9 months old ... it don't come easy!

I won't sugarcoat it—this past month has been a hard one.

We kicked it off with all of the babies getting roseola (several days of fever, followed by a rash). Naturally, their symptoms did not all appear on the same day—Lucy was the first to have a temperature, then Jude, then Isaac, and finally Dahlia. To compound the sheer misery of dealing with miserable babies (thank God my mother was in town!), the air conditioner chose to die on the second day of fever (which happened to be my birthday). A new air conditioning unit was not the kind of birthday gift I'd envisioned, but at that point I would have paid anything for a little relief.

Then, just as the roseola subsided, Isaac started cutting his first tooth. Suddenly, the kid who'd been sleeping 10 solid hours a night started waking up screaming every 2 hours! He now has two teeth on the bottom to show for it, but his sleeping patterns have yet to return to normal (I suspect another tooth is on the way). Dahlia, on the other hand, cut her two bottom teeth around the same time Isaac did, with very little change in her mood or sleeping patterns. Are my kids proving the theory that women have a higher pain tolerance than men do? We'll see how Jude and Lucy react to the ordeal when it's their turn!

Of course, none of this—fever, rash, or teeth—stopped the kids from keeping us on our toes with their continuing efforts to become fully mobile. Isaac started cruising a couple of weeks ago (and will loudly protest when confined to the playard); Dahlia occasionally pulls to standing; Jude can sit himself up, pulls to standing like a pro, and is almost officially crawling; and even little Lucy is rocking on all fours (only when she wants to though—you can't make her!).

Freshly bathed and happy—but it's getting harder and harder

to get them to sit still long enough for a quad pic!

We ended the already difficult month with a change in our feeding schedule—never an easy adjustment for any of us. Specifically, we've added a third meal of solid foods (so now they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner—just like real people!), and we've taken away one round of bottles. (Thanks for the advice, Christy!) This means that we are now going through 4 pounds of baby food per day, while the formula we are using has decreased to about two-thirds of a gallon a day. Incidentally, we are using just over two dozen diapers every day now, but we change approximately twice as many dirty diapers as we used to (thanks, baby food!).

As for naps, they've gone from three a day to just two—one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. We have to fight to get the babies to stay awake until bedtime, but I'd say that it's been paying off: Last night Dahlia slept for 12 straight hours! Dare I hope that the others follow suit (and save my sanity) in the near future? Stay tuned!