9 Month Check Up

Zia had her 9 month appointment today. She's 17 lbs, which puts her at exactly 2 lbs heavier than Arya and almost a pound heavier than Eiley at this age. I was supposed to fill out an evaluation for her before the appointment. I did most, but not all of it. I didn't do a few of the things, like putting a cheerio in a plastic bottle to see what she would do. Because of my not finishing it, she failed parts of the evaluation. The pediatrician is super laid back and didn't care at all. She knows that kids vary so much at this age in what they can or can't do. In the past week she's learned to crawl, move from laying down to sitting, pull to stand, and sign the word milk. If she'd had her appointment last week I couldn't have said she did any of that. So she didn't really fail it and because I have no worries her pediatrician was fine with her development. She's right where she needs to be, even if I didn't see what she did with a cheerio and a bottle. Somehow I don't think the course of her life is going to be changed by my not taking the time to do that. The evaluation was pretty involved and she was pretty uncooperative. I was supposed to see if she could hold a toy in each hand for a minute and then what she did after that. I said she could, but honestly don't know. Each time I tried to do the exercises with her, Arya or Eiley would appear and she would be done with what we were trying to do. She loves them so much. She just wants to play with them.

I sort of mentioned it above, but Zia crawled on all fours for the first time today. I was in her room with her and my phone was across the room on the floor. She was sitting, then just leaned over and took off. She didn't have to go too far, but far enough to see that she was actually moving her legs and she didn't drop to the ground and drag herself. I got the video camera and tried to take video of her doing it, but she kept dropping back to her belly and would not cooperate.

Sometimes we do really cool projects around here and other times we do totally pointless ones. Today we did a pointless one that the twins will never want me to get rid of. I mixed up water, flour, and food coloring. I then let them dip cotton balls into the mix, put them on a cookie sheet, and I baked them. The outside hardens and the inside stays the soft cotton ball. I had to tell them over and over that this was not something we eat. They looked very appetizing to three year olds. They understood that what we were making wasn't edible, but it was still hard not to take a taste. The girls made a giant mess with the colored mixture. It was all over the counter, their clothes, the floor, and my clothes. The end product was fun, according to them. We each made caterpillars because the cotton balls would stick together if baked while touching. They had a great time playing with the caterpillars once they came out of the oven.