9 months

Emma, Julie, and Rebecca


Well, after week 1, I thought I just didn’t have much to say. Then I started taking notes during week 2 (yes, I take notes to blog. Memory is just not sufficient anymore.) And then I ran out of time last weekend to get anything typed up. And now it’s been three weeks, and I’ve got a ton to catch up on, plus a bazillion pictures. (Btw, I’m typing this in Word right now - - will explain later - - but I found it interesting that spell check doesn’t recognize the word “blog,” but it does recognize “bazillion.”) Because three weeks in our lives is like 3^3=27 weeks in the real world, and that’s more than 6 months. (That is the calculation I stand by when I find another gray hair.)

Family pic:


And my favorite version of this pic:


So, where to start? Greg’s parents were with us for 2 weeks, and it was so nice to have them. They got so much done for us - - little things that we just can’t seem to get done ourselves. That’s one of the most frustrating things for me right now – just the chaos of our house, and the fact that I. cannot. get. anything. done. The girls got spoiled by lots of attention, and Greg and I got a break (and REAL DINNERS.) Greg and I also got a nice dinner out together, which I promptly ruined by getting food stuck in my throat and not being able to swallow. I had literally had about 2 bites of food and we had to leave. Sigh. It’s just that we get to do it so rarely…

With Grandma and Grandpa


Becca and Grandpa


Emma is army crawling like a rocket, and now has started pulling up on things. She started with the bouncy seat, and has moved on now to the side table, the entertainment center, the Great Wall, the window ledges. And the poor thing now has 2 little bruises on her forehead. Last weekend, I caught her napping – for a good 45 minutes – kneeling against the bouncy seat. She gets a bit impatient when she can’t stand up where and when she wants to, particularly when there are empty bottles on the side table. Emma is just extremely inquisitive right now – she has to be into everything. And in a way, she reminds me of the cats: when there’s something new, she HAS TO check it out. She tends to steal toys from her sisters. It usually works out, though, because if she steals the keys from Becca, we just give Becca a new toy, and then Emma wants the new toy and Becca gets her keys back. Yeah, not a great solution. Eventually we’ll have to teach her that she can’t hoard all the toys.

Sweet Emma




These overalls are the cutest thing ever.




"Dad, you're embarrassing me."


Curious, intently determined Emma:


Do you SEE that look on her face?


Emma pulling up on the bouncy seat:



Mmmmm... ball...


She slept like this for 45 minutes.


Happy Emma


Let me out of here! (the Great Wall). She found the door in the gate pretty quickly.


Poor Becca as a speed bump for Emma. At least she didn't seem to mind it much.






Now we're pulling up on the Great Wall.



We also went though another bout of some sort of stomach bug that lasted about two weeks. Again, never any high fevers or anything, and everyone was acting pretty normal. We went through TUBS of diaper cream, though, and about 6 bottles of these probiotic drops that the pediatrician recommended and gave us a sample of last time. These bad boys aren’t cheap though - - $38 for a bottle that lasts us about half a week. The pharmacist at Target said, “Whoa, these are expensive. Have you looked for them online?”

"We're sharing."



Happy sisters.


Me and my girls:

The girls had their 9 month checkup at the end of October. Everyone is doing well. Emma is up to 21 lb 5 oz, Rebecca 19 lb 8 oz, and Julie 19 lb 3 oz. The girls just love the paper on the table at the doctors’ office. They rip it, eat it, rip it some more. When the doctor came in, she gave them each a tongue depressor stick (and its wrapper) to play with. (By the time she got to checking Julie’s mouth, Julie had already gnawed enough of the stick that the doctor had to get her a new one.) Each girl got 2 shots, too. Emma and Becca barely cried, but Julie still threw a fit. I think she was mad even before we got there. Anyhow, by the time we left there, the place was a mess. Greg said it looked like the girls were rock stars wrecking a hotel room. Pretty much. There was paper everywhere, wet and gooey, plus the tongue depressors and wrappers, and all of the alcohol wipes from 6 shots. Crazy. We were planning to get the girls flu shots (seasonal) also, but the office ran out 2 days before our appointment, and they aren’t sure if they are getting any more. And places like CVS won’t give flu shots to 9 month olds, so I’m not sure what we’re going to do.

We were planning to go get the H1N1 vaccines this weekend. The pediatrician was one of the first offices in the area to get the shots, and they sent out an email this week saying that they were going to have a flu shot clinic on Saturday starting at 8 am. We were planning to get there early, but we changed our minds in the end. A friend of ours who goes to the same office had an appointment on Friday and found out that they only had 100 shots and 400 mists. We’d need 3% of their shots. And then it started to show up on the news that they were having this clinic. As of Friday afternoon, we started talking about getting there by 5:30am. But as of Friday night, the girls all started running low fevers, and we decided we didn’t want to risk it. We’ve heard that people started lining up at 4am. We’d still like to get them the shots, with daycare and all, so I’m hoping that they get some more in. I’d like the shot, too.

Raspberries with daddy


"It's my turn, daddy!"


We have a small local zoo that does a Boo in the Zoo every year, with a bunch of little booths handing out candy as you walk through the zoo. We weren’t originally planning to go, as the girls are really too young to “get” Halloween. But we got a gorgeous fall day, and they just look so darn cute in their costumes, so we decided to go. (Plus we had grandparents’ help.) We didn’t get any candy, mostly just went for a walk. The girls did well – but it’s funny that they were just their normal selves. Emma was hanging out the side of the stroller, looking at and interested in EVERYTHING. Julie was looking around, but every so often would just burst out into tears. And Becca was just reclines and is mellow. We must have worn out all of their good behavior, though, because the 3 of them screamed the whole way home.

Julie's a lion. She still growls.






Emma's a turtle.


Turtle takes a thumb break.



Even though we weren't collecting candy, someone gave the girls each a box of Dots. You should have seen the look on Emma's face, and then the big smile. Like she knew what it was. Or else she just needed something to play with. We took them away after she started gnawing on the box.


Becca's a laid back monkey.





They look thrilled, don't they?


Family pic, in front of what is actually the "Not So Scary House."


And with their grandparents:


On our way out, still in good sprits. It didn't last much longer.


About 2 weeks ago, Becca finally decided that she can in fact sit up. We were pretty sure that her resistance was just because she didn’t want to, and wasn’t confident enough yet. But she does pretty good now, still when she wants to. Sometimes she’d just much rather lay down. We had an additional physical therapist evaluate her last week, about 3 days after she decided to start sitting up, and the therapist said she’s perfectly within the normal range, and shows no physical signs of not being able to sit, stand, or walk normally. She doesn’t qualify for any additional therapy, which is actually a good thing. (All 3 girls are still seeing an early interventionist once a week.) She’s also army crawling like a champ, and gets around awfully quickly.

Sweet Becca:




Mmmm... toes...


Sweet Becca


Becca’s latest “thing” is bibs – no bib can hold her. She just tears them off (after she’s done eating). I thought it was just some of the weaker velcro ones that we have that she was pulling off. But she can pull the stronger velcro ones off, too. I thought I’d finally outsmarted her with snaps, but she pulls those off, too. With a devilish grin, of course.






In fact, Becca - - sweet, sweet Becca - - has become a bit of a bully at day care. (Those are our words, not daycare’s.) She’s the worst kind of bully – a hair puller. I knew she pulled my hair all the time, and it drives me crazy. It doesn’t matter if I’ve got it pulled back in a pony tail – she pulls it out. But apparently, she terrorizes the kids at day care, too. There are two little boys there who have more hair than Becca does, and they seem to be her main targets. The day care workers say that the little boys get scared when they see her coming toward them. She likes to grab their hair and suck on it. Yeah, my baby girl. We’re so proud. Of course, one of the boys whose hair she pulls is also apparently her best little buddy at day care. They say that Becca tries to reach for Welles’ hand when they are in bouncy seats next to each other.

Julie is turning into quite a little character. She’s not quite crawling yet, but she can inch forward to get something that’s just out of reach. We aren’t worried; it’s just a matter of time. I think that one day soon, Becca and/or Emma are going to make her mad and she’ll figure it out pretty quickly. Julie has started opening and closing her hand, like it looks like she is waving. Actually, we aren’t sure if she is waving or if she is learning sign language from somewhere, because apparently that’s the sign for “milk.” She also says “ba – ba” all the time, so either she’s really hungry or it’s a really fun thing to say. Which I guess it kind of is. She has also started making these fishy faces. I have no idea where she picked this up. She usually does it while she’s eating, but it’s just too funny. She’ll do it when I’m feeding her, and I’ll start laughing at her, and the she starts laughing, too. Julie also shakes her head “no” all the time. I don’t think she has any idea that it means “no” but we haven’t figured out what she’s doing. (Becca did this for a while, and pretty much rubbed all the hair off the back of her head.) It may be part of her Julie dance, where her head and hips go one direction, and her shoulders go the other. Back and forth. We call it the Julie Wiggle. Too funny.

Happy Julie:


Sweet Julie:



Perhaps the quintessential Julie look:


My little pumpkin:


Feared pirate Julie Puffbeard. There are two stuck hanging from her chin.


Fishy face


Julie


Greg’s birthday was last Friday, and we just kept things pretty mellow. I took Greg out to lunch on Friday afternoon, and Greg’s parents had picked up a small cake for him. After cake, Greg and I snuck out for some coffee together - - our last night with babysitters! I ordered him my favorite cake (aren’t I nice?) and picked that up this week, so we’ve been having a bit of an extended celebration. We wanted to do a day trip to celebrate Greg’s birthday, up to get some apples and have a picnic on the Blue Ridge Parkway, which we postponed until this weekend. It’s a little bit of a ride to get there, which is why I am typing in Word in the car. Despite my propensity to carsickness, I discovered on some road trip (Seattle?) that I can totally type in the car. Maybe it’s because I don’t need to be looking at the screen the whole time. Anyhow, I knew this was going to be a book, and I can’t seem to find the time at home to get it all down. The girls’ fevers were down a bit this morning, all below 99.1, so we decided at about 9:00 this morning to go for it. (The extra hour made it an easier decision, too) So we did, in fact, get some more apples, and had our picnic in the car at a rest area on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Pics from today's adventure:



"Faster, daddy, faster!" (We were stopped at the time, of course. This was our lunch break.)



Hanging out in the back of the car with daddy. The girls needed to get out of their carseats and play for a bit.


I have no idea why she was making this face, but I find it absolutely hilarious.


Emma wants ALL the apples.


So, Julie and Emma both really like to dance. And they all like music. Well, at day care this week, they were listening to the Michael Jackson “This is It” cd, and apparently the girls LOVED it. They were wiggling all over, but apparently Emma was really in to it.. I almost bought it at Target yesterday, but I think we’re just going to download a few songs from itunes. If Greg can stand it, I’ll rock out with them.

We didn’t do anything for Halloween, as the girls were running low fevers, and it was drizzling and raining all day. I did take Julie to Target to pick up a few things, and I took her in her costume. Besides being called a boy at least twice, I think she was a hit. I’ve been trying to get the girls sitting up in the shopping cart itself so I don’t have to lug the car seat in. She did pretty well, until she got tired/bored and just slumped over. I’m trying not to be neurotic and get one of those shopping car covers for her, but the child needs some toys and I’m not sure what to give her. She just tries to grab and eat my list the whole time. Any ideas? Do those shopping car covers come with toys?

Happy Halloween!






The girls did get to celebrate Halloween at day care on Friday. They dressed all the kids up, loaded them into 2 of the cribs, and pushed them around the day care to trick or treat. They were nice enough to take some pictures for us. Earlier in the week, when they were telling me about it, it sounded like they would give the little kids some sort of “puff” snacks or something, but instead each of them came home with 2 bags of candy. ??? We added it (ok, the stuff we didn’t want) to our bowl to give out. We did manage to give out candy for a little while, through dinner and the girls’ solids. Once all 3 of them were screaming, though, we had to just turn out the light.

Pics from daycare of Emma and Becca:



Speaking of car seats, Emma’s about to outgrow hers. We just ordered her new one this week. I found some seats that say that they should fit 3 across the back of our car. We’re hoping to get it installed today, and make sure it all fits before we order two more of them. No more pink - - we went for Cherry Red. The box says “for compact, fuel efficient vehicles.” Yeah, or triplets.