9 months!

We're now at 3/4 years old (9 months for the rest of you) and really racking up the milestones. Charlotte figured out how to get up on her hands and knees and can now rock back and forth, although she's still a few days away from being able to get places. Both girls are now so mobile that we've started to find them asleep on their tummies; Lilah grasping a toy and Charlotte hugging a teddy bear. And last Wednesday I got home and Sean told me to feel Charlotte's gums - and there it was...the very first sharp little nub of a tooth, poking it's way through her lower gum.

The odd part was that Lilah's been the one who's been up in the middle of the nights, crying and yelling and angry that we're making her stay in bed. Somewhere between 10-2 in the morning, she wakes up and nothing will put her back to sleep again: not eating, not Tylenol, not rocking, nothing. Eventually one of us will end up in the dark on the couch with her, cuddling and singing and waiting for hours until she finally calms down enough to fall asleep. It's a killer. We actually were confident enough to think that these nights of exhaustion were behind us. Ha.

Lilah pulled this again last night and I was up for so many hours trying to get her to just stop crying that I woke up utterly exhausted and luckily had the chance to work from home instead of having QWERTY imprinted on my cheek. Later in the morning Sean told me to feel Lilah's gums. Ah ha. I rubbed my finger on her lower gumline and felt the reason for our rough night - TWO teeth poking through her gums. It's so interesting that she was literally only days away from her sister in getting teeth, but she one-upped her and had two. Must have hurt like crazy. I forgave her a little. Only a little though, because I was still wiped out.

In the meantime we're finally getting a little nesting done. Between me and the girls being in the hospital for so long, the amount of work it's taken every day, and a serious shortage of funds, we never really fixed things up around here in preparation for the ladybugs. So we've now done a mini bathroom remodel (new cupboard, wainscoating and trim), decorated the hallway (frames and some of my favorites pics), the bedroom (frames and some botanical prints found on etsy), wall-mounted the tv and ran the cords through the walls, had two enormous stumps in our front yard ground down, and now we're on to a pantry remodel. Ambitious, yes, but when Nanntastic Cindy asks how we get so much done every weekend, I reply, "We don't put away laundry."

We took everything out and I spent all weekend repainting the whole room from top to bottom, performing feats of contortion to get behind the ducts, pipes, water heater and furnace. It was was a dusky pink that made everything look dirty and needed a minimum of 2 coats to start. I wanted to keep the room bright since there's a window that brings in lots of natural light, but I also wanted white shelving and Sean's compromise was that part of the room had some color. So, 2 white walls and ceiling and the gray-blue from our bedroom on the other 2 walls. Next weekend we're off to Sean's sister's in Sequim, so it may still be awhile until food re-enters that room....