8 months old!

The babies turn 8 months old today. As I feel every month, I can't believe it's been so long since I was begging for them to leave my body, and yet, it's been a long run. I'm tired and not sleeping well and I am stressed out (more than I want to admit) about our move in a couple of weeks.
All 3 kids on New Year's Eve


Here are some updates.

Juliette:

Her blocked tear duct seems to be getting worse instead of better. Although she isn't waking up with her eye glued shut as often, it seems to be running even when she's awake and causing her right eye to always look a bit swollen and like she's got mascara on. It's also irritating her cheek under the eye. Even when I try to clean her up, her right eye doesn't look quite right. Hopefully it'll clear up soon as massage and warm wash cloths don't seem to be doing the trick. Kiernan's tear duct issue had been cleared up by 8 months - I'm really hoping we don't end up having to see a specialist.
- Our little miss is definitely the front runner for bringing in teeth. She has 2 top teeth (the one to either side of the middle ones) cut and I think the middle ones are right behind them. 4 teeth pretty much at once. She hasn't been very happy, and maybe that's one of the reason her whole face is running.



Quinn

He loves to interact with us one on one and has little games he's figured out to play with us. He is still a cuddle bug and it's nice to have someone to sit with you and snuggle instead of jumping up and down while trying to kiss you, hug you, pull your hair and tell you a story!

After some false starts a few months ago, this last month Quinn actually brought in some teeth. His two middle bottom teeth are completely in - way better than the snaggle tooth scenario we feared a few months ago when he seemed to be cutting teeth at the back of his mouth first!


They are both:

- eating solids like mad. I think they eat 2 or 3 times as much as Kiernan did at this age, if not more.
- playing with toys really well. They got some new toys for Christmas and they will sit and play with them for really long periods of time. It's impressive. It's also nice to just be able to sit them on the floor to play and entertain themselves for awhile.
- interacting with each other. They are unintentionally cooperating in their play already, passing things back and forth to each other, accomplishing a task together they couldn't have done alone (for example turning the pages on the fisher price piano - One starts turning the page, the other gets it the rest of the way there). It is very cute. They are also already fighting over toys - grabbing them back and forth from each other/
- both showing signs of wanting to crawl. They flip onto their stomachs all the time and flop around. They slowly can make their way almost across a room with small turns, pivots, rolls but it is still pretty unplanned on their parts. Kiernan was immobile until about 10 months old. I am FINE with them staying in a controlled small space until we get to the new house.
- still not sleeping very well, although the last two nights they have have both had more than one 3-4 hour stretch. I, of course, couldn't sleep so am still exhausted.
- getting lots of hair and I think they will both have darker hair than Kiernan did.
- notice when the other is getting attention and they aren't and don't really think that's fair. Unfortunately, they're going to have to get used to that one ;)

By next month's update - we'll be in the new house!!