Month Thirteen

Dear Amelia,

Today you are thirteen months old. You are developing into such a joyful little girl, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. We went for your one year checkup on January 4th – you were 28 1/4 inches long and you weighed 16 pounds. Your doctor isn’t really worried about your weight (which has almost fallen off of the charts again) because your height and head circumference are increasing right on track (25th percentile). He just says that you are just a very petite little girl! You have started sleeping through the night with increasing regularity – you haven’t nursed at night for a few weeks now, and you only nurse three times a day (first thing in the morning, at lunchtime and right before bed). Some days I think you are ready to give up the lunchtime feeding, but other days I’m not so sure. I think I’m going to try to keep up that feeding until flu season is over, and then we’ll go down to just two nursing sessions per day. I’m hoping to keep those two sessions as long as you’ll let me – I just love having that special time with you.

You are getting much more mischievous these days – a few weeks ago I stopped you just as you were about to throw an entire deck of cards into the toilet! You know you aren’t allowed to play with the power cord for my laptop, but you will still cruise over to grab it . . . once you get your hands on it, you’ll look up at me and shake your head “no”, because you know that’s exactly what I am going to tell you. We have a sideboard behind the dining room table and you know you aren’t allowed to play in it (it holds some of our extra dishes). Often times though, when I am working in the kitchen you’ll head over to it and start opening the doors. I stop what I’m doing and just watch you play – as soon as you turn around and see me looking at you, your eyes get really big and you plop down onto your bottom. A few times you even started crying because you know I’m going to fuss at you for playing where you aren’t supposed to.

It still surprises me when you do what I ask – you comprehend so much of what I say! I can ask you to hand me a ball, put your paci back in your crib, or bring me a book and you will do just that! You love helping, and will do so every chance you get. One thing in particular you like to help me do is clean up the floor. Shelby has a few toys that leave little bits of fuzz everywhere. You like to crawl around to gather the pieces and bring them to me so I can throw them away. You’re such a great little helper!

Daddy and I are trying to teach you different parts of the body (eyes, ears, nose, mouth, arms, legs etc.). So far you can’t tell us what/where things are, but you sure are showing an interest! You notice when I am wearing my glasses, and point to them often. When you are nursing you will gently touch/point to my eyes, and when you do I say “those are my eyes” and then I’ll point to yours and say “and these are your eyes” -  I can almost see the cogs in your brain working to process the information. It is so amazing to watch you learn new things! One morning I put some cheerios on your highchair tray, poured myself a bowl of cereal and sat down to eat with you. You fussed and whined until I put your cereal in a bowl and gave you a spoon of your own. You couldn’t get the cereal on the spoon and into your mouth, but you would hold the spoon in one hand, pick up a cheerio with the other hand and touch it to the spoon before putting it in your mouth. Even though you can’t use the spoon to feed yourself, you definitely know what it is for!

In the evenings when Daddy gets home from work you two have a whole lot of fun. You and Daddy have a game you like to play . . .  you crawl all over our bed and Daddy hides on the floor, popping up to surprise you. You shriek with laughter and roll all over the bed. You also like to “wrestle” with him, which is really just Daddy picking you up and gently tossing you back onto the bed – you laugh hysterically and quickly crawl back so he can do it again and again. I just love watching my two favorite people play together! Sometimes I think my heart will burst because it’s so full of love, and I wonder what I have done to deserve the two of you.

Love, Mama

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