9 months old!

Adria turned 9 months old yesterday! I cannot believe how quickly these months have flown by. She is such a wonderful baby. Ben and I marvel and how much love she has brought into our home. For several months now she has showed all of us, especially Julia, with hugs and kisses. I thought that Julia was a cuddly baby, but Adria far surpasses the snuggles I got from JuJu. Adria will let me snuggle with her endlessly. She rarely asks to be put down. The only time she does is when she wants to play with Julia. Adria just has so much love in her heart, I am always humbled by her sweetness. It's a big task as a mother to encourage that love and help her maintain her sweetness. She is also a very smart baby. She can already play peek-a-boo like an expert, she can even cover someone else's eyes. She also is aware of clothes and tries to put them on, she even tries to put headbands on her head. Yesterday Adria surprised me with her awareness. I was wiping the girls up after they were eating a little of the leftover Christmas chocolate. Usually, Adria just likes to pull out the wet wipes as fast as she can, but yesterday after I wiped her hands, she pulled one out and came over and wiped MY hand! It surprised me even more when she then continued over to Julia and wiped her face. This genius keeps us all on our toes at times, especially Julia who has to now compete for the fun toys. She used to be able to trade the fun toy for a less exciting one and Adria wouldn't care, but now Adria wants to be doing whetever Julia does and so poor Julia is quickly learning about patience and sharing. Adria also loves to read books, which she didn't learn from Julia since JuJu has not had much interest in books lately. Her older sister is not the only one who is learning patience however. Julia was not a baby who opened cupboards or made big messes (except for when she eats) and I never had to really childproof much more than putting cleaners out of reach. Adria, on the other hand, is a curious little monkey who gets into EVERYTHING! I have put away some of Julia's toys for a few weeks simply because I am tired of Adria dumping them out. Also, our bathroom door is retarded and will only latch if you lean your weight on the door when you close it and listen for it to click twice. Even then, it seems that sometimes a push from Adria will open it. She is fast and quiet and no less than 3 times a week I will find her in the bathroom with the toilet paper unrolled, the towels pulled down and the cupboards or garbage being emptied at an alarming rate. I'm at a loss as to what I can do to solve my problem besides childproofing the entire bathroom, but where will I put the towels and garbage?? She is equally speedy at emptying the dishwasher if I leave it unattended for more than 2 milliseconds. She also has discovered my food storage (which is under the extra table in our kitchen hidden by a table cloth) and takes great joy in unstacking all the cans and ripping the tablecloth off of the nails that I used to hang it under the table. Honestly though, the bathroom is the only one that really frustrates me. The others are cute to me still because I like watching her little mind figure things out. The one things about her curious personality that I dislike is that it keeps her from being a good sleeper. She has yet to sleep through the night for me. Also, her naps are usually 45 minutes or an hour, but never longer than that. I only remember her sleeping longer than an hour one time. I only hope that she outgrows this. (My sister Heather is almost 9 and my mom still has to get up with her in the night. Props to my mom!) As a side note, Julia just took one of my crackers and after one bite decided she didn't like it so she dropped it (of course) on the floor amidst her trains. When I picked it up and ate it, she had a complete meltdown. Once I finally calmed her down enough that she could talk she said, quite distraught, "Money eat my train!" I assured her that I actually ate the cracker and helped her to count her trains so she could see that they were still there. She still was upset and saying, "Money eat my train all gone!" I finally put a train in my mouth and showed her that the train was too hard to eat. Poor kid, how tramatic to think that your parent is eating your favorite toy. Well, happy nine month birthday Adria. We love you dearly and we are so grateful that you have joined our family.