Crawling

Do I need to say anything else? Alicia's crawling. She's not up on all fours. She's somewhat stuck on her belly, but that girl moves. It's actually made her more fussy. She gets tired, gets stuck, or just doesn't get. So it's good. Very good.

She's nine months now. And also one year. Silly girl.

She's eating more and more. She still doesn't eat a whole baby food jar in one day. A decent meal for Licia might be six tiny pieces of carrot or pancake. Yes, pancake. She got to a point where she wouldn't let us in with a spoon at all. So we thought, well, let's just try tiny pieces of food. And she loved it. Now she'll take a spoon again too. Perhaps that milk doesn't satisfy quite like it used to.

And she's got no fluid in her ears! Not for now anyway. It can still be a problem for babes for a few years. But for today, it's okay. We'll just have to wait and see, just like with most everything else.

Baby girl Licia didn't gain any weight in November. Her new pediatrician wasn't worried though. That's nice of him. This breastfeeding mama tried to take it in stride. Alicia is so very active that she doesn't drink for a very long time. In breast milk, the fat comes at the end, so a babe who drinks for but a short time won't get as much fat. So I'm deciding to have more patience and make sure I let her suckle longer when I put her to sleep. Another thing to do is to feed more often. When you feed more often, the body increases the overall fat content of the milk. Smart body.

Alicia really does get the lion's share of the attention around here. How's Toby? Oh, crabby as ever. He's really quite two these days. He'll adamantly demand yes, and then no, and then be in tears with his yes, and then comes the no and the pounding fist. Poor kid. We just wait till he's done.

Toby has been clearly putting more of the world around him together. He's been asking what his friends' moms' names are. Now he's moving on to ages. He's determined that I must be three. He'll hold up three fingers and say, "Mama, are you this many?" He's been counting. About half the time he gets to the right number of objects. The other half of the time he just keeps right on counting. If you're looking for the good phrases, here's one. The other day I asked Josh if he had any plans for the day and Toby declared, "I have plans to start over." Josh and I cracked up. Toby kept on talking and Josh recognized the story of Noah. It was God who had plans to start over and Toby who was pulling out a sentence he knew that seemed to fit with the current conversation.

A dear friend taught us to use questions with the wee ones. Everything is a question, even if it's just, "Should we put on your left shoe or your right shoe first?" We started using this with Toby about the time our friend had started with her boy, but it didn't work on Toby for a long time. We thought Toby might not be understanding. Now, we think he might just be too smart for that. As in, smart ass. We visited the Porch and Toby loved seeing his friends (he sees the kids from there often). Josh asked, "Toby would you like to say good-bye to your friends or just go?" Toby replied, "I think that question not good." He's just like his dad.

My dad is coming tomorrow to visit for a week. We're so used to Josh's parents coming, but it'll be funny to have my dad. I'm hoping that it won't be the last time he stays with us.

Then on the 20th, we'll be flying up to Canada till the 28th. Actually, we're flying to Seattle and driving up. All of Josh's sibs will be there. I have high expectations for this Christmas. And it will be good to not be around here with my memories of last Christmas. The highlight of last Christmas was getting to hold my daughter for 40 minutes. Hmmm. I think about the hospital a lot these days. We'll never be the same again.

Josh asked me, "So when Alicia is eating and crawling and talking what will you worry about?" Hmmm. None of this emotion passes quickly. There's no waking up one morning and realizing there's nothing more to worry about. Worry-worthy things have been hitting me like bugs on a windshield for too long now. But yes, Alicia is belly-crawling and eating and life is good.