2 years, 5 months

Wow, I can't believe Amelia is 2 years and 5 months old already. The 5 month mark is a biggie in our lives because that's when she outgrew her colic. It was 2 years ago this week that she stopped screaming at 7 pm and *gasp* started going to sleep around 8 pm. Up until that time she was just permanently attached to my chest from about 5 pm (or earlier depending on the day) until about 8 pm, and don't even think about putting her down for bed until 10 pm.

The content in the evening and sleeping-before-10 p.m.-baby was SUCH a dramatic shift, which is what everyone said it would be. However, I was expecting it two months earlier. When it didn't come the morning of 12/23 I was disappointed and two days later, it was our worst Christmas ever ... not our best as everyone kept telling us it would be. (We were so sick of people - random strangers included - telling us it would be our "best Christmas ever" that year, that we were ready to drop kick the next person who dared utter those words. Seriously, we said that. And we also wished we had a buck for every person who said it because we would have had some decent dough, let me tell you.

So two years ago this week I finally began to enjoy being a mom. Even my mother-in-law commented on how much love I had as I looked at my daughter. And I realized how personally I had been taking all that crying and screaming and unhappiness.

Ever since then, Amelia just amazes me every day. I often find myself thinking how much more I love her, and how is that possible? And I am amazed at how much she has changed over these past two years, how much she has grown, how different she looks with hair, how much I enjoy listening to her talk and expres herself, how much of a little person she is. Yet, when I look at her hospital picture I can still the person she is today, and as I think back over these past 29 months, I can see the personality that she still has was there at the very beginning and that just blows my mind. How does such an itty bitty baby have a personality?

I love her so very, very much and it's so cool that she loves me, too.

[pictures dated 2/22/08]