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.

I promised some folks at Montessori to post some updates as we traveled. It has been quite a trip so far. Our first milestone was realizing on the way home Tuesday I noticed Amelia had two little teeth poking up through her gums. Andrea and I both a little anxious for this milestone but I don’t know if was our preferred timing.

Getting out of Texas was tough in and of itself. We made it to Dallas no problem but after everyone was on the plane they realized the a/c was toast. So after an hour of fiddling with it we ended up getting off. They found us a new plane in another hour or two and we were off. Amelia was quite a trooper though it all. Only getting really fussy as we descended into Portland.

We spent the weekend on the coast at a great cabin in Netarts. Amelia splashed in the chilly Pacific ocean and got re-acquainted with her family here. We ate delicious fresh seafood and played in the sand.

Yesterday we visited the Hoyt Arboretum and The Rose Garden. Amelia loved tooling around in her stroller and touching the trees. She didn’t seem too impressed with the roses partly because she couldn’t walk around there.

Tomorrow is the zoo with her west coast boyfriends and possibly the Japanese gardens.

So we took these videos a week or so ago and I just haven’t had time (which is a lie, really – I could have made time, but I didn’t) to post them.

As it frequently turns out when we mention an exciting new milestone to Amelia’s teachers at school, she’s been doing this for a while with them. I don’t get upset – I want us to have frank and open communication about Amelia’s development – but sometimes I see the point of the parents who tell their daycare providers that they don’t want to know if their child took her first step or spoke her first word that day while they were writing email about office supplies. But then again, if it takes a village… we’ve got one, so I guess I shouldn’t hang on to my antiquated expectations.

Anyhow, here is Amelia walking with me and with Tom. I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to tell which is which.

Amelia has been pulling up for weeks now, and creeping for a good week or so, and is still very under-interested in crawling.  At school, I am told that she rolls where she wants to go, flipping from her belly to her back, over and over, until she gets where she wants to go.  Sometimes she does this while protesting and sometimes she does it silently and her teachers look up a few moments later and she’s laying 5 feet from where they left her.

This does not happen at home, needless to say.  I imagine we’re way too responsive to let her complain that long; moreover, her play area at home is much smaller – not so many things on the other side of the room to entice a baby.

What she does a LOT at home is creep.  Though she decided not to perform when I broke out the camera (she TOTALLY knows what a camera is, as do most first-borns I imagine), she frequently starts at the far side of “the pond” (exersaucer) and creeps all the way to the entertainment center and then all the way along the entertainment center until she hits the wall.  The wall has lots of interesting wires and things that babies like to grab for…

This video also has her making some of the awesome sounds she’s practicing lately: the OH! with the glottal stop at the beginning, and the tththththtp sound too.  She learned O and N in the same week, but not in any connection to each other.  Still, I wondered if it were a sign of Words To Come.

On Thursday, Amelia’s babysitter called in sick with a migraine and I ended up working from home so I could watch her. Working from home with her at this age is only medium difficult, compared to when Amelia was colicky (shudder), but I still end up feeling that I’m cheating her AND work by trying to attend to both simultaneously.

Perhaps it due to my slight inattention that Amelia attained another developmental milestone that day, a day before her 8-month birthday: she pulled herself up into a standing position! Granted, she hasn’t done it since, but she was SO pleased with herself that I am sure she’ll be back at it soon. See the play-by-play here:

Pardon the fuzzy photos – not trying to get all 1974 Sears baby portrait on you – all I had handy was the old iPhone.

After she finally got tired of standing in the crib, I sat her down (getting up is easy compared to getting down) and I swear on my soul that she just sat and giggled at me for two minutes straight.

One more piece of evidence that the child will walk before she crawls. Our little girl is growing up so fast!