9 months

So, I would have made this post earlier, but Addi borrowed our SD card from our camera for her new digital camera and then the camera went missing for a few days :( Finally we found it and were able to take some cute new pics of the girls.

Maren is 9 months old -- seriously, wtf? The time since she was born has flown by at least twice as fast as it did with Addison. I can't even begin to wrap my mind around the fact that soon she will be a toddler instead of a baby! She is becoming a little person at an astonishing rate, and we love getting to see her personality blossom.
Mare is hitting the usual milestones and also starting to reveal some new Maren quirks. She is eating and nursing like a champ -- she actually has already started to chew food and prefers to chomp on mashed up versions of our meals (ie lasagna is becoming a fast favorite), and she is an absolute pro at drinking water out of a sippy cup by herself. Quirk: she refuses to eat homemade baby food, but she will eat organic jarred food and whatever she can get her hands on from her sister's plate (Addi's mac and cheese obsession is quickly becoming an obsession for Maren as well -- she will actually grab a noodle and shove it in her mouth and chew it up!).

She is cruising around furniture, but is really weary about taking steps without holding onto something. Maren is great at pulling herself up using anything she can, and she is getting really good at twisting her body around mid-fall so that when she does fall, she lands safely. Quirk: She hates being put in a wrap lately. She will kick and scream when she gets plopped into the babyhawk (unless she is literally asleep), and she will only tolerate a hip carry wrap for a few minutes before getting totally pissed about the fact that she could be crawling around, but she is stuck to me instead. So, we can only keep her happy by carrying her in our arms, facing out, and when we do stop walking she expects to be put down wo she can crawl around by herself. Oh, and she loves sitting in shopping carts -- go figure.
Maren still doesn't agree with sleep, but she is starting to come around. We are making a bit of progress in the sleep department. I have stopped nursing her to sleep and she will actually let Brian rock her a bit, then sing to her while he lays her in her crib and she will usually drift off on her own. She does still wake up at least twice in the middle of the night, but at least she will give us a good five hour stretch somewhere in there. She flat out refuses to sleep in our bed anymore. Anytime we bring her to bed with us (whether it be the middle of the night or at dawn, in complete darkness mind you) she will thrash and talk and play with our faces, she will try to crawl around and pull herslf up by the headboard. She has never been a cuddler, but I have never heard of a baby that didn't like to sleep with Mom and Dad -- Addi especially loved sleeping with us, so it is really weird to us. Quirk: Maren, since birth, has always hated to turn her head to the side while snuggling or sleeping. Even as an infant she would just rub her face on our chests and fuss while we tried to have some tummy to tummy time. Now that she likes to sleep on her tummy, sometimes we will find her trying to sleep face down instead of turning her nog to the side. Good thing we still use the SIDs monitor in her crib, because I seriously think she could smother herself!
Maren loves to get her teeth brushed. I don't know if it's because we do it in the kids' bathroom and she watches Addi get hers brushed, or if she really enjoys how it feels -- either way, it is pretty cute :)
Addi is now big enough to brush her own teeth (with a little help of course). This is one of many big girls things that Addi now does, including: putting new toilet paper on the roll when it runs out, feeding Henri dinner, fetching us paper towels from the closet, carrying sister away from dangerous situations (like when she gets too close to Addi's big girl books), and many more!
The Addi/Maren mutual love-fest continues. They will play together all day long, usually with minimal fights and disagreements! Addi makes up games and talks in her high-pitched voice and Maren just squeals and follows along. Days will go by where Maren refuses to dole out kisses to us (so we resort to stealing them), but she will mooch on sister constantly. Addi also likes to hug Maren by squeezing her head until Maren screeches to be let go -- otherwise I think she might not be able to breathe!
Here they are hugging at midnight on New Year's Eve (yes, they both stayed up)!
The girls also love to take baths together now!
Addi is doing great as well! She is making noticeable progress in speech therapy and continues to adore preschool. She is becoming very independent in her play, but she can still snuggle with the best of them, and every once in a while I get to spoon her at nap time like the good ol' days. She loves to read her books, make crafty pieces of art and ride on her new big girl bike.
Here is documentation of the great tag removal of '10. Addi hates the tags on her (and Maren's) stuffed animals, so one day she brought them all into our room and I chopped off every one! This made Addi's day :)
That is all the news on the girls for now. It still astounds me that both of my girls amaze and thrill me on a daily basis. I love having the opportunity to see them grow every day and spend so much quality time wiht them. I know someday I will look back on my time at home with them and smile at the thought of all the fun we have had -- going to the park, playdates, the museums, and just tooling around the yard and house. It hasn't all been rainbows and sunshine -- there are days when I am crabby and seriously consider some heavy afternoon drinking, but those are few and far between, and for the most part I just feel totally grateful that for now I just get to spend time with my babies while they are babies. I am starting school next week and with that I always start to think about my future career and how different things will be in just a few short years when the girls are in school. I look forward to that time and the new adventures that will follow, but for now I will live in the now and just enjoy my baby monkeys! I love you girls!