What's Amelia doing?

That's the question I often find myself asking Amelia, and then answering it for her. I guess this is how babies learn to talk. I also ask her "Where's Amelia going?" when I put her into the stroller or in the car seat, as a way of distracting her. She generally doesn't like to be put into things.

Anyway, I thought Amelia's fans might like to know what she's been up to these days. She is currently taking a late and, I hope, long nap after an exciting trip to the DMV. We have already taken two trips to the emissions testing station (the second not because we failed the test but because we had to get the "VIN" verified, something I didn't know and thus didn't have enough money to pay for the first time). She did well on all three trips, demonstrating yet again both her portability and her agreeableness. She actually seems to have a good time on these errands, because there are a lot of other people around with little to do except watch her play and coo and drool and smile and attempt to crawl, and Amelia loves an audience.

It's kind of astounding to both Dean and me how social Amelia is. When you point a camera at her, she gets all Vogue and drops her chin and smiles prettily. When she sees strangers, she stares at them till they look at her, then starts to flirt. If someone does not pay attention to her she is confused and slightly upset. She is a social bee. She did not get this from me or from Dean.

Here she is posing with some trail mix.



The nap turned out to be very short so I will give a summary of a few more Amelia facts. Her top front teeth are S-L-O-W-L-Y coming in. She is not crawling but has pulled herself up to a standing position by gripping a chair or something similar (such as the large stuffed elephant I bought at Goodwill for $5) several times. She very much likes to play with balls. She squeals and kicks her legs when you roll one to her. I think she understands "Hi!" and "Bye!" and waving to signal these things. She has been pitching huge crying fits at bathtime recently; we think it is because she is so tired by bathtime that she just can't go on. But she has been going to sleep at 6:30 and waking up at 5:15. (At 5:15, I shut her door, and we sort of ignore her cooing till it turns to a loud fuss around 5:45.) She will still spend a relatively long time pulling toys and items out of baskets, which is what she is doing now.

And yawning. Because of the short nap.