Diana's statistics

Last Thursday, Diana had her six month well-baby check-up. She is, of course, doing great. Her weight hasn't gone up a whole lot these past few weeks, despite her obvious love of solid food, but she's still growing. Diana now weighs 16 lbs. 8 oz. which puts her at the 50 percentile for her age. She's 27 inches tall (90th percentile) and has a slightly larger than average noggin (52nd percentile).

Diana was not thrilled to be at the doctor's office, and wiggled and squirmed in her car seat while waiting for her check-up. Amelia, on the other hand, loves going to see the doctor because she isn't the one getting a shot, she gets to play with different toys in the examination room, and she goes home eating the lollipop Diana can't have (because she's too young).

Amelia has been a real crack-up recently, let me tell you. Her speech is getting better and better every day. She hasn't grown much since turning two, but her vocabulary and command of grammar and syntax is improving every day. The other morning, while watching her morning DVD selection, Amelia turned to mommy and said, "I'm learning how to spell." I was really impressed with that statement and Amelia was, in fact, speaking the truth. You may be surprised to know that Amelia can spell the names of a dozen different animals at the tender age of two. She knows all of the animals in her book "Jane's Animal Expedition" and spells the names as she reads. It's fun to hear her spell out words as she goes. Over the past several weeks I have learned from Amelia that:

"D-O-G spells dog."

"D-O-G spells seal."

"D-O-G spells coyote."

"D-O-G spells giraffe..." and a dozen other words.

There actually is one other phrase that Amelia is learning to spell correctly besides "dog" and that's Iron Man (no kidding)!

Another thing Amelia does that everyone loves is when she makes up the lyrics to her own songs and sings them aloud. Normally whoever happens to be listening is the only one who gets to enjoy these adorable melodies, but Mike had the forethought to write down a few lines as Amelia sang them. This is some of what Amelia sang while waiting in the car as I visited the DMV (a favorite past time)...

"Flying in the sky is so much fun
and there's letters on the house.
Waiting for mommy to come back..."

I almost wish we could keep a recorder on hand to get all of these gems as they emerge, but I guess that isn't practical. Still, I'll try to keep sharing Amelia's quips when I hear and remember them.

I also have to tell you that Amelia has been helping mommy assemble furniture. As I was bolting a storage unit together she picked up a screw and looked for a way to help mommy by putting it in its proper place. I showed her where to put that screw, and then another, and then asked her where she thought the fourth screw should go. Amelia found exactly the right pre-drilled hole and put the bolt where it belonged. I was very impressed.

Of course, all of the help Amelia provides is appreciated, though not all of it is, um, great. As I was working on this particular piece of furniture I was startled to hear a terrible scraping sound to my right. Sure enough there was Amelia dragging a piece of wood across the tile to where mommy was working. I smiled and said, "Thank you" though I was really concerned about the state of the dragged wood.

Lisa