Sibs Montage IV

Kenzie - Month 9

We have teeth! Well, Kenzie has teeth. Two on the bottom and two on her top right with two more top left creeping out. Suffice it to say, it's been a rough month for sleep with lots of snot to go with all the teething pain. But I think we are through the tough part. I remember the big front teeth being the worst for Mason, too.
We also had some challenging sleep this month since she was in her I'm-going-to-be-wide-awake-for-an-hour-at-3am-each-night phase (also what Mason went through). I think it has something to do with being mobile and just being so darn excited about being mobile in the world! In addition, she has been really hard to get down at the beginning of the night...waking up every time we put her down and then she's wide awake at 5am. Basically we've had about three weeks of 5-6 hours of sleep a night - ouch! We didn't even have that when she was a newborn. But (knock on wood) I think we've worked it out and are back to "normal" sleep.
She has fine-tuned her crawling and pulling up skills and has even crawled up the bottom step of the stairs. Yikes! Time to get another gate. She is also balancing and holding on with one hand once she stands up.
We haven't quite gotten the hang of words or food yet, though we have figured out that she prefers feeding herself than food coming at her pureed on a spoon. She easily incinerates food once it is in her mouth to an appropriate baby texture, so we aren't too worried and have started just giving her chunks of fruit, puffs, and teething crackers. We have amped up our usage of signs and hope she'll start using them back at us, but so far has had no interest in even "da-da".
Kenzie LOVES her big brother. That is apparent from the first moment he comes into our room in the morning and asks: "Is Kenzie awake?" and her face lights up. She follows him around the house and is often cackling at his silliness and dancing (especially). I can't wait to see how their relationship unfolds as her communication and mobility improve. They will be trouble, for sure! (I love this picture, BTW - it really captures her eye color, which someone described as "constellations").

Sibs Montage III

It's amazing what a difference six months can make. But some things stay the same....