Some of our favorites:

Amelia is SO close to walking, she can almost taste it. She doesn’t quite realize, we think, that she can keep her balance without someone’s steadying her, but she can. Paradoxically, she’s also getting much closer to crawling – wouldn’t it be funny if she learned both at once?

Of course all these impending milestones, in addition to the continuous teething, mean that sleep is pretty restless these days. We made a big change (which I think will work well in the long run) to our bedroom when we got back from vacation – we put our futon mattress on the floor and put Amelia’s crib mattress next to it so that everyone can sleep together with a lot more room! I’ve realized that I really cherish the time Amelia and I spend snuggling at night, especially considering how little time we have together during the day, and that I’m OK with a few night wakings as long as I’m confident that she’s waking me up and not vice versa. So we’re going to keep sleeping in a family bed for the time being, and having more room is really helping me, even if she’s sleeping badly these days.

The poor sleep has obviously taken its toll on the blog; my apologies there. We had a blast in Oregon but it was hell on the routine, so the last two weeks have been a lot of chaos yearning toward order. I was given some of the toys from my childhood when I was in Oregon and I shipped them to Texas. I am so grateful that my mother preserved these blocks, books, puzzles and other wonderful wooden toys that I remember playing with – every time I see Amelia playing with them, I feel so happy! And I can’t wait to introduce her to the books that helped shape my childhood so profoundly. Looking through them brought back fond memories and even if everything isn’t perfectly PC these days – I’ll take some pictures of our beloved cloth book about pockets (“For Girls 2-6″) – it’s still awesome cool to pass these toys on to my daughter.