Admirers of the little one

Dear Amber:

Little girl, you have a lot of people interested in seeing you; there is no doubt that you are well-loved by friends and family.

Your great grandpa travelled all the way from St. Catharines to see just how poorly you're being treated here. You two had a lovely time together, and you saved one of your best morning moods to curl up in his arms in this photo.

Then there's Auntie Jama (on the left there, with you and Lynn): she drove up from Barrie one morning just to visit with you for a couple of hours, then drove all the way back that afternoon! That's love (well, love, and a hectic schedule with work and buying a new home where you are absolutely going to be thrilled to visit in a couple of years--I can already predict the tears that will flow every time we have to leave Jama and Terry's place out in the country).

Oh, and how about your Uncle Jason and Aunt Kelly? They were willing to leave their beloved puppy Hanna behind for a weekend to spend some quality time with you. Kelly pushed you in the stroller all the way to Nepahwin beach and back, and we all did a lot of sight-seeing in the Sudbury area (including the obligatory shot of the Big Nickel).

So how about just a simple shot of you to appease those who haven't been able to make the trip (or who have, but haven't made it up for a while?) The papparazzi are swarming, you might as well give in to the pressure. Let's see if we can find some good killer cuteness shots... Thank you, Colleen, for sending the killer cool environmentally friendly fair trade Peppa Sloppy our way. Amber loves to have it tucked under her arm as she naps, and she naps a lot.

At almost three months, she's also impressively strong. Amber has been able to lift her head since day one, and is constantly threatening to do damage to our lips, chin, nose, or other soft squishy parts of our body when she throws it around. In this shot, she's demonstrating her ability to lie on her belly and check out the world around her. Tummy time is no longer an automatic descent into frustration and tears. On the whole strength thing: she has massive thighs, and can support a good chunk of her weight on her legs. This leads us to the fear that she may learn to walk before she can crawl, resulting in a mad dash to baby-proof our house.

Speaking of which, I rushed to install a baby gate at the top of our stairs this weekend because Ian and Christine were visiting with Emma (their 4 year old) and Maria (their 2 year old). Mental note for my future self: even if it's late at night, you're tired, and there is no good light in the area that you are working, use the level to ensure that the latch side of the gate is level. And do it twice. Fortunately (well, relatively fortunately), this installation was a temporary measure anyways as the top of the stairs only has drywall on the wall side. So I'm going to have to cut out the drywall to expose the studs, install some two-by-fours between the studs as braces, and run another two-by-four vertically between those horizontal braces to have a nice solid place to mount the baby gate.

But I have to wonder: the previous owners had a couple of daughters. Were securely mounted gates at the top of stairs optional accessories in the eighties? I wonder if they also had one of those crazy walkers-on-wheels that were banned after the drug haze of the seventies cleared up and people realized that those devices were a spectacularly bad idea...