Ayla Update

I do have a baby book for Ayla. I believe it currently has her date of birth, weight and height recorded in it. Oh, and her full name and time of birth. That's about it. But I have my blog...oh wonderful blog. So this is where I will find most of my info to update the written baby book. Although I think the blog will be fun for the kids to read someday, I know it will also be nice for each of them to have their own baby book full of facts on themselves. But for now, all I have time for is blog.
I feel like I haven't written much about all Ayla has been up to these days, so I thought I'd get some of this down on computer! This is for my own personal record, and I'm sure it will be boring to most everyone else. So feel free to sign off right now!

She currently sleeps about 9-10 hours at night. She prefers to be fast asleep by 9:00 and usually wakes up to eat between 6:00 and 7:00. And she just wakes up enough to nurse and then go right back to sleep until around 9 or 10. She is eating "food" 3 times a day. Staples are brown rice cereal, squash, sweet potatoes, applesauce, pears and carrots. She will eat chopped up carrots as well. And as of last night, she took her first sip of water out of her sippy cup. She hated it. Acted like it was poison. We need to work on that! She seems to have a milk allergy. When given any dairy she breaks out around her mouth...red splotches all around her face. I've tried hard cheese and cottage cheese and milk-based formula. She likes the cheeses, but still has a reaction. Hoping she outgrows that soon!

She crawls sometimes, but when she wants to get to something fast, she army crawls. And she is QUICK. She is pulling herself up to anything and everything. But then gets stuck and starts screaming. She rarely "cries" tears. She screams, or yells. More angry than sad. I can barely think of a time when she had real tears. Scary thought for our future!

She hits, bites and pulls hair. And then laughs when you react. We are working on that. hoping she gets real soon what "gentle touches" means. She likes her walker, but her swing has been moved to the basement. She isn't even loving her exersaucer anymore. She wants to get around. The big kids make her giggle the hardest. When we are in the car, she loves to scream a super high-pitched scream. We have taught the kids not to laugh, but they have a hard time containing themselves. So then Ayla thinks she is the star of the show and does it over and over and over again. Not so funny after once or twice.

Brigg and Lani are very protective. If we ever try to stop Ayla from doing something...like ripping our face off...they say "But mom, she's just a baby. She doesn't know any better". At 9 months this excuse is getting to be less and less acceptable. But Ayla is going with it.

She reminds me of Brigg in the way she studies people. She won't give that 2-toothed smile to just anyone. She stares at them. Looks deep into their soul and may give a half grin. She's just not real sure about anyone at first. She may reach out to you with a sweet look and this cute little chubby hand and you may think she wants you to hold her, or kiss her, but as soon as you lean in there is a good chance she will draw blood. I am not kidding. So beware.

It is so fun to see her personality coming out. I think she is going to be passionate and cautious with her love. It is amazing to see the 2 older kids with her. At their ages, there has been virtually no jealousy at all. Just the opposite, in fact. As she gets older, the house gets louder and crazier. It's fun! We cannot imagine life without little Ayla in it. And to think it's already been 9 months! SCARY!