About Kiera...

So much has happened in the last several weeks that I couldn't possibly put it all in one post, so I've decided to go child by child. I'll start with Kiera as she's the baby and by default the most interesting.
Kiera just turned nine months old. Yup, nine months. I know, crazy. Too fast. Where did the time go and all that. I don't like to think about it, actually, as in another few months I'll be all out of babies. When Kiera was five months, she began to push up onto her hands and knees, which was quickly followed by the standard rock-back-and-forth that precedes crawling. Oh goodness, we all said. Any time now. She'll be an early crawler, no doubt. She's so strong for her age (even her doctor said this).....................................
She finally started crawling a couple of weeks ago. She spent FOUR MONTHS rocking, belly flopping, dragging, and rolling herself around. For those in the yoga "know", she developed a mean downward facing dog. Even when she did start really crawling, she was very slow and tentative, alternating between crawls and flops-especially once she hit the hardwood. And she wouldn't follow me--if she really wanted something, she'd just flop down and cry.

She loves seeing her brother and sister when she wakes up-she doesn't look it here, but I promise, she was happy.

I have always said that she is a person that requires a strong motivation to persue a task or accomplishment. I think that, until recently, she just didn't see the point. She couldn't go very fast, didn't see a need to be anywhere but where she was, and she has these nifty giants who will carry her anywhere she does need to go-so why put forth effort that can be better spent picking miniscule specks of junk out of the carpet? Cause that there is an important endeavor.
Five days ago she found her motiviation. I don't know what it was, I think she may just have realized there's LOTS of places to pick miniscule bits of junk from--maybe she finally got the carpet thoroughly picked and needed greener pastured. Maybe she realized if she chases me, it's a lot harder for me to put off her requests. Perhaps she finally felt she could employ enough speed to make it fun. Regardless, five days ago she made up her mind-and got FAST. In the space of the last five days she has explored more of the house than the rest of her life combined (independently, that is), along with learning to pull up (she did it by accident several weeks ago and didn't see fit to repeat the process until now), cruise along furniture, and push anything mobile across the floor (toys, highchair, books, her piano, people). Oh, and she's decided the stairs look like fun, too.
So in the space of five days we have gone from "how cute, she's finally trying to crawl" to "Kiera come back here! Get Down! Stop pushing that! Let go of the cat!"
And oh, is she proud.

Immediately after she very stealthily consumed a quarter of a blue crayon. The tear is because I took it away.

She's also eating anything we put in front of her (and few things we don't...no nut allergies here!) and enjoying clucking her tongue. At the moment she's standing at the toybox banging away on the lid and clucking along, and blowing raspberries--I think she's composing her first song.
She's sweet and playful, funny and smart (when we ask for hugs and kisses, she complies-she has said several words and can repeat even more when she so chooses) and she sleeps like poo at night--but that's an entirely different post.

Whilst suffering from a high fever but still trying to play, she crashed