Anika Iris, 9 months

Anika Iris is 9 months old today. 

It is difficult for me to type out “9 months” and hard to truly comprehend it. Anika is our baby girl. She is growing and changing so quickly that sometimes you just want to the hit the “pause” button to relish the age she is right now. This age is one of those “pause” moments. She is happy, interactive, laughs, crawls, smiles, chatters and just loves life. 

Anika’s biggest change for the past month has been becoming truly mobile. No more scooting, Anika crawls. She also has found her voice and definitely lets us know if she needs something including if she needs her mama. She is not too keen on me not being in her sight if I am present. This includes car rides. She has her not happy moments with me being in the front seat when she is in the middle seat with her car seat rear-facing. Most though Anika lets us know if she needs to be fed or has filled her pants and needs to be changed. Otherwise Anika is her content, sweet self and has extreme patience with a certain two year old in her life.

With my traveling in the past few months Nathan has established great routines with the kids. My dad told some of my colleagues this week that Nathan is “husband of the year”. Yes he is. Anika is baby of the year too. She is flexible and has adjusted so well to taking a bottle when I was gone. You might remember this was not always the case with Miss E. Anika is happy with the bottle so I decided to wrap nursing her this week. Big mommy decision that most of you don’t care about much but as a working mommy it was a tough decision for me.  And if you have been a working baby feeding mommy you can relate.

I took these pictures this morning in my office. Yes that is a TV tray as a side table holding a plant. Ignore that please. 

The girls wore matching bunny dresses but you cannot see much of them on the pictures. Trust me though, they are cute. Hunter is thrilled to not have to wear a matching bunny dress.

Anika will have a well-check appointment at the pediatrician’s office soon and I’ll update you on her height and weight. She is filling out 12 month and 12-18 month clothing now which is much smaller than Elissa was at the same age but I am so thankful. Anika is perfect. Practically speaking, with Anika being smaller in size she can wear many of E’s former clothes even though they were born in opposite seasons. Plus we make sure she is not lacking and she gets her own wardrobe too. 

Every month since December or January, I have been saying any day Anika will get a tooth. She has been drooling for months. Her gums are white but not a single tooth has cut through yet. Once she does get one tooth, a few others might pop out and hopefully she handles that with her usual grace.

Hunter is an ideal older brother to the girls. He is helpful and truly enjoys playing with them. Actually he loves playing with Anika. He loves teasing Elizabeth. Anika loves both of her siblings and likes to watch all the action. Elizabeth is very “hands on” with her sister. Anika just goes with flow and hasn’t put up a fuss yet…but I imagine she will.

E couldn’t resist not being a part of the pictures when I was trying to just get Anika with her hop-hop being compared in size from when she was born.

E insisted on holding Anika for a picture. While I am sure Anika will want to burn this picture someday, I cherish it. Those healthy baby legs are my favorite. This picture sums up Anika’s disposition!

Happy 9 months Anika Iris Kathryn. We love you.