Happy 10 Month Birthiversary!

The Bloods street gang has a pretty cool one, Spock had the “live long and prosper”, the queen has her signature lead-with-the-elbow-but-not-too-fast wave, Richard Nixon had his famous two-fingered victory V’s, Michael Jackson had his crotch grab, and Kaleia Rush has this:

Okay this picture looks a little like she's taking a page out of Hitler's book but usually the Kaleia reach is a little more her distinctive. The shoulder comes right up to her cheek (go ahead, try it...) and her palm flares outward. Either way, she does it A LOT, and reaching out, in general, is a very fitting gesture for this stage of Kaleia’s life. Whether it’s for something to support herself walking (which she can’t quite do on her own yet) or to grab some mischief (constant vigilance!) or to reach out to someone (her Mama attachment has definitely abated), she is always reaching for something.

She is also reaching out with her voice more and more and I think we have a real talker. Making noise is definitely at the top of her favorite hobbies list. Loud ones, quiet ones, delicate ones, and growly gremlin ones. She babbles consonants and screams for fun, especially when she can lure Magnolia into joining the chorus. The duets we get in the back seat of the car are somewhere between hilarious, adorable and I-know-this-is-gonna-be-annoying-soon. She doesn’t have any words yet but we suspect she’s starting to make the connection between her “mamama”s and her Mama.

Maybe it’s because she is so interested in vocalizing or maybe it’s our inconsistency but, aside from “milk,” she hasn’t picked up many signs.

We haven’t reported Kaleia’s stats as faithfully as we did Magnolia’s but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on our radar. In fact, Kaleia’s growth has been our biggest concern. She has always struggled to gain weight dropping from the 95^th to the 80^th to the 65^th to the 50^th and is now at the 25^th percentile. In the last three months she has only put on a few ounces and now her growth in length has also slowed. The benefit has been that she is still in 9-month clothes but I’d much rather she start packing the pounds. Thankfully, she’s started to accept foods that have texture so our weight gain bid has become a little easier.

Even if she’s not growing much, our little girl is definitely growing up. We love you Kaleia Shalom. Happy belated 10-month birthiversary!