Naiya is 9 Months 3.4.10

So much has changed this past month with Naiya. At 9 months she is officially crawling (as of March 13th), which is the exact month Alexia started crawling. It's so crazy to see her on the move. I set her down in one spot, and in no time she's clear across the room. I love seeing the awareness of things and a determination to get a hold of something, that have accompanied her crawling.

(sidenote: if you listen to Alexia, you can hear her running away and saying, "back!" She does this every time she leaves a room and intends on being right back. In this video she is set on getting Naiya a "tockle" (sock) for Naiya.)

Naiya is still proving to be a laid back baby. So much so, that she woke up from a couple naps with her right eye crusted shut and when I took her into the pediatrician I found out she had pink eye AND a double ear infection! I felt so caught off guard with the ear infection (okay, and slightly negligent), because she never showed any sign of not feeling well. And I can assure you we all would have known if Alexia was the one with the ear infection. Alexia is what we lovingly call our baby that is very in tune with her emotions. And she can cry (which actually sounds like a long, drawn-out scream) like it's nobody's business. But it's amazing to Ryan and I how different the girls are. Each uniquely designed!

This is a common face Naiya has been making recently. It's like she has lock jaw or something. It's hysterical to us though.

This is a trademark Ryan hold, I used to go bonkers when he would do this with Alexia, but somehow the girls love it (much to my chagrin):

Naiya is still in 3-6 month clothing, but on the verge of needing to wear 6-9 months. She still has very little hair, and the hair that she does have, nicely forms a mohawk. She has followed her sister in putting everything in her mouth. I hear of some babies never going through that stage, and I find it almost impossible to comprehend. Alexia is still infatuated with putting things in her mouth. She doesn't necessarily try to eat things anymore, but she loves chomping on rocks, acorns, coins, and her tiny hair ties, but she's very open about it and will run up to me and say, "mouth", or "ah", and stick out her tongue to show me what she put in her mouth.

Naiya completely skipped over the whole pureed food stage. It only took a couple refusals to eat oatmeal and one puke session of mashed potatoes for me to throw in the towel with spoon feeding her. I just don't have the patience for it this time around. So I've happily accepted her desire to eat finger foods. The variety is pretty slim: Graduate puffs (I'm not really one for store-bought convenience baby food, but Sam's Club has great prices!), wheat crackers, wheat bread, peas, roasted and cubed sweet potato, and Grandma just discovered Naiya's love for pesto pasta w/ broccoli. I'm still nursing Naiya six times a day. I just recently spent a few nights weaning her from her feeding in the middle of the night, and then she got her ear infection and was up at night again. I'm such a sucker when the girls are sick. So sleepless nights have become the norm again. I've lost count of how many times Naiya has gone back and forth with sleeping through the night. But I will admit that I enjoy the middle of the night feed and the first of the morning feed, because Naiya is not normally a snuggler, but those two feedings she is so tired she just falls asleep on my chest.

My only complaint about Naiya is the daily occurrence of pooping out of her diaper. Often it's twice a day. OxiClean is my best friend. I've started buying it in bulk. I have two buckets (one for whites, one for colored) that soak soiled clothes, and they never seem to be empty.

Here's a comparison photo of the girls at nine months: