between the bottom front edge of my shirt and my belly, you can see a significant difference.

Anyway, I'm not sure this is interesting to y'all, but I'm happy that the riddle has been solved. I do think that if I take photos to mark my progressively bigger baby belly during this pregnancy that maybe I should choose a new outfit. It's difficult to tell a 35-year old pregnant Lisa from a 37-year old pregnant Lisa if she's in the same get-up.

Lisa

Amelia assists daddy in his note taking. 

Jiggity jig

Everyone's home again. Amelia's enjoying "The Hephalump Movie" on her custom crayon-decorated portable DVD player and Mike's going through our old mail.

The trip to the airport was exciting. Once again the weather was threatening hail and tornadoes. I have to say, I'm pretty sick and tired of hearing tornado sirens. I guess that's just a typical spring here in Indiana.

The funniest thing about being home is that as soon as we walked through the door, Michael noticed a message on our answering machine. The message was, yes, another request that Mike travel to California for a job interview. The day he comes home he has another offer to travel out west, it's just too funny.

So, we'll see what happens with this latest offer. Right now it sounds like Mike will be in California again this month, though only briefly, and without Amelia.

Lisa

Both a name and a tribute

When friends see me the first thing they ask is, "Are you having a boy or a girl?" When I tell them that we're having another little girl their next question is, "What do you plan to name her?"

Well, as you remember, when I was pregnant with Amelia Michael and I were very hush-hush about the names we were considering for our daughter. We were worried that other people's opinions of the name we had selected would influence us and we might end up naming her something that we liked less to please others. We also thought it would be a bad idea to let one grandparent think that he or she had chosen our daughter's name when there were six grandparents to consider.

Parents tend to loosen up a bit when they have a second child, and I guess I'm no exception. And it doesn't seem right that I should be telling friends and fellow reservists what I think is the perfect name for our baby girl without sharing it with family. Michael agrees, grudgingly, so I am going to go ahead and let all of you know the name we're sold on for our daughter.

First, let me say that Michael wasn't crazy about this name the first few times I said it. But since he was the one who originally suggested "Amelia" it seemed reasonable that I should suggest our second daughter's name. This name comes from two of my favorite characters from BBC series that I love: Absolutely Fabulous and The Black Adder. The name I adore and that Michael has grown to love as well is Edwina Pearl.

I'm sure the name sounds a bit odd the first time you say it, but put it together with our last name and it sounds terrific! Plus, I think it's a great tribute to two of my favorite television characters: Edina Monsoon (seen on the left in the photograph above) and Edmund Lord Blackadder.

Pearl made the most sense of all the middle names we tested. First of all, "July" would have been a terrible name, if we had tried to name her after the month in which she was born (as we did with Amelia Mae). But because Pearl is the July birth stone, and goes great with Edwina, it suits as a baby's name really well.

So I hope you're as excited and eager to meet little Edwina Pearl as we are. You know, she kicked at the doctor's Doppler while she was listening to her heartbeat during my last appointment. Edwina's a perfectly spunky name, and our daughter is obviously a very spunky girl.

Speaking of spunky girls, I sure do miss Amelia. It was nice hearing her on the phone tonight saying, "mommy, mommy." I wish I had brought my webcam to Chicago with me. Oh, and before I close this message I want to tell all of you: April fools!

Lisa