Come What May: Hazel Happenings

As nine months with my little love fast approaches, it is high time for an update. A quick one, of course, but an update nonetheless.

She loves food, and is especially jealous of anything I’m eating. Table foods started a while ago, and watching her pick up the little pieces with her little fingers is the cutest. I still force her to eat baby food when I’m in a hurry, even though I have to trick her into taking bites. Or I put whatever we’re eat through a little food mill and she likes that. Her favorites are probably avocados or sweet potatoes but she isn’t picky by any means. I’ve definitely given her more treats and things than I gave the triplets. A piece of a doughnut or a lick of ice cream? Why not?
After a grueling sleep training process around 6 months, she now will happily sleep through the night for about 11-12 hours. 13 if we’re lucky. We did have some hiccups, as expected, because of sickness/daylight saving/traveling/teething?, but a couple days of tough love and she’s back in her her good habits. It really took about two weeks of hearing her cry in the night and I was so tired of taking to the couch in the basement to get any sleep. But it was worth it in the end. I know I should’ve done it sooner, but since she went down so nicely (I just zip her in a sleep sack, hand over her Wabanub, sing a little bit of “Goodnight my Angel” and say “night night”) and napped really well, I was holding off on the night wakings hoping she’d figure it out on her own. Nope. All’s well now, and I love seeing her happy, rested self in the morning (sometimes very early mornings, but we won’t dwell on that.) She’s sleeping in Ruby’s room now, and is such a light sleeper, that we’ll occasionally put her in the pack n play in our room when we have a babysitter or something so she doesn’t wake up as the kids are getting ready for bed.
Speaking of teeth, none yet! I have a feeling they are trying to come in, but she’s still sporting a 100% gummy grin. my other kids definitely had teeth by now. We’ll see when hers decide to make an appearance.
No crawling as of yet either. She might be on the slower side, but this mom is not worried or sad about it one bit. She can go ahead and wait until the Christmas tree is taken down and that would be just fine with me. I remember well how tricky the mobile stage is, and I’m not in any rush. She definitely shows signs of crawling as she rocks her puffy bum back and forth on her hands and knees, and rolls all over the place. I’m not looking forward to baby proofing, so I’m enjoying every second of this simple phase while it lasts.
Although she is showing a little stranger anxiety, mostly she smiles at everyone she sees. Every time I take her out, I get comments about how she’s the happiest baby ever and how blue her eyes are. She has fussy moments, of course, and sometimes demands that I hold her for a while. I’ll happily oblige most of the time, but when mommy just needs to get something done, a show or Graham Cracker comes in very handy.
Her siblings still love her to death and the love only gets stronger as she gets more fun and interactive. When they make her laugh, or she she responds at all to anything they do, hysterical laughter ensues. They were having a growling contest with her this morning, which was hilarious. She is quite a growler. There is just always so much kissing, hugging, playing and snuggling going on over here.

Now, here are a million pictures in no particular order to show how fast our baby Hazel is growing. That soft, bald, babbly, happy baby girl is just the absolute best thing in all of our lives. We couldn’t love her more.

He just COULDn’t walk home from school one day.She’s the softest.Sunday school playdate.Very impatient between bites.Early birds unite.Sometimes it’s hard to wait for school drop-off. Snow flurries in her hair.A crawling lesson.Who doesn’t love bacon?