Oliver, Zoey, and Quinn are now 15 months old (and some change). Of course they are ridiculously cute and funny about 75% of the time, and the other 25% they are throwing what I like to call “micro-tantrums”, which are full-blown tantrums that only last for a minute or so before we can be successfully distracted with a toy or food. We’ve had a few “macro-tantrums” which involve back-arching, head-banging on the floor, and much gnashing of teeth, but thankfully those are still pretty rare. Tantrum-inducing behavior usually involves being the victim of theft, trying to stack blocks or rings and THEY JUST WON’T STAY WHERE I PUT THEM, wanting to get on the couch but Mom won’t let me, wanting to use Mom’s iPhone as a teething ring, having to get dressed, having to get diaper changed, getting woken up early because one of the other two are crying, etc. Being one is hard. Things don’t make sense, I want stuff that I can’t have ALL the time for no good reason and there are always these other little people around taking the stuff that I CAN have.

Even though the ups and downs of toddler mood-swings can be stressful and exhausting, we do have way more hills than we have valleys. Zoey is a pretty pro walker now. She started taking steps on her own a few weeks after their first birthday and wanted to practice walking all the time. She got good at falling—which is essential to learn how to walk—and constantly did laps around the living room, pulling up on the chair at one end and making it as far as she could before falling down, then going back to her starting position and doing it again, her pudgy little baby belly sticking out like its leading her to her destination. Zoey takes such delight in being able to walk; she laughs and shrieks and squeals and looks at us to make sure we see how much fun she’s having. Her favorite game is going into the corner of the entry way and poking her head around the corner to play peekaboo with whoever is sitting on the other side. Slowly a big flirty smile spreads across her face and she tilts her head so far to the side that she just about falls over. When we say “Peekaboo!” she shrieks and turns around, taking a few steps in a circle back to the corner so she can start the game all over again. Her hair is getting long and is a crazy mess of curls in the back that stick out on the sides of her ears. Just this week she’s started flapping her arms dramatically up and down as she walks around the house. Maybe she thinks flying is her next milestone.

Once Zoey became pretty steady on her feet Oliver decided he better stop fooling around and focus on this walking thing. Its just been a week or so that he’s been walking as much as crawling, instead of saving walking as a way to entertain the grown-ups. His technique is something special to see, as it reminds us of a man previously bound to a wheelchair who has just been healed and “filled with the Spirit”. Complete with eyes closed and arms up to the sky. Sadly, as he is becoming a more practiced biped he’s losing some of his style. His favorite thing to do with his new-found skill is to stand straight up from the ground with a big ball in his hands, raise it above his head and throw it as hard as he can to the ground while he grunts WOOAGGHH! Yep, he’s a boy.

Quinn is still in the practice stages of walking, but she did finally start crawling properly on her hands and knees (as opposed to the legless soldier drag) after their first birthday. She will take a few steps to Mom or Dad, but she gets SO excited about standing on her own for just a second that she practically throws herself in a fit of ecstatic joy into our laps. When she gets this excited she jumps and hyperventilates so much that she can’t keep her legs locked enough to stay vertical for more than a step or two. We’ve got to figure out a way to make walking more dull for this silly girl.

Other than perfecting our walking skills, we have been learning a lot of words. Everyone is starting to understand a lot and will point to things or gesture in a way that shows they know what we’re talking about, and they are definitely understanding “commands” though they are very choosy in which ones they apply. The other day I told Oliver we need to change his shirt and he looks down and starts pulling at his shirt. Amazing! I thought. Later when I told him to stop licking the trashcan he didn’t even look up.

Quinn is our quietest baby, though I know she is very aware of what is being said around her. She has just always been a keen observer who thinks a lot about everything and is slower to act. Her very first word was “duck” which happened well before their first birthday, though I don’t remember exactly when. She only associates “duck” with a yellow rubber ducky toy though and has no idea what that brown feathery thing is that we see at the park. She points at the door and shouts “Dada!” when Justin gets home from work. Miss Curly Q has recently developed an obsession with shoes and will say “sshh!” while she holds one up to me and lifts her foot off the ground. This week it has been quite necessary for Quinn to wear at least one shoe all day. She occasionally says cheese (chee), which is usually done in a whisper, as well as dog and Zozo for Zoey from time to time.

Oliver is our most verbal of the three, and probably has over a dozen different words that he uses pretty regularly. Almost everything he says is pronounced with mainly the first sound of the word, but even for letters that start with the same letter, he says them in subtly different ways. Dog was his first word, followed by a bunch of other D-words…duck, dada, done, down. His favorite word now of course is ball. Everything is a ball. We are always looking for our ball, always throwing our ball, or bouncing our mouth on it and saying “baw baw baw baw baw”. Ollie went grocery shopping with me last week and I made the mistake of handing him an orange and calling it a ball. I stepped away from the cart to get something and all of a sudden felt the orange peg me in the leg. Kid has good aim. Ball happened to be Justin’s first word as well and there is a family picture floating around somewhere of him as an infant surrounded by balls of all sizes and colors. It must be in his blood. Oliver also says mama, cheese (chee), night night, snack (naa), milk (moe), block (bah), book, banana (nana), bubbles, bye bye (buh baaah) and woah (like when he throws a ball really far and is amazed by his own strength). Lately he’s been babbling in ways that sound like he knows exactly what he’s trying to say, but its all still gibberish to us. It’s so fun to see his little mind working as he furrows his brow and looks so serious when he’s trying to say something. I’m not sure if it counts as a word, but when we were teaching them to blow kisses we made exaggerated “Muaaah!” sounds that Oliver now makes when he gives kisses.

Zoey certainly makes a lot of noise no matter how many words she knows. She’s our “life of the party” girl and always squealing and laughing about something. Her first word was also duck, thanks to a fun game with rubber duckies that grandma played with them. For awhile there all she would say is dog, except the way she said it “Dohb” is the cutest thing in the world. Dohb dohb dohb is all we would hear from her all day. She’s kind of over that now, which is a little sad. She also says dada, mama, and night night.

For so long our babies were not interested at all in any of their lovey cuddly things like bears and blankets and that kind of thing, but in the last few weeks they have started to love their animals and give them big hugs and kisses with their eyes closed and finally sleeping with blankets. When I put them in bed I love seeing them hug their loves so tight while they look up at me with sleepy little eyes. Oliver is the only one of the three who will consistently give Mama and Daddy kisses when we ask (and sometimes when we don’t), but you have to catch Zoey and Quinn in the right mood to get a kiss from them. I have only gotten three kisses total from Zoey ever. I hope she’s as reserved with her kisses when it comes to boys in fifteen years. Quinn is more likely to acquiesce to our requests for kisses but she is really hesitant to let Justin’s beard near her lips and usually turns her head, which has made him contemplate actually shaving it off for the first time in a year (the last time he did it was when they were newborns because he didn’t want to scratch them).

The very best new thing that they have all started to do though is to give each other hugs and kisses. When they’re sitting near each other if I say “Oliver, can you give Quinn a hug?” he leans over and wraps his arms around her head and gives her a big sloppy kiss while she giggles. Zoey fell down the other day and bonked her head on the floor and started crying hard, and while I was cuddling her Oliver walked over and put his arms around both of us and laid his head down on Zoey’s. We have so many happy moments but it’s that in particular, seeing these little people loving each other so genuinely, that really highlights what a blessing it is to have multiples. They have spent every moment of their existence together, in the womb and out. There are so many times a day that I think, “It would be so much easier to have one at a time, or even two,” or “I wish we could just do a quick grocery store run,” or “I wish I could go by myself with a baby to the pool,”…anything that my friends with one baby can do and I can’t because the logistics just don’t work when there are three babies to keep after…but at the end of the day, what we have is so special and beautiful and we would be missing out on so much joy if we didn’t have each of these precious babies.

Its safe to say that 2011 has been the biggest year of our lives. Our family grew by three, and none of them even came from the SPCA. The year has certainly been defined as the year of the triplets in our house, and I imagine that it will be that way for many many years to come. Justin and I have been reflecting on the ever-expanding field of emotions we’ve experienced in our first year as parents, so I decided to write down my thoughts on a couple of topics that stand out to me as the strongest descriptors of 2011: Struggle, Joy, Love & Communication.

On Struggle
I didn’t know it yet on New Years Day 2011, but I wouldn’t be going back to work on Monday. The three babies who we had only known about for a few months were growing well, but a normal human uterus isn’t typically required to hold three babies at once, and I was already having contractions at 25 weeks pregnant (24 weeks is the beginning of “viability” which is not a comforting thought). It was pretty much decided for me by my husband and our boss (and soon to follow by my doctor) that it was time for me to start maternity leave. I didn’t get to clear my desk, or have a last-day lunch or say goodbye to anyone, but I was also relieved to be able to focus solely on being pregnant and staying that way for awhile longer.

Bed rest at home was miserable. Sure, I watched Seasons 1-3 of Gray’s Anatomy (it just got kinda awful after that, you know?) and a whole lot of TLC reality programming, but I was at a level of uncomfortable I can’t really explain. We didn’t have a great setup for me at the house, and I ended up having to make several trips to the hospital to monitor contractions. After the third or fourth time in as many weeks, my doctor decided that all the back and forth was enough and I needed to stay at the hospital until the babies were born. I was thankful to be there, and Justin was relieved to have nurses just a button away.

The two months of bed rest that led up to the babies being born were really nothing of a struggle compared to the 5 weeks they spent in the hospital after they arrived. At the time it was hard, but I didn’t spend much time thinking about it being hard. It just was what it was. But looking back on that period since then, I feel an immense heaviness. Oliver, Zoey, and Quinn were born 7 weeks early and were taken straight from the operating room to the NICU. As my doctor pulled them out of me and held them up over the curtain for me to see them for the first time I remember thinking “Remember this. This is big. Remember what they look like, what you’re feeling. Remember everything.” I remember trying to remember. I don’t remember who cried, if they cried right away. I don’t remember an overwhelming feeling of emotion, just relief that they were actually here and alive and going to be ok. I remember having a hard time breathing and that they were playing “Come Sail Away” on the speakers and I was thinking “The first sound my babies heard in this world is Styx? Really?”

When I think about it I still feel really emotional about the things I missed out on…holding my babies within minutes of being born, getting to know them in the quiet solitude of my room with only my husband there. Getting to just stare at their perfect faces for as long as I wanted without tubes and plastic walls and protective goggles. I hate that I had to ask permission to hold my babies. I hate that I had to wait hours before seeing them for the first time out of the operating room. I hate that every time I saw them for the first 5 weeks of their lives there were always a handful of strangers in the room. I hate that I was in so much pain from my c-section and subsequent infection that my mind was as occupied with that as it was with getting to know and love on my babies. I hate that I had to pump instead of breast feed and that pumping took up so much time away from my babies and that I had to watch everyone else who wasn’t their mother getting to hold them and talk to them while I was pumping. Given the distance of the last 10 months, I can say that to date, this was the hardest time in my life.

When I start to allow myself to mourn all of these things I remind myself that I have three healthy babies. I firmly believe that God protected and guarded my heart from worry during those months. Though their health was never guaranteed and I wasn’t naive to all of the possible complications, I somehow never questioned it. I prayed for them all the time, but not worried, pleading prayers. I prayed that Jesus was with my little ones when I wasn’t, that they felt His closeness and felt loved, and that they would know Him so deeply that it didn’t matter that they didn’t have a conscious awareness of Him.

Since becoming a mother I feel like I’ve heard countless stories of other families struggling with trying to get pregnant, trying to stay pregnant, trying to keep babies alive… mine is barely a struggle in comparison. It humbles me to remember this; every moment we have with our children is a gift to us that is not guaranteed.

On Joy
Oliver and Zoey came home with us on April 2, just one day after they turned 1 month old. It was terrifying and wonderful at the same time. Quinn came home on April 4. Justin and I agreed that though having them at home meant no nurses to help us, no breaks from feedings round the clock, no monitors to assure us that they were indeed still breathing, that having our babies at HOME with us was the best thing ever. At last, our family was all together under one roof.

Yes, having triplets is a handful. There are a lot of difficult moments and times when I think “This would be so much easier with one,” but there are so many more joyful moments than difficult ones. Seeing them grow individually and develop relationships with each other has been the most incredible thing. They have each other, and no matter what else happens in their lives, they always will.

I think the biggest thing I’ve taken away from this year is that when no one else is, your family is there for you. That’s not to say that we haven’t been the recipients of an incredible amount of generosity from friends and even strangers (thank you, you know who you are), but who else is going to sleep on your couch and help you feed your babies at 5am, and then make you coffee and wash your dishes? And keep coming back to do it for weeks and weeks and when that part is over they STILL want to come hang out with those screaming little food pits and let you and your husband go on a date? Our parents have been incredible to us this year and we are so thankful to have them close by. Seeing how much joy our babies bring to them and to the rest of the family is beautiful and makes it worth us not moving to Portland, back when we had options (just kidding, just kidding).

There are so many little things about the babies that make me smile, here are just a few off the top of my head: dancing in our living room to Justin’s freestyle beatboxing (Zoey and Quinn get the biggest smiles on their faces when we dance); the weight of Oliver’s body as he wraps himself around me when I pick him up; Zoey’s babbles that seem like she is really telling us something very important; Quinn’s stubborn bottom lip; Oliver’s enthusiasm for new gross motor skills (the breathless laughter, the mischief in his eyes, his clenched fists shaking in anticipation of new opportunity); the way Zoey points her toes like she’s a ballerina; Quinn’s toothless grin; Oliver’s need to jump when you hold him on your lap; Zoey’s shyness in large crowds; Quinn’s old man belly laugh; Oliver chasing the dog and the dog running away but then coming to sit right in the middle of everyone; Zoey’s dancing whenever she hears music; Quinn’s need to bang on Oliver’s head if he’s within arm’s reach, and the smile she gets on her face while she does it; the looks on their faces when Justin comes home; how happy they are to be home with just us after a long day out of the house; Quinn’s pointer finger; Zoey’s periodic thumb sucking; Oliver’s runny nose face; the way Quinn halfway closes her eyes and lifts her arms towards me when I move my face close to hers and shake my hair back and forth; the way Zoey leans back to get a better look at you when you hold her; Oliver’s two front teeth…

There is so much of this year that I desperately want to remember but when I try to recollect what’s happened just in the last week I find myself at a loss. I’ve taken literally thousands and thousands of pictures and several dozen videos and I stare at the kids every day, willing myself to remember the subtlety of their faces so when they’re 12 and obnoxious I’ll remember why I like them so much. It feels like a losing battle, this attempt to remember every nuance and detail of their infancy, and sometimes I wonder if I’m trying too hard to document and missing the joy of the moment. I just hope when they’re bigger that they enjoy all of these records and have an idea of how much we love them.

You can flip through a calendar’s 12 pages in just a few seconds and as you mark anniversaries and birthdays you realize that time really is going by as fast as you’re flipping those pages. Just a flick of the thumb and a year is gone. All of a sudden 80-odd flips doesn’t seem like that many. Justin and I have talked a lot this year about our lifelong desires and goals and the things we’d regret not doing when we come to the end of our lives. We’re striving to enjoy every bit of life we have together and with these kids and not get hung up on things like time and money.

On Love & Communication
This is the part where I talk about Justin. We’ve been married quite a short amount of time in the grand scheme of things. We celebrated our third wedding anniversary in June 2011 (its been six and a half years since we first started dating). Our relationship has never been hard. We just seem to fit together and it feels natural and easy. We share passion and interest in the same disciplines, spirituality and world view, where we want to live, things we want to do on vacation, taste in movies and tv, pets, you name it. Peas in a pod, as they say. As we prepared for the changes that becoming parents would inevitably bring, we both wondered how our relationship might be different once the babies were born. Justin in particular was a little concerned that I would love the babies more than him. It might sound sweet and silly, but I actually wondered if it would turn out to be true, too.

I get the sense from our culture that we’re supposed to love our children more than our spouses, and that if we don’t adopt this point of view that we must somehow not love our children at all. On the contrary, I think that real family problems emerge when a husband and wife aren’t devoting enough time, energy, and attention to one another as they do to other members of the family (or jobs, or hobbies, etc.). Until they were born, I didn’t know where my heart would naturally fall. Now I know though, and I can’t imagine going day to day parenting three children on my own, or with little emotional and actual support from my husband. We love these babies, but Lord they can wear you out in every way imaginable. If I had all but abandoned my husband by lavishing all of my affection and time on the babies and leaving none for him, how would he be able to support and encourage me when I need to be built back up? And if he didn’t help me meet the needs of the kids when he’s home from work, how could I feel strong enough to give him the encouragement and support that he needs to be a good employee and be motivated to stay committed to our family? We’ve learned what we suspected all along, that we have to love and serve each other well in order for us to be able to function as parents and love our children well.

Not that I had any doubts before seeing him in action, but Justin is the most amazing dad. He doesn’t “escape” to work on Monday morning after 48 straight hours of papa time; rather, he can’t wait to come home and see them all again. He’s sure to have one on one time with Oliver and Zoey and Quinn and truly enjoys everything about who they are as individuals. He rough houses with Ollie and gets him all wound up right before bed like dads are supposed to do, but he also gets up with him at 5am and cuddles him while he gives him a bottle. When we’re in large, noisy crowds and Zoey gets overwhelmed he takes her for a walk outside and whispers gently to her, kisses her head, and calms her down. When Quinn is pouting and upset he’s able to make her laugh just with the look on his face (he does the same thing to me).

He’s taught me that its ok to slow down long enough to make the babies smile when we’re trying to get out the door, its ok if we end up being 5 minutes late. I overhear him singing the most amazing made up songs while he feeds the babies or changes their diapers and I can’t help but laugh and tell him he’s a big nerd (but I love that he’s a nerd).

Around 6:15 every evening (when we’re right in the middle of the “witching” hour that all babies made a pact in heaven to have every day in order to remind their parents that we live in a fallen world) Justin comes home and the babies light up from head to toe when they hear his voice. They’re so happy to have their papa home it just makes everything right in the world. And the look on his face at seeing his kids is what I’ve always hoped for in a husband.

I’ve learned that having kids doesn’t change who you are, it just means you have to work harder at some things. We make more of an effort to tell each other that we think the other is doing a good job. Justin listens to my worries about whether I’m talking to the kids enough throughout the day and that I don’t take them out of the house enough and that I get lonely or miss our office and he shows genuine understanding and empathy. And that’s all it takes for me to feel better about all of it.

I love my kids, but my relationship with them is going to be different than my relationship with Justin. They won’t know my deepest thoughts and hopes and dreams the way he does. They certainly won’t share those same hopes and dreams and work for the rest of their lives on trying to achieve them with me. They’ll grow up and move out and go after their own dreams and meet their own people to go on that journey with and I will love watching them do it, but it will be their journey and not mine. Justin and I are traveling together.

We say “I love you” a thousand times a day and mean it every time, and I think Oliver and Zoey and Quinn will feel that love filling up our house and take it out into the world with them.

Here’s to a surreal 2011, and a hospital-free 2012!

All I can think about when I say my babies are 9 months old is that its only 3 months until their birthday. How is it possible??? I mean seriously! I know what you’re thinking though, where did we get those cutest dresses ever for Zoey and Quinn? From Grandma of course! Go check out her Etsy shop after you watch all these adorable videos.

Here are our 9 month stats:

Oliver: 19 lbs. 3 oz. (25th percentile), 29 1/4 in. tall (75th percentile).
Zoey:  18 lbs. (30th percentile), 28 in. tall (50th percentile).
Quinn: 17 lbs. 5 oz. (25th percentile), 27 3/4 in. tall (50th percentile).

9 months is so ridiculously fun. We’ve seen their little individual personalities developing from day one, but now they know when they’re being super adorable and how to get whatever they want (not really, kids, your parents have hearts of steel). They’ve all started to notice each other a lot more and will smile and babble and laugh when they see their brother or sister. You can’t watch this without smiling.

They aren’t all sweet and precious ALL the time though. We have a couple of relentless toy stealers who like to make their siblings cry (I won’t name names). Link-a-doos are our favorite toys EVER and even if we’re already holding some we must take the ones that brother or sister are also holding, just in case those are a little more fun than the ones we already have. Zoey is known to hold onto one strand all the way through her morning bottle, play time and breakfast which is when Mom takes them away so they don’t get oatmeal all over them. Zoey and Quinn both pump their arms up and down while holding onto a long strand of links, which means they hit themselves right in the face with them. It cracks me up to watch them close their eyes and furrow their brows as they know they’re about to get hit, yet they continue to swing those arms. Silly babies.

Z is an expert tongue-roller, a trait she inherited from her Papa.

Q, just lookin a little goofy and sweet. This was the closest to a smile I could get out of her all day.

We’ve also recently discovered the GREAT FUN that is a big plastic bowl full of wooden blocks. Oh my gosh its like the best toy ever (Mom’s a genius). Knocking stacks of blocks down is super fun too, as you can see:

The babies have had some nasty colds the last couple of weeks which has been pretty challenging for me. Quinn wanted to be held 24/7, but even while on my lap she would whine and squirm all over the place. Oliver woke up in the middle of the night many times, which was pretty exhausting for us since we got used to sleeping like normal people for the last several months (we know we’re lucky, we’re thankful), and now that they’re better we’re doing a little bit of retraining on the sleep front with Mr. O. We’re a cry-it-out house so Justin and I basically lie awake in bed for up to an hour while Oliver gets himself back to sleep. Not much fun. Zoey had a couple of days where she lost her voice so she couldn’t even cry but she would try to and it might be the most pitiful sound I’ve ever heard. I’m so thankful that they never had fevers though and are on the mend. We’ve gone through quite a few boxes of kleenex between the three of them.

One hilarious consequence of it all is that Oliver has a new runny nose face where he closes his eyes and scrunches up his whole face, makes kissy lips and blows air out of his nose, usually while clenching his fists in the air. We’ve yet to get it on video but it might be worth it to try to give him another cold so we can capture this expression. He uses this move as defense for getting his nose wiped…one night I was suctioning his nose before bed, then grabbed the Vicks baby rub to put on his chest, but he thought I was going to do something else to his nose, so he started his move, eyes closed, air blowing out the nose like a sniffly dragon until he felt my fingers on his chest. He slowly opened his eyes and stopped huffing and had this look of realization on his face like, “Oh…you’re not going to touch my nose?”

My sweet Z is the first to really say Mama. I’m sure she’s not saying it with meaning but its so nice after hearing “dadadadada” all day long.

Notice anything new in this picture? Oliver has TWO TEETH! What a big boy.

His sisters are still toothless and adorable.

Oliver is now an army crawler. He gets so excited when he’s going along, he has this grunty little breathless laugh that sounds like he can’t wait to destroy something. Thankfully he has yet to ruin anything or hurt himself, though his favorite target is electrical cords. He also loves going right up to the Christmas tree and batting at the bottom ornaments and just watching them sway back and forth.

He’s starting to get really mad when we redirect him, giving us visions of tantrums to come. Not looking forward to that stage! He also just figured out how to pull up by holding onto the bars of the crib. He was so proud of himself the first time he did it! Oh, and everyone is an expert sitter now, which makes play time a lot more fun.

And the last in Oliver’s long list of accomplishments over the last couple of months is that he can clap. But he really only does it in front of new people and only when he really feels like it. He did it the day before Thanksgiving when we were at my parents’ house, then again on Thanksgiving Day with Justin’s family and since then he’s only done it when we have friends over. Ham bone!

I think Zoey kinda likes me. She smiles so big when I come home from running errands and she’s started to lift her arms towards me when I say “come to mama”. I think she’s trying to rack up points for when she’s three and throws herself on the floor when I don’t give her chocolate pudding.

Zoey loves music. She dances and sings and is generally happy if there is fun music playing. Her favorite thing is to dance with Daddy while he beatboxes (he only does this for babies, you won’t be able to get him to do it for you, no matter how much you bribe him).

When I pick Zoey up she instantly slips her little hand under my hair and gently opens and closes her fingers, which is the sweetest thing in the world, until she pulls it as hard as she can. Sweet Z is a sensitive soul. She is quick to cry if somebody takes her toy or happens to crawl over her legs. When Ozzie the dog walks by her she stares longingly at her and slowly reaches her arm out towards her. Slightly different than Oliver’s approach. I’ll just let you imagine what he does to the dog.

Little Miss Q had a couple of weeks of being extremely needy, crying if I wasn’t holding her (not the easiest thing to do when there are three babies to take care of) and whining all day long. Once she got over the cold she was finally back to her old self and its been SO great having my Quinn back. She has been loving on her brother and sister so much this week, she gets the biggest smile on her face when she sees them and reaches for them to bang on their heads (we’re not quite to kissing yet). I just love seeing the excited looks on their faces when they see each other now. I hope they’ll always be best friends. Is that asking too much?

Q may be the littlest one, but she is the toughest. Once she approves of you she’ll give you a smile that takes up her whole face, but until then, you get this spot-on impression of Vigo the Carpathian…(image on the right is her softening up after the first half hour of staring you down).

Quinn is most often found rolling around on the floor, staring at the ceiling lights, and pointing her index finger in the air. She was the last to sit up on her own, mainly because as soon as I would sit her up she’d throw herself backwards, expecting me to catch her and just look up at me and laugh. She gets super excited when Daddy comes home and smiles so big that her whole body kind of shakes. I think Daddy is her best friend. She loves to sit on his shoulders and hit the top of his head and bury her face in his hair. There must be something about Childress men because she does the same thing to Grandpa. But then again, she she reacts the same way to the dog, so maybe its just the hair?

Oliver, Zoey, and Quinn we love you so so much! Every day is so fun with you, even though you wear us out and there are plenty of days that I’m texting Daddy asking him if he’s left work yet and how long he thinks it will be til he gets home because you are little (precious) grumps between 5pm and 6:30pm, we wouldn’t change a thing (except maybe that you wake up naturally at 8:30am instead of 6:30…I think we’d all be slightly happier with that variable). Every day we agree, you’re the best babies ever.

Happy 9 (and a half) months!