St. Paddy's Day and Nine Month Birthday!

Even though St. Paddy's Day was on the 17th and the babies celebrated their nine month birthday today on the 18th, it kind of all got rolled into one. We really didn't do anything special on either day, although the Infants and Toddlers program did come out yesterday morning to do their evaluation on the babies as I discussed in a previous post. Three women came and they were smitten by the babies right from the start. The babies were sure to show off for them too! The ladies brought with them some fun toys that they enjoyed playing with on the floor. For the most part, they were very impressed with how they are donig developmentally. It turns out that Krista is right on target for where she should be and the other two are doing well but have qualified to receive services twice a month to help them with their locomotive skills. All in all, I'm pleased with the end result and I'm glad that the two will be able to get added practice and coaching from someone other than me!

We dressed the babies up in their St. Paddy's Day garb, thanks to Nonna and of course, they looked super cute. I attempted on several different occasions to get some photos of the babies but they were not very cooperative. Just for laughs, I've posted some below. The last two days have been very beautiful here so I figured I'd take them outside for the picture. This was a good idea until I remembered that Jamison is not the best independent sitter on the block and once I got him into position, he would tip over into the mulch or into one of his sisters. He got upset, which in turn, got Kiera upset, which dominoed into all three babies freaking out. Needless to say, we brought our photo shoot inside. Of course, my losing streak continued with uncooperative babies. I thought St. Patrick's Day was supposed to be lucky? Regardless, it was fun dressing them up in coordinating outfits and maybe if I'm brave enough, I'll try again tomorrow.

So now for an update on each baby. I know I still need to do my spotlight on Kiera and it will be coming soon so stay tuned!

Krista is now a VERY busy girl. She does not want to be held because she wants to check out everything in sight and get her hands (and mouth) on them. She is very independent and wants to do everything herself. This is evident in how she can hold her own bottle, when she wants to, of course. Krista has mastered the skills of sitting independently, rolling, piveting and scooting backward, as well as being on the verge of crawling. She has been pulling herself up on all fours so it's only a matter of time before she takes off! Krista is very aware of what is going on around her. Sometimes, she will stop playing with toys to stare one of us down, especially Poppy. She can hear the latch on the front door when someone is remotely coming in (Eric installed a keyless entry with an automatic locking mechanism) and looks intently to see who is going to grace her with their presence. She is a wiggle worm when it comes to diaper changes. She has to be practically pinned down to get her cleaned up and freshly diapered and even then, she proves to be a challenge. In the last week, Krista has said her first word: "MAAAAAAAAAAAma!" She usually says it in a deep, gravely voice and notice the emphasis on the first syllable, often times when she is frustrated or upset. She is also starting to reach out to me which is really sweet. I can't wait until she can do both of those tasks simultaneously with those big, beautiful, blue eyes looking up at me.

Jamison has decided in the past couple of weeks that he wants some extra attention. His method of choice? Waking up at 1:00am to get fed! The babies have not been waking up in the middle of the night for many months so this has been rough on us. After about a week of this, we got smart and started giving him a "dream feed" right before we went to bed so that he would have enough in his tummy to hold him over until the morning. He has been doing better now and doesn't seem to require the extra bottle, thank goodness. If only we can get his sisters to stay off their tummies and out of the corner of the cribs, we'd be in really good shape! Jamison is not as motivated to move as his sisters, hence why he needs some help in that department. He is not really a fan of being on his tummy. He will lay on it for a few minutes and then get tired so instead of rolling over, which he can do but chooses not to, he goes limp as a noodle and plants his face right into the carpet. However, he did reach a large milestone today: He rolled over from his back to his tummy, YAY! (see photo) He's been teasing us for awhile by rolling about 90% of the way over and then when we get excited, thinking he's going to go all the way, he rolls back the other way and giggles at us. Although Jamison has tended to be the last one to do some things, he is the first one to cut some teeth: two are coming in as we speak and he is very offended by them! Hopefully, they will come in all the way and he'll have a bit of a break before more threaten to come in as well.

Kiera is still our "Little Fuss" as we affectionately like to call her but she can also be a sweetie. She laughs and smiles more than the other two when she is in the right mood. In the last week, she has learned to sit independently, reach out, and pull up on all fours. It looks like Krista will have a partner in crime when it comes to crawling. Kiera is giving us all kinds of trouble with bottle feeds and much prefers baby food (all kinds and lots of it.) Hopefully when we go for the trio's nine month well visit, the pediatrician will give the okay to cut back on formula a bit because feedings have become such a struggle. Kiera has a fascination with her hands. She loves to hold them up in front of her face and study them adoringly several times a day. She also is a fan of grabbing things with her hands, especially people's faces and arms, digging her little claws in...OUCH! Kiera LOVES her siblings. She gets so excited at the sight of them and immediately giggles, smiles and tries to pull them close to give them a hug. I'm trying to teach her to be gentle but so far, she hasn't caught on. As I mentioned, we are still up in the night, largely due to her getting limbs stuck in the slats of the crib. Kiera is quite the chatterbox! She has been saying "dada" for awhile now, which is really cute since she is such a daddy's girl. For the past couple of weeks, we have not needed to set our alarm clock because Kiera has been our little rooster, cock-a-doodle-dooing at 6:00am sharp! We get a kick out of listening to her babble on, but not through the baby monitor when we are trying to get some much needed shut eye!

Can you believe it's been 9 months already since these little characters were born? Time flies when you're having fun!!!