A love bigger than the heart: Growing love

We had a magnificent month of June this year. It started of course with Amelia's arrival, but we had fun events rolling one on top of each other. Catalina's ballet recital followed soon after the baby came, and soon after came the kindergarten graduation. My little baby will start first grade in fall and I can't spin my head around this. She changed so, so much since last fall. Gone is the shy kid who won't talk to our neighbors, here she is, in all her splendor, a lot more confident, but as sweet and loving as ever.

With this, we started a magnificent summer vacation! The three girls together at home, partying all day long. To be very true, I have to admit that I was nervous about it. How will I deal with a newborn who needs me continuously and a 6 year old who needs entertainment? I imagined days of screaming and feeling guilty. Once again, Catalina surprised me. Not only where was no pressure from her part, but she made the days go so much smoother! When Ami was crying and I felt overwhelmed, Catalina came and just repeated for the tenth time "she is just too adorable". And all of the sudden, I'd be able to see my adorable newborn and not a fussy baby. We played together, we told stories, we watched a lot of TV (it's summer vacation, some vices are accepted...)

And in between all this, we watched Ami grow. The first month flew by in such a rush! Ami is a very sweet baby, chubby and pink and absolutely gorgeous. Her eyes are of an amazing blue and I am starting to be sure they'll stay blue. She smells of an amazing baby smell, she is soft in my arms like a big cotton ball. She sleeps like a champ during the day, and stays up like an owl during the night. This makes for a tired mama, but one look at her big blue eyes cures all pains.

She turned one month old and all of the sudden I realized that there are milestones to be watched, that I just completely ignored! The guilt set in and I went fast online to see what is my baby supposed to do. And then panic set in. My baby is not focused, my baby does not watch toys moving in front of her eyes. What is wrong? So, I waited for the morning to "train" my baby to watch her toys and look me in the eyes. And guess what? My baby did follow the toys, she did stare in my eyes, there was no training needed. And then the guilt went away partially. The second baby does not get the same attention as the first one, that is a given. But a lot of the pressures and obsessions I loaded onto Catalina are spared for Amelia. She went through a morning of "come on, smile", "come on, look at the toy" and then she did it and then it was over. For Catalina I anticipated all the milestone and if she was late a single day in reaching them, I loaded all sorts of imaginary diagnostics onto her. With Ami it's easier. I don't have that much time for hypotheses :)
So what is my sweet baby Amelia up to these days? She likes to be carried and wakes up the second you try to put her down. She has more hiccups than I thought possible and this got her the nickname "squeaky toy". Each Wednesday, for her weekly birthday I made papanasi and we sang happy birthday to her. So I guess now I have a papadia and a papanas girl :). Ami is very soft and warm when she's in my arms. Lately she had really bad gas, so she tensed a lot and cried a lot. Hopefully it gets better. She does reward us with smiles, mostly when she is getting ready to sleep and her eyes are closing. We're still waiting for that intent smile, when she looks at us and then smiles.

Until then, there is a lot of sleeping. Favorite spot: the lime green rocker. Ami spends the bigger part of the day in this rocker. Si absolutely loves it!

When we don't sleep, we take pictures. Lots of them!

Being home all day long means we have plenty of time to relax. Just so we don't get bored, we relaxed in different places, doing various relaxing things :)

On the balcony, in the favorite chair