Longer Out Than In

Ellie is nine months today. This is completely preposterous. Not because she's nine months, but because Kekoa was been two for basically forever and in the meantime Ellie has managed to go from a five pound blob that faintly resembled a naked mole rat to an actual tiny human.

I'm not kidding about the resemblance...

Tiny human!

How to sum up the last month or so? Well, the doctor put it best when she looked into Ellie's mouth: "OHMYGOSH that's a lot of teeth coming in....I am SO sorry."

Teething aside, she is feisty and crazy and loves people and loves moving and most, most, most of all loves eating. Well, unless eating involves pre-blended travel packs of chia seed supergreens. Which, let's face it, shows fairly good judgment on her part.

I thought that her increasing mobility would make her happier, but noooooo. Now she just wants us to help her walk around all the time. She has zero fear and I have to watch her constantly because she will just crawl off the edge of the bed, fling herself out of your arms, stick her head in the toilet, etc.

Her manual dexterity is improving, mostly due to an enormous amount of nose-picking practice. She gives high fives and is fascinated by whatever toy her brother is playing with. Her brother, on the other hand, has perfected the art of offering her his least favorite toy in an attempt to distract. She is not to be fooled.

The sibling relationship is an ever-entertaining roller coaster of emotion. We watched Uncle Andy's robotics team win their division at the World Championship, placing them among the top 8 alliances in the world (!). And my kids did a happy dance together, laughing and giggling (the robotics team uniform is orange shirt with turquoise skinny jeans. I don't usually dress my kids this way):

They adore sharing a room - neither of them will go to bed without the other (hmmm...is this because they're friends, or are they just trying to drag the other down with them?). Ellie's usually up from her nap first, and she loves going in to get brother. When we walk up to the door she gets a big smile on her face and starts lunging for him.

But both the cute and ugly moments are just that - moments. The other day I found them watching a video together, with their arms around each other and cheeks pressed up together.

But then I got out the camera and they both turned to look, which destroyed equilibrium. Cute sibling moment becomes a less cute wrestling match.

And while this is primarily about Ellie...well, what's life without a few Kekoa snapshots? He keeps us laughing, that one.

One night when we were going to bed, we saw this. "Kekoa, go to bed," Josh ordered, but the hands didn't move. So I nudged them...and they didn't move. He fell asleep that way. I couldn't decide whether it was funny or creepy.

 Trying to put away state puzzle pieces, one state won't fit in the container:
Kekoa: "It's not working! Texas is TOO strong!"

Singing to himself a deeply philosophical song of his own composition pondering the inconvenience of love:
"I like cuddling, I like cuddling
I like snuggling Pooh Bear and fire truck blank[et]
I like hugs and kisses
But I'm very hot....I'm very hot....I'm very hot."

On the way out the door with Josh:

Kekoa to me: " I love you, my love!"