Month 9

We began the month with Joe still away from home on his motorcycle trip ... Cara had just gotten over Hand Foot and Mouth Disease and Katie was on antibiotics for the ear infection she developed the day Joe left on his trip. What a rough Spring this has been; unfortunately, it was a carryover from the rough Winter we had too! A couple days into the month Joe returned from his trip as Katie came down with Hand Foot and Mouth Disease including horribly painful blisters in her mouth. Watching my little girl in so much pain was awful! Praise God for the Maalox/Children's Benadryl mixture I was able to concoct and rub on her blisters - within 20 minutes she was feeling better and sound asleep. We are praying for a much healthier Summer!

This month, Katelyn's main area of advancement has been in the field of communication. Her speech has become more clear and she is getting so creative in her non-verbal communication. Case in point, on one particular day she repeated the phrase "a swimming pool" for hours and when that did not work in her favor she went and got all of our swimming suits and began following me around continuing to repeat "a swimming pool". She also came and told me, for the first time ever, once this month that she needed her dirty diaper changed ... I'm praying this means we're also headed into new potty training territory! Katie desperately wants to learn to write her A B C's. In fact, she's making me crazy wanting me to hold her hand with the pencil, crayon, chalk, or pen in it to write them over and over. I am very proud of her for having great perseverance and wanting to learn such an important skill! We have also begun working on her math skills. I cannot believe how incredibly bright she is. I completely stumbled on her beginning math skills while playing with her outside. Our one-on-one time has been really great for both of us! Cara also made advances in communication this month - for Mother's Day she learned to sign for "milk". Although she does not do it nearly as often as Katie did, it's obvious what she wants and absolutely adorable! She opens and closes her hand ever so slowly and carefully; watching it the entire time. I am truly amazed by my girls, and communicating with them in new fun ways makes me feel more connected to them both.

Caroline made major advances in movement again this month. On the 7th she crawled over to the sliding screen door, proceeded to open it herself, and crawled out onto the deck. She began standing unassisted for extended periods of time at the beginning of the month. Then she started using anything she could slide to walk across the floor; including my kitchen chairs. On the 22nd I turned around and found Cara sitting ON TOP of the end table in our living room! This began a series of photos taken over the next couple days of all the things Caroline figured out how to climb on top of. Then on the 25th Cara did it ... She took her 1st 3 steps - from the couch to Mommy's arms. We couldn't be more proud!!! As the month wrapped up she has begun stepping out into the middle of the room unassisted. She can walk anywhere from 2-5 steps unassisted and will reach for anyone or anything as her stabilizing point when moving. Katie is doing okay with Cara - not a huge fan of being a stabilizing point, but gentle enough not to hurt her baby sister. Poor Barkley has lost a few baby-sized fistfuls of fur and he tries to move away quickly if he sees her coming! Mommy and Daddy are always available with open arms if we see her headed our way. So, at 9 months old she is officially a toddler!

In other news regarding our baby ... Our little toddler has also figured out how to drink from a sippy cup ... most often it is the cup belonging to her big sister, but Katie doesn't seem to mind. Cara's hair finally grew long enough to clip a bow in it for the first time on the 19th! Our BIGGEST success in life this month has been in the sleep department! On the 12th FINALLY! Caroline slept from 9pm until just after 6am!!! She woke at 2am but put herself back to sleep ... I got up and covered her when I realized I wasn't going to have to feed her. At 8am she was still sleeping after eating at 6am. Unfortunately we did not have a repeat performance for a Mother's Day gift. On the night of the 16th we tried the "cry it out" method with Caroline ... basically from 2:45-4:15 Cara screamed, even throwing her paci on the floor in frustration, and the ONLY thing learned from this experience is that Cara can get MUCH louder than she usually does! EPIC FAIL!!! On the 17th Katie ended up napping because Cara had kept her up for a significant amount of time during the night - one of my biggest fears of letting her cry from the very beginning. On the 19th I slept from 10pm-5am uninterrupted ... this means that Cara slept truly through the night for the very 1st time 7:30pm - 6:15am! I felt so good that I took Barkley with me for a 2 mile run that morning. On the 27th & 28th Cara went to bed at 7:30pm and woke sometime around 5am to eat. We both returned to bed and slept until at least 7:30am both days! She has been taking just one real nap during the day usually mid-morning just before lunch time for 2-3 hours. Learning what will work has been quite challenging, but I am hopeful we are developing a real sleep schedule that allows this Mommy to rest at night.

My prayers for the upcoming season are for health, rest (especially at night), and the ability to create more fun family memories with our girls. They are growing so fast and I am fearful that I will look back at this time with a hazy sleep-deprived memory of exhaustion. We are doing more playdates, playing outside, and trying new things to keep life interesting. As always I am continuing to pray for their safety as they learn to navigate their way though this world. I dream of the days ahead when we will be able to do more "grown up"activities together but know I will miss these days too. So I am trying to embrace all the craziness of toddlerhood and not rush things along too quickly ... Cara seems to be doing that well enough on her own. The girls bring so much more joy than I ever expected and sometimes I just want to hold onto a moment and never let it end. Like when I am nursing Cara with her little eyes closed and tiny hand gripping my rolled up shirt, or when Katie crawls up into my lap with her blankets and I breathe in her sweet lavender scented baby shampooed head, or when I watch Katie give Cara unsolicited kisses in her own sweet special way. Photos and written memories are all I'll have one day and for now I'm just trying to capture as much as possible and "bottle it up" for later.