the adams' blog

Jessica and I have been surprised by how fast America is growing! She’s 4.5 months old now and we’re already beginning to see a lot of personality coming from our little girl.

One thing I’ve noticed about America since the day she was born is that she doesn’t like to be touched or bothered unless it’s her idea. That’s something she definitely gets from Jessica. She also has this little fake cry (also known as ‘whining’) that she pulls on us from time to time. Jessica falls for it every time, but I’ve had nearly 13 years of listening to the greatest whiner of all time, so I’m not so easily fooled. I usually can’t help but laugh when she does it because it reminds me so much of Jessica.

Another thing she’s had since the day she was born is her temper. To be fair, I’ll admit that she probably gets the bad temper from me. I’m usually easy-going, but once I’m mad, I make it known. Whenever America’s temper gets the best of her, it seems like nothing will calm her down (except her Dad, because she’s a daddy’s girl). I’ve seen her cry like she’s mad at the world and everybody in it for no good reason. Her cries will eventually turn into the worst screams (although, really I haven’t heard any screams as intense as Jason and Lisa’s triplets) until she gets what she wants. We never really know what it is that she wants, but usually whenever she gets back in mine, or Jessica’s arms, she stops crying. Spoiled? Maybe?

I’ve been trying to expose her to music as often as possible. She will usually sit still for an unusually long time just to watch me play the guitar and sing, or if I play the piano for her. Sometimes I practice the bass for her and she even sits still during that. It’s like she’s mesmerized by music, and by watching me play and sing (not that I think I’m an awesome musician or something). So I decided to take her to the living room a week or so ago and have her sit on my lap at the piano while I played some songs with one hand (holding her with the other, of course). She kept sitting there watching me with such intensity that I decided to see how she’d react if I put her close to the keys so she could push them down. I helped her push them a couple of times and then she just took over from there. She started pushing keys here and there and in no particular order and I just held her at her waist and laughed as I watched her hit notes and then start moving her body around like she was dancing or excited or something. After a while she started to hit notes and then do her little talking sound that she makes (it sort of sounded like she was trying to sing). That’s when it dawned on me to get Jessica to get the video recorder and tape this, which she did. The picture accompanying this paragraph is a picture of her first night on the piano. She’s been on it again since then. I selfishly hope and pray that she has musical talent, but if she doesn’t that’s fine, too.

America is also a pretty big girl now. She has what we call “thunder thighs” and she weighed about 16.5 pounds when we last weighed her (which was a couple of weeks ago). She has an appointment tomorrow, so we’ll probably get some info about where she ranks in the grand scheme of things (growth-wise). I’ll try to get around to posting that info when we get it. When we give her a bath and we see her little round belly and those thunder thighs, we start calling her “Squish” or “Squishy Girl” or I’ll sometimes call her “MeckSquish”. Well, it’s nearly time to go pick her up, so I’ll end this blog here and hopefully do better about posting to the blog in the future.