Nine Months

Aunika turned nine months yesterday. Nine months! It's hard to believe. She's soooo cute. Unfortunately, I can't find the cord for the camera, so I can't show you how cute she is, so you'll have to take my word for it. But, she's adorable.

She has a little bit more hair than she did a few months ago. Not a lot. But it's growing. Slowly. It's coming in very definitively red. There's no question. She's about the size of a year old, judging by the clothes that fit. We're in kind of a conundrum here. There are no sizes between a year and 18 months and Aunika has grown out of her dresses. She's either going to have to settle for a too short dress or swim in one. Her t-shirts have the same problem.

She has remained the sweet, easy going baby that we brought home. She'll spend HOURS just cruising around on the floor and checking things out. I don't have to worry about leaving the room, she'll follow if she wants. Or not. Whatever. She's really into electronics though. I have to keep an eye on my computer or she'll get to it. And the remote.

Her "crawling" is funny to watch. I would post a video of it except for (a) I can't find the camera cord (b) I don't particularly enjoy watching videos of other people's kids. Unless they're doing something particularly cool/funny/unique. Otherwise, I just skip over them. Why? I don't know. I just don't like watching them. Yes. Even yours. And so I'll try to explain it as I did to my mom over the phone.

You know how in the knee capper movies (movies about war or violence where lots of people get their knee caps blown off--hence the genre name "knee cappers") there's always the one guy that gets hit in the leg and the arm, but manages to crawl his way out of Viet Nam/A Warehouse/West Valley by "army crawling" using only the one leg and one arm that is working to propel himself along the ground? That's Aunika's signature move. And she's quite adept at it.

I'm not sure what happened with the wiring in both kids, but Josh was an army crawler as well. I don't know that he really did learn how to crawl properly. And he didn't start walking until he was 15 months old. But, one day he just stood up and he was gone.

Aunika is still an amazing sleeper--usually 12-13 hours a night plus two naps of an hour to two hours long during the day. I love that she doesn't wake up until 8 am. When Wade was gone on his scout trip, she didn't wake up until 9:45 two mornings that week. I think she wakes up when she hears Wade getting ready for work. But 8 am--can't complain about that. I am EXTREMELY blessed that both Josh and Aunika are good sleepers. I can just put her down in her crib, kiss her goodnight and leave the room. There's no big production. Occassionally, I'll hear her babbling to herself, but then she drifts off and we see her the next morning, happy and bubbly.

Josh had a fussy time--6:00-7:00--every night. In fact, he still does. It's the hardest part of the day for him (and us). There's nothing particularly wrong, just that everything seems wrong. Aunika is not like that. I have to warn babysitters that she's not a fussy baby. If she starts fussing, it's because she needs something. This stemmed from a few episodes with a relatively new babysitter. I came home one night to find her mom here. I didn't think much of it--the mom said that she was just taking pictures of how cute Aunika was-- until I went to change Aunika's diaper. As soon as I undid it, Aunika let out a huge sigh of relief and started smiling again. It was on way too tight. Apparently, according to the neighbor, every time I had this particular babysitter, she'd call her mom to come over and help because Aunika wouldn't stop crying. It was because her diaper was too tight. I talked to the babysitter and mom and everything is good, but I tell all the babysitters that Aunika is NOT a fussy baby, so if she's crying it's because she needs something.

It also helps that she's on such a good eating schedule. She eats every four hours, within a half hour. Most of the time, you can hand her a bottle at 4 hours, and she'll slurp it down. I can go days without hearing her really crying. Nap times are pretty much the same time every day, so it makes it easy to schedule my day.

Aunika thinks Josh hung the moon. She is so in awe of him. No one can get her to laugh as much or as hard as he can. And he can be mean too. But she doesn't care. 10 minutes later, she's cooing back at him.

Our only problem, thus far, has been getting her to eat finger foods. She just doesn't get the concept. She can pick them up. She can hold them. But she just doesn't get that you're suppose to put them in your mouth. So she'll sit in her high chair with both fists full of cheerios and screech until YOU drop one in her mouth. On the plus side, she doesn't put things she finds on the floor in her mouth either. Bonus.

Aunika is a delight to have around. She's constantly making us smile and I can't imagine our lives without her in it. As I've mentioned on facebook, she's freakishly angelic and I hope that it stays this way.