Man I love those church ladies

I love this pic.

Yep, you're seeing that right, those are pig tails.

This Sunday I completed a huge feat: We went to church. This means I dropped Amelia off at the nursery for the first time. As if it weren't difficult enough for me to leave her with my own twin sister, now I dropped her off with some smiley old lady who allowed me zero time to give my long, dramatic goodbye, let alone even see the nursery (which I didn't). She literally reached over the counter, took Amelia from me and whisked her away into the unknown. I had to tell myself to close my mouth as I watched the back of Amelia's cute little head, name tag stuck to her back, bob down the hall with the cheery, wrinkly lady. But after some thought, I realized that old lady knew exactly what she was doing: sparing us the drama and embarrassment that is created by an overbearing, first-time mom. Those church ladies, what a sharp set of gals.

I picked up Amelia after the service. She appeared to have a great time doing who-knows-what for an hour, and now we're experiencing the inevitable cold that follows her exposure to the general public. I can't help but compare the repercussions of that crazy hour at the nursery to a wild night out that we'd have in college, that we'd pay for with a hang over. Life's funny that way I guess.

Also...Amelia made the swim team. Lessons start next week, I can't wait!

sorry, Mills.

The other day Me and Amelia went to Fred Meyer for a few groceries; a fantastic activity for her right now. We leisurely wondered the store, she strained around me to make eye contact with every soul in there, and try to find anything that resembled a big shiny balloon. (As all mom's know, it's a great way to kill 45 minutes). We finished up and were heading out to the parking lot, feeling the early spring's warm air. As usual, I had my wallet in my pocket, groceries in one hand, and Amelia on the other arm. As we approached the truck, it hit me: "KEYS." Yep, I locked 'em in the truck when I was first pulling Amelia out. I called Grant who happened to be working in the area. Not wanting to go back inside the store, I opened the tailgate and Amelia and I climbed in the truck bed and waited.

If you know me well, you know I forget things, a lot. I always have. In high school our parents ALWAYS had to bring us our forgotten mit, jersey, book, lunch, tennishoes, etc.. And fortunately we were in a small enough town that anyone could find one of us and say, "uh, you left your passenger seat door wide open in the parking lot". In college Meg and I survived only because there were two of us to bring what the other forgot due to a desperate call from our cell phone, or Grant was always our savior; walking behind us in any public place with our forgotten purses, keys, licenses, coats, etc.

So, as I'm sitting in the bed of my truck in the Fred Meyer parking lot with my 11 month old daughter, I couldn't help but think, "I'm sorry, Amelia, for bringing you into my life of irresponsibility. This won't be the last time we'll be sitting, waiting for dad to bring us something I've forgotten. In fact, this is only the beginning of me stopping dead in my tracks saying 'oh crap!' and fumbling for my cell phone to call for help." I hope this is something we can all learn together, this "responsibility" thing. Who knows, maybe Amelia will be so tired of me forgetting things that she will always be the one to remember and remind us of all of our items....when she's two.

What's happening at 11 months?

Amelia will be 11 months old in 5 days. Things are happening so fast now! Here's a laundry list of what's new:

She is starting to stand (hands free), and it is one of the most exciting things to watch!

She says mama, dada, Cash (At-sssttthh), and my mom said she told her to "top! top!" (stop) while she was wiping her face.

She's starting to enjoy Cash's huge kisses, she crawls over to him and puts her face right next to his mouth, he licks her, and then she grabs the sides of his head or sometimes his snout, to try to get him to do it again.

She loves to be chased by us, but stops and waits after a few feet to let us tickle her.

At meal times, when she gets bored in her seat, she grabs and lightly pulls a few strands of hair from the back of her head. Needless to say, after oatmeal or cinnamon toast with butter, she has a pretty stylin' "moussed up" do.

It seems like everytime I pull her out of her carseat and lift her out into the fresh air of wherever we're going (grocery store, grandma's, the park), she sticks her head out, smiles, and squeals like it's the first time I've ever let her out of our house.

I know this is not uncommon, but she imitates me when I'm on the phone, saying "la-la-la-la-la-la-la" with a few clicks of the tongue in between the "la"s. It's a "baby language", and it is hilarious.

So, that's what's new at 11 months. Whew!

Gotta love Dad

As much as I vowed never to be the wife that hands her husband the fussy baby the moment he walks through the door so that SHE can get dinner finished, I totally am. But, the good news is, I happened to have married the best first-time dad there is. Amelia is going on her seventh tooth, which means that towards the end of the day, she's not all hugs and giggles. However, here's a quick little story that I hope I never forget:

I pulled one of these evening hand-offs, as described above, yesterday. I handed Grant a fussy little Amelia and took off downstairs to take care of laundry (sooooo important, right?). As I walk upstairs, I hear a now-silent Amelia, and Grant saying, "ya ready? Ready?" Before I could begin to imagine what stunt they were performing, Grant whisks by in front of me, bent over, shuffling backwards down our hardwood hall, holding onto the end of a blankie. Next Amelia's happy, round face and dimples, two teeth poking up and three whisping hairs slides by grinning at me. He'd propped her up on a pillow on the other end of the blanket, and was giving her a quick tow down the hall. As you can imagine, this was followed by some cackling. What would I do without him?

lost but not forgotten

I received a call from the tech who tried to retrieve the data from my hard drive, and the worst is true: they cannot get the photos. For $700-$2700 I can send the hard drive to California where they may be able to get the photos and data by internally entering the hard drive. This means Grant and I are either going to have to get rich or wait until advances in technology will make it cheaper to retrieve the data. Until then I have facebook photos, anything I've emailed, this blog and memories. If anything, when all is done, Amelia is old, and I walk through the pearly white gates to meet my Maker, I can see Him sitting in a big white swivel office chair at a beautiful computer desk, spinning around and waving me over to go through all the lost photos on His computer with me. Can't wait :)

Cash's "work-in-progress"

They've been working on this for a few days now.

You're the mom, do something!

Since my little sweetums is learning more about the world, picking up patterns and consistencies, learning routines, cause and effect, etc., she is really perfecting her "fake cry". She's been fine-tuning it for about a week or so now, and it's almost Oscar-worthy at this point. She's learned how to push her voice and pitch, and switch from the front of her mouth to a shrill back-of-the-throat cry, and really scrunch up her face to emphasize her opposition. We all know, practice makes perfect.

But now that we have some "behavior" issues coming to fruition, I seem to be having a hard time deciding what kind of parent I'm going to be. Do I nip it in the bud? Play tough mom and make her scream so she learns how to figure it out herself at the tender age of 9 months? Sounds like a lot of work, but good results. Or, do I try to prevent her from ever crying, creating a sense of great security that makes her feel confident all the time, not needing to cry because she knows I'll come at a moment's notice. Well, I have no idea. But I know whatever I do, it needs to be consistent. So, I've come to a crossroad that will have a huge impact on both of us for the next few years.

It's kind of funny, though, because I find myself walking to her screaming on the floor, wanting me to pick her up or what-not, and I'm just kind of staring at her, not really knowing what to do. Sometimes it makes her stop crying because she's confused and in suspense of what I'm doing. But I just don't know. So I just stare at her, her face frozen amidst a fit. I'm sure I'll figure something out, choose a new "parenting philosophy" that's somewhere in the middle of compassionate and stern. But for now, there's just a lot of me frozen in indecision, and real confusion on Amelia's part. I wonder, do all mom's do this? Or am I overthinking my responses of her behavior to the point of "no-response"? Maybe it's the curse of just having one kid, whereas with more children you don't have time to evaluate the pro/con of each response. I guess we'll just have to see wait and see what kind of mom I'm going to be.