Cutie Camila

I couldn't resist posting this - Camila in Dec 2008 and then in Dec 2009.

Sisters

A few more pictures

Enjoying my birthday cake.

Camila's first "real" haircut

All of us - you can see Camila holding Amelia's hand. :)

Just trying to add a few more pictures. I haven't taken as many pictures as I would have liked to these past few weeks because, well, it's been busy/stressful, and I figured what was the point when I couldn't even hook the computer up to my laptop. I need to be better at taking pictures....

Time for some updates!

OK, I'm back. :) It's been a crazy couple of months, not to mention that my computer broke. It was fried just before New Years by some crazy spyware virus. Well, I turned it on today for the first time in nearly a month, and it seems to be fixed?? All on it's own? So, I'll try to quickly upload some pictures and do updates of the girls.

Amelia has changed so much in the past several weeks. She's a happy baby, sleeps really well (we went through a rough patch around Christmas, but we put her on Prilosec and it's made a world of difference.) She started smiling around Christmastime, and in the last few weeks has started to make sounds like giggling. I'm not sure if it's too early for her to be laughing, but it sure sounds like it!

Camila continues to adore her baby sister. She is so helpful, almost too helpful at times. :)

At Amelia's 2 month appt she weighed 13 lbs 10 oz, and was 23 1/4 inches. That puts her at 97% for weight, and 90% for length. However, the Pedi was concerned about her neck, and gave us a referral to a Physicaly Therapist for torticollis. We had our PT consult this past week, and have a series of stretches and exercises we do as often as we can during the day. Compared to what Amelia's neck was like when she was first born, she's made a lot of improvement. The PT believes it will work itself out in 3 months or so.

I go back to work in just 1 week. As expected, the time has flown by. It's going to be really difficult to bring the girls to daycare, both emotionally and just actually getting them ready and out the door! At least I know that Camila will keep a good eye on Amelia and make sure that she's getting what she needs! ;)

Fabricio's brother Chino and his girlfriend Catalina were here over Christmas. Camila loved having more people to play with, and Cata really helped me out with Amelia. Several times she'd hold her so that I could take a nap. Hopefully we'll get to see them again this summer at Chino's graduation from U of Chicago Law.

Christmas itself was an adventure. The roads were bad around here, and with us having to take 2 cars to my parents I just wasn't comfortable going out to Rockford. It took us almost an hour just to get from home to the Plymouth movie theater! So, I called it quits, and we turned around. Christmas dinner was frozen pizzas from the gas station, with nachos for appetizers. :)

Amelia - 1 month

I'm not sure why my text blends together with no paragraph breaks....

Amelia is already 1 month old! So far we feel safe from acid reflux but we won't be fully at ease until she's at least 2 months. :) She's been a relatively easy baby, but keep in mind our point of reference is Camila - who essentially cried nonstop until she was 12 weeks old. Amelia is a great night sleeper, in general. Some nights are tough, such as the other night she wouldn't fall asleep until after 1:00. Or the night after that she woke up at 2:oo to eat, but wouldn't fall back to sleep until 4:00. However, last night she wowwed us by sleeping from 10-5:30. I think we can put that down as "sleeping through the night". ;) However, I am not holding my breath that tonight will be just as great. Daytime is also hit or miss. Some days she's great and generally eats, sleeps, and hangs out. Other days she fights sleep, needs to be held a lot (which is tough when Camila is home). And evenings are hard in general, as she cluster feeds basically every 1.5- 2 hours. My evenings are: feed Amelia, try to make dinner (something 30 mins or less), feed Amelia, eat dinner myself, play with Camila for 15 minutes, put Camila to bed, feed Amelia, and finally sit on the couch before feeding Amelia again. Thank goodness my parents have come over to help out the nights that Fabricio has to teach, otherwise I don't know how I would have gotten everything done. Camila is still in love with her baby sister, and makes sure we're always taking care of Amelia. She loves to help out, and will always run to get us things we ask for (baby's blanket, etc.) I'm hoping her love and fascination with Amelia continues for a while. Camila has surprised us recently too, as she's learning her alphabet and numbers at daycare. She'll randomly count to 10, or start singing the alphabet. We hadn't taught her any of this yet! She also has her colors down, and loves it when we play game related to colors. We also have noticed that she's starting to "read" to herself, and sing songs that I sing to her at night. She's starting to be better at independent play, which of course we love right now since Amelia takes a lot of our attention! Amelia recently starting cooing at us, and is much more aware of her surroundings. She'll hold our gaze for some time, likes looking at Camila or whatever other activity is going on, and will "ahh" back to us when we talk to her. And I *think* I saw a smile last night, but it was probably a coincidence! By the way, Camila is in her favorite pjs. Not sure what we're going to do after the holidays.... :)