Trip to Chicago

This past weekend we headed to Chicago for my 10 year high school reunion and a chance to visit family and friends. We left Friday morning to fly out there. We are so blessed to have such an easy, wonderful baby. We had so many people tell us that they didn't even know Mady was there. She played for about an hour- wiggling around and looking out the window. At that point she started getting crabby, so we convinced her that a nap was a good idea. Lucky us, she slept for about an hour or an hour and a half. And by the time she woke up, it was time to give her some lunch. So we gave her a quick diaper change and fed her the lunch that we had brought with us. And then we landed. Yay!

After we landed we had to quick pick up the pack and play that we were borrowing from our friends Rob and Christa. The bonus to picking that up from them was that we were able to meet their brand new daughter Inara. She is so tiny! She wasn't even 6 pounds at birth and wasn't much bigger at this point. Mady's favorite part of visiting Rob and Christa was getting to hide in the different rooms and shut the door. Sometimes she would leave it unlatched enough that she could get the door back open, but sometimes she pushed it too far. Then we would hear a little fist banging on the door to ask us to let her out. Too cute!

So after that stop, we grabbed a few quick things at the grocery store (diapers!) and then headed to my brother's house where we were staying for the weekend. We ate dinner with them and then went to Chunga and Jill's house to meet their daughter Annika. So many new babies! We had a great time hanging out with them and Mady loved playing on their stairs and getting chased around the first floor. It makes such a fun circle! Of course Chunga and Jill were getting a huge shock by seeing a toddler that is very close to a year older than Annika. What a glimpse into their future!

Ok, so that's Friday. Friday night Mady slept like crap. I think she was cold and unsure of where she was at. So she woke up at 4:30 AZ time after going to bed at 10:30 (AZ time). That is not enough sleep for baby girl- or her mama! Saturday we took it pretty easy. We visited with Sarah and her family and went to dinner with some more friends. Then Sarah and Uncle Jeff watched Mady while Luke and I went to my reunion. We had a great time. At least I did. Luke was good at keeping me company! I was able to see a lot of people from my past that I hadn't seen in years. Some of them since high school graduation!

Sunday morning we were up early to drive up to Michigan. We were meeting Luke's aunt and uncle at a political rally for Barak Obama. Luke and I are pretty undecided at this point, so that was really interesting for us. We ended up chasing Mady around for most of it and ended with Mady doing a somersault off a curb. She was trying to step down and wanted to put her hands down to help herself. It didn't work out so well and neither Luke or I was quite close enough to stop it from happening. We took a walk down the pier at Grand Haven after the rally and then headed over to my grandma's new condo. We were able to see the rest of my family and enjoy a nice dinner with them. Grandma really enjoyed watching Mady run around being her silly self. And Mady finally slept a little better that night- thank goodness for a dark basement! It was so nice!

Monday we spent the morning with grandma and stayed until lunch. Then it was back in the car to drive back to IL. It rained so hard! I was so glad that Luke was driving! Mady was asleep in seconds of getting put into her carseat and slept until we got off the freeway. She was too good to us! Monday night we just went to dinner with my brothers to thank them for letting us stay with them. After another rough night of sleep, we were up on Tuesday with enough time to finish packing and head out to the airport for our flight home. Another uneventful flight later (Mady slept for over an hour and a half this time) and we're home! We had a great time, but we're so happy to be home. Mady just wasn't able to sleep at all while we were there and that means Mama couldn't sleep either. It was so nice to be able to pop her into her crib for bed tonight and have her go to sleep without a fuss and without needing someone to be in the room until she fell asleep. Ugh! It's nice to be back!

Busy, Busy!

Life has been a little crazy over the last few weeks again. Last week I took the GRE in preparation for entrance to Grad School. I'm looking at going to ASU for their Master's program in Speech and Language Pathology. I have thought for a long time about what I wanted to go into. This is an area that intrigued me and even more so when I made a new friend that does this. I really liked the ability to use some of my knowledge from my Special Ed degree and still be able to work with kids. Another plus is that it's pretty high demand and I can work contract hours. Meaning, I can pick and choose my clients and the number of hours and days that I work. That really appeals to me as I would make the transition to working mom. If something happens and I need to stay home with Mady, I will have that ability. I can either make up the time later or just skip it completely. Plus the salary that I would make doing this is more than I could make subbing or teaching. All very appealing.

Mady turns into a bigger and bigger goofball every day. She loves to take my phone and pretend to call Daddy. She's always walking around with it pressed to her ear, saying "Hi Daddy" in her little baby voice. She's "reading" books to us constantly. She's obsessed. Her books are always scattered all over the living room because they all have to be taken out and looked at. And her reading usually involves a certain amount of singing. It brings a smile to our faces! One other thing that she's started doing is fake laughing when she hears someone else laugh. Luke and I will laugh at something that's going on and all of a sudden we'll hear and "ah, hahaha" from the child. The first time she did it she was watching cars with her cousin. We had never heard her laugh at anything like that and it really took us off guard. She also loves to pretend she's a monkey. This has to be one of her favorite sounds to make. All you have to do is mention the word monkey right now and you get an "ah, ooh-ooh" out of her. That's her backwards version of "ooh-ooh, aah-aah." So silly!

That about all that's going on right now. Just lots of little silly stories. Luke is working tonight. He should be home soon. He's been busy with work and softball. Did I mention he beaned the crap out of another pitcher on Sunday? I know he felt bad, but I couldn't believe he did that! Other than that, we're just hanging out doing our thing!

A few pictures!

I've been wanting to post a few more pictures for ages, but haven't been able to because our computer was dying a slow death. Here's a few of my favorites from the recent weeks.

Happy girl!

I think she's back! Which means we made it through this transition period. (I hope!) Poor girl was just struggling. She was crabby and whiny and just didn't know what to do with herself. I'm sure she wanted to tell me what was wrong, but just didn't know how. It helps that I'm figuring out the new things that she wants help with. Getting on her rocking bike, wanting her cup of milk, wanting a snack, etc. Some of these things are getting more obvious which really helps.

She has some new word that she's been saying lately. She can say cracker and cookie. I swear she doesn't know what they mean, but she loves saying them! Especially cookie! All day I hear her walking around saying "cookie, cookie, cookie." Today she was alternating "cracker, cookie, cracker, cookie, ooh-ga!" I don't know where the "oooh-ga" came from, but it was said with much enthusiasm. For some reason it just cracked me up! I love listening to her babbling all day long!

Nooo!

Well this week has gone pretty well. Mady did surprisingly well with getting rid of her bottles. She's even caught sight of them sitting on the counter (ready to be put away) and hasn't had a reaction. I definitely count that as success.

However, she has most definitely decided that she does not want to take two naps during the day. This makes her mama very sad. I could get so much done when she wanted to take two 2 hour naps. Now by the time she's going down for her nap, I'm so tired that I have no motivation to do anything. This transition has also been leaving Mady a little crabbier than usual. A friend of mine said that she could tell that Mady is happy and she's not a monster, but she's just not her usual bubbly self. I will be so happy when that bubbly self makes an appearance.

We also had a sudden need for a new computer around here. I don't mind having a new computer, but it wasn't something that we really planned. In fact, the computer died on Friday morning and within 20 minutes we were calling Luke's sister to get her student discount to buy the new computer. Guess it didn't bother us too much! I'm really sad though because all of our pictures were on the old computer (along with some other documents and things that we need) so we'll need to take it somewhere to get all the documents put onto disks. And since I don't have pictures on here, I don't have pictures to post. Bummer. :(

Today marked the start of Fantasy Football for Luke too. This is not my favorite time of the year. Blah! Football at least 4 days of the week. And you better believe it's all day Saturday and Sunday! But he did enjoy hanging out with Mady while I went to a baby shower for a friend of mine today. Mady actually seemed a little happier today and I think it's because she was so excited to spend that time with her daddy.

On a funny note: Mady will not let me lay on the couch or especially put a blanket over myself. If I lay down she starts crying and comes over and tries to push me up. If I put a blanket on, she starts screaming and pulling at it frantically to get it off of me. I wasn't feeling 100% for I think she didn't like any signs that something might be wrong with her mommy. But, she doesn't care if Luke lies down or puts a blanket on. Hmmm. I wish I could figure that one out!

Well, this is totally rambling because I should be in bed already. So I'll leave it at that!

Operation Hide the Bottles! Day One.

After trying a few other things and talking to Mady's pediatrician, we decided to just put away her bottles. We've been talking about doing this for a few weeks, but it never seemed like the right time. She's had all her butt problems and was teething and had a cold. I hated to inflict more misery on her. We figured she would be well soon enough and we could do it then.

So today was the day.

I made sure the bottles were out of sight this morning so that wasn't an issue. When the morning bottle time rolled around, I just pulled out her cup instead of a bottle. She didn't get too upset, but neither did she drink much. Maybe an ounce.

We met some friends for lunch which really messed up Mady's nap time. Lately she's been going down around 11 or 11:30, but we needed to be at lunch at noon. So I figured Mady could sleep in the car for a few minutes and then take a longer nap this afternoon. That seemed to go as planned. Mady was a little tired, but not doing too badly.

We got home and I could tell Mady was sleepy, but she was determined to get some play time in before she slept. I gave up fighting her and focused instead on trying to get her to drink milk from her cup. This actually went really well. She drank about 6 ounces (this is a guess)- finishing what I had put in her cup. I started to get a little over-confident even though I knew the hardest one was ahead. Mady finished playing and finally took a nap- for over 3 hours.

We decided to have family over for dinner, so when Mady woke up, there were extra people around. Of course she was also hungry and dinner wasn't quite ready yet. So we were trying to hold her off for a few more minutes. Ate dinner and Mady played for a while with her cousins. My already tired little girl was starting to hit the wall. Aunt J and Cousin 1 left because Cousin 1 was slapping his cousins in the face. (Don't get me started on this behavior. I despise it when Mady does it too!) So Uncle M, Aunt J and Cousin 2 were still hanging out. Mady REALLY hit the wall at this point. She would do something- like climb on her pink chair- and then sit there and cry. So after we finished laughing at her dramatics, everybody left and I got her ready for bed amidst much crying.

Once she was all dressed in her jammies, we attempted to give her a cup of milk again. She sobbed. And sobbed. And sobbed. And then she sobbed some more. She pushed her cup away and didn't want anything to do with it. We debated giving her a bottle since it was the first day and she had done so well, but Luke helped me be strong and just kept offering her the cup. She continued to refuse, so I put her to bed. She cried for a few minutes and was out. I'm really hoping that the lack of that evening bottle/milk doesn't cause her to wake up tonight. Here's hoping tomorrow isn't as rough.

On a side note, Mady learned a new trick today. She figured out that she can climb onto the top of her Leapfrog Learning Table. She doesn't just kneel on it, but she can stand in the middle of it which makes her mommy very nervous. She also figured out that she can move it next to the big chair or coffee table and use it to climb onto either of those. We're not in trouble, are we?

I have pictures of it, but I'll have to post them tomorrow. Today was exhausting.

13 months old

So I'm a day late. Oops!

Mady turned 13 months old yesterday. She is getting bigger and better with each passing day. The older she gets, the more fun she seems to be. I think Daddy finds that to be true almost more than Mommy!

We now enjoy games of chase Mommy or Daddy around the house regularly. We have a small wall that separates our living room/dining room/ family room that Mady loves to run around with us. The game gets even better when you're able to get behind her and scare her. That is one thing that she did not get from her mommy. She loves to be scared. She will squeal and laugh like it's going out of style. It's adorable if I do say so myself!

Another thing that Mady has just started doing is putting her hands on either side of my head to pull me close for a hug. The funny thing is that she even manipulates my head to put it next to hers just where she wants it. And she'll keep moving it until it's just right! Then she'll wrap her little arms around my neck and give me a big hug. This mommy stuff just gets better and better!

She's also chit-chatting all the time. She walks around making little noises to herself constantly. Her favorite new sound is gub-gub. There are slight variations to the sound, but that is it's basis. Luke says that she sounds like an ewok (or some other Star Wars character that I didn't catch). It's really fun to try to figure out what she's going on and on about. Especially when she's standing in front of the TV (when it's off) and talking to that gorgeous baby that she sees.

Happy 13 months baby girl!

Stairs we can borrow?

Today Mady and I headed to a playdate at our friend Cyrena's house. Well, my friend Cyrena and Mady's friend Madison. ;) Cyrena has stairs in the living room of her house that are really hard to block off and Mady was all about getting into them. The only problem is that Mady is very good at climbing up the stairs, but she has no idea how to get back down them. I kept trying to turn her around to teach her to go down the stairs on her tummy and knees, but every time I did, she thought it was time to go further up. Umm, no.

It makes me so nervous to watch her climb, because I know if she does what she wants to do, she will walk down the stairs like a "big girl." I know she needs practice to figure it out, but it doesn't seem to make me feel better. So does anyone have some stairs we can borrow?

Update to the angry bum:

Monday, I had to take Mady to the pediatrician to have her bum checked. She had been dealing with what we thought was a yeast infection from all this heat. (Stupid heat!) She had been on a prescription for about 2 weeks and all of a sudden over the weekend it seemed to come back. But, the prescription wasn't helping. So off to the pediatrician we went.

We were able to get in there late Monday afternoon, which was great. I was just happy to get her in there and find some relief from the baby who was screaming with every diaper change. The doctor took one look at her bum and said that it didn't look like a yeast infection any more, but now it looked like a contact rash/infection... whatever you want to call it. The girl had open sores on her bum. So he gives me a prescription for a super powerful diaper rash cream.

So I head off to Walmart. It's actually our closest pharmacy and with $4 prescriptions, who can go wrong. As I'm driving over, I had this feeling that they weren't going to carry it or weren't going to have it for some reason. Well, I was right. It was out of stock. Now, normally I would run to Walgreens which is almost as close. But, the doctor had given me this special card for the cream that turned it from a $200 prescription (did I mention it's supposed to be powerful?) to a $10 copay. Thank goodness! Anyway... the card I was given couldn't be used at Walgreens. Huh? Whatever.

So I waited for Luke to come home and then I ran to CVS. I was tired of lugging a tired baby with me. I get there and hand over the information only to be told that they had it and would fill it, but not until tomorrow. The pediatrician goofed and wrote Tuesday's date on the prescription. What a series of events! At least he had given me two tubes of the cream as a sample. Mady of course thought they were perfect for carrying as soon as she spotted them, but hey, I had them.

Now it's Wednesday and her bum is already looking a lot better. We're changing diapers constantly, but at least the screaming has stopped.

Now if only we could get her nose to stop running.

Wow am I behind...

So obviously blogging has gotten away from me. This could be because Mady became much more mobile and I was needed to get her away from sharp object more often. Or it could be because I got lazy. Take your pick.

At this point, Mady is now one. In fact, she is nearly 13 months old. She's a regular little toddler and that scares me on almost a daily basis. She started walking on Father's Day. What a great present for Luke! He was really excited by that! Within about 2 weeks she was walking steadily and rarely did we even see her crawl. Crazy!

Mady LOVES to babble. She's always singing and making noises as she's playing. Her newest noise sounds a lot like "go-go-go." But since it's never in a context related to the meaning of the word go, I'm pretty sure it doesn't mean anything.

Right now Mady is sick. Not big time sick, but a lot of little sicks. She started out with more teething. She's working on tooth number 5 and 6. Then she got a cold to enhance her already runny nose (from the teething). She had been struggling with a diaper rash for a while now too. We thought that was under control, but over the weekend it flared up again and is now red and raw. It's gotten this way even while being on a prescription cream. So this afternoon we're off to the pediatrician to see what else we can do. Hopefully he can figure out what's causing this so the screaming will stop at diaper change time. She's also had an upset tummy which has not been helping the whole situation.

Hopefully our happy little girl will be back soon and the grouchy little person living here will take a hiatus.

PS. I'm hoping to post a whole bunch of pictures from Mady's first birthday party soon. And then some from her one year pictures and the family photos we did at the same time. They are true awesome-ness!

8 months old and Easter

Last Saturday, Mady turned 8 months old. She's getting huge and is changing so much right now. She's starting to learn new words and sounds and is such a social little thing. She's been able to say Mama and Dada for a while now. This month she's learned to say Bubba (one of her favorite words), uh-oh, and ny-ny. She's a big fan of growling and fake coughing as well. In fact if anyone around her coughs, she has to fake cough. She does this with so much enthusiasm that she ends up coughing for real. It's a vicious cycle.

Mady has discovered a love for walking this month. Rarely does she want to sit on the floor and play anymore. Oh no. She will constantly grab for fingers and hands in order to pull herself up and start walking. The biggest problem with this is that she will start walking while I'm still sitting on the floor holding her hands. It's very hard to get off the floor with a knee as messed up as mine and baby hands in mine.

The girl also waves like a rock star. We walk through the grocery store (or various other places) and she's waving her arm back and forth. Picture her holding her hand up like she was going to be sworn in and then waving it from side to side. Very beauty queen. People in the grocery store love her though. They all think she's waving at them.

Mady is extremely close to being a true crawler. She gets on her hands and knees. She can walk her hands forward until she is almost lying on her tummy and then walk herself back to sitting. She's just had a terrible time figuring out how to use those legs. This week she has started trying to move them a tiny bit. It won't be long before she's got it figured out though.

On Sunday we then celebrated Easter. Mady looked beautiful in her little purple Easter dress. Luke's sisters and their families came over to the house for dinner and an egg hunt. If you've ever watched an 18 month old, 10 month old, and 8 month old try to figure out an egg hunt, you'll know it's interesting. It took them a few minutes but I think all of them figured out what they were supposed to be doing. Abd'Allah even figured out that some of the eggs had something in them and some didn't. He started shaking the eggs and only taking ones that had stuff in them. Mady even figured out that she was supposed to pick the eggs up and put them in her basket. She got so excited about it that at one point she tried to pick up two eggs at once. This was only a problem because in order for her to keep walking, she needed her hands to hold someone's fingers. So cute watching her try to figure it out.

On a side note, Luke just got a promotion. We're really excited about it. He'll be an assistant at another branch. The only thing we don't like is that it's at Phoenix's 2nd airport. His hours will be more varied and he won't have every weekend off like at a regular branch. We're hoping they will be able to work it out that he can have every Sunday off, but that won't be for the first few weeks. So wish him luck!

Crawl already!

Some people may think I'm nuts, but I just want Mady to crawl. Every day, she wants to go get something that is out of her reach and she whines and whines until she starts really crying. This has gotten old. I know she's frustrated that she can't do what she wants.

But it's tiring.

We try to move things closer, or just give her the toy that she's trying to get. But then she'll just focus on a new toy that is still just out of her reach.

I'm not looking forward to mobility, but I feel that mobility will be better than the whining to be mobile is right now. (Of course I say that now, before she's gained that mobility.)

Please Mady! Just learn how to move your arms and legs in such a coordinated effort that you can get somewhere! Save Mama's sanity!

7 months old and proud of it

PS Did I mention that she now weighs 19 pounds 13 ounces. She's still 27.5 inches though. Big girl!

7 months old... well, yesterday

Mady has now hit the 7 month mark. It is just going so fast! She's in a stage where she is learning new things and growing in so many ways and it's all happening so quickly.

One of the biggest things that Mady has started doing is getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. This is the precursor to actually crawling. We're so excited to see when she will actually progress from this to mobility. It's a little scary!

Mady is also starting to eat more. She completely refuses to eat regular baby food but will eat small bits of regular food. Shh! Don't tell our doctor. We're working on getting her to eat as many vegetables as we can get her to eat. She will also eat rice, noodles, Cheerios (her favorite), sweet potato puffs, and bananas. In fact this morning, I told her to say banana and she replied "nana." That was a little freaky.

Mady has also started making a new face. She likes to purse her lips and shake her head. I'm not quite sure what she means when she does this. But it makes me laugh every time.

I love seeing the new things she does every day. She loves to cuddle and give kisses. Especially to mommy! She's still a great sleeper and just an all around great baby. We're really so blessed!

7 months old... well, yesterday

Mady has now hit the 7 month mark. It is just going so fast! She's in a stage where she is learning new things and growing in so many ways and it's all happening so quickly.

One of the biggest things that Mady has started doing is getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth. This is the precursor to actually crawling. We're so excited to see when she will actually progress from this to mobility. It's a little scary!

Mady is also starting to eat more. She completely refuses to eat regular baby food but will eat small bits of regular food. Shh! Don't tell our doctor. We're working on getting her to eat as many vegetables as we can get her to eat. She will also eat rice, noodles, Cheerios (her favorite), sweet potato puffs, and bananas. In fact this morning, I told her to say banana and she replied "nana." That was a little freaky.

Mady has also started making a new face. She likes to purse her lips and shake her head. I'm not quite sure what she means when she does this. But it makes me laugh every time.

I love seeing the new things she does every day. She loves to cuddle and give kisses. Especially to mommy! She's still a great sleeper and just an all around great baby. We're really so blessed!

Where did you come from?

Mady's mysterious missing tooth has suddenly reappeared.

Days or maybe even hours after I posted that she had cut her first tooth, we suddenly noticed that her tooth had gone missing. I can see it in her 6 month pictures and I was able to feel it at that same time, but suddenly there was no white spot and nothing that I could feel.

This morning, Mady wanted to chew on my fingers. This is a normal activity for her, but this time it wasn't so normal for me. As she put my innocent finger in her mouth, I was suddenly poked by a tiny, sharp object. The tooth had returned!!! She still won't let me look at it, but it is definitely there.

Hopefully this time it doesn't run away.

PS This picture is of Mady driving her granddad's Hummer. She knows what's up.

Valentine's Day pictures

I love having such a happy girl! We had a nice day and a nice dinner with daddy. Auntie Janine and Uncle Mike came over for dessert and Lost. It was a good day!

She's a punk all right

I've mentioned a few times about the fact that Maddy is not interested in baby food. Doesn't want any part of it. We thought we would try to get her more interested in food by occassionally giving her tiny pieces of acceptable food from our plates. We've given her bread and noodles and let her suck on fruit. She's been loving that so we thought that she would finally be interested in baby food.

Fast forward to yesterday when I decided to give Maddy cereal for the first time in a while. I got one or two bites into her mouth and she gagged. She hated it. I tried to get her to take some more, but she shut her mouth like a clam.

While I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the kid, I decided to eat a Reese's peanut butter egg that I had gotten as a treat. (They're my favorite candy of all time and I look forward to Easter every year- just for the eggs.) Right away Maddy got very excited. As a little experiment, I held it up to her mouth. Not in her mouth, just near it. She opened her little mouth as wide as it would go. She was ready for whatever I had in my hand. Thinking I was smart, I tried to give her a spoonful of baby food again. She turned back into a clam.

I contemplated the situation with my daughter and went to get a banana. I figured I would continue my experiment. I took a bite of the banana and then cut off a tiny baby bite size piece. I held it out and sure enough, Maddy wanted to eat it. In fact, Maddy wanted to eat quite a bit of banana. I tried to mash it and put it on the spoon. Clam.

I don't know what I'm going to do with this kid.

The way to my heart

Yesterday as Luke was holding Maddy after he got home from work, Maddy was being a little fussy. It was almost bedtime and she'd had it. She loved daddy, but at the moment she wanted mommy and no one was listening to her. Just to make sure this was clear, as I walked around the couch towards them, she looked at me and said "Mama, Mama" in this really irritated voice. It was like, if I call your name, will you listen now?

Oh, how I love that little girl!

On another note, a strange thing has happened. That tooth the we saw. The one we could feel. The one that we loved because it signaled an end to the crabbiness that was Maddy teething... it's disappeared. I know it sounds like the strangest thing. But, everyone in this house saw and felt that tooth and now it very clearly isn't there. The only thing that I can figure is that her gums are really swollen and hiding the little protruding point that was there. Hopefully we don't have to go through all of that again in order to get it back. :(

By Golly She's Got It!

Since Maddy was 2 and a half months old, she has know how to roll over from her back to her tummy. She's good at it. For a while there, as soon as you put her down on her back, she would roll to her tummy. She didn't like it. She disliked it so much that she quit rolling onto her tummy. Thus ended the Maddy imposed tummy time. This meant that I now had to remember to put Maddy onto her tummy at least once a day. I'm not very good at remembering to do this. So, Maddy hadn't learned how to roll from her tummy back onto her back.

I've been better lately. I finally decided that if Maddy spits up because she's on her tummy, so be it. She can lie on her tummy right after she eats and whatever happens, happens. So Maddy has spent much more time on her tummy lately. AND, I finally figured out how to help her figure out how to roll onto her back. I realized that if she had her arm up and out of the way, the final key was to help her bring her opposite knee up towards her chest. It would get her off her tummy enough to get her started.

Finally, as of Friday, Maddy figured out how to complete these steps on her own. Four months after she learned to roll one direction, she has finally mastered rolling the opposite direction. I never thought I would be so excited to watch a baby roll.

As Maddy has gotten more comfortable on her tummy, she is trying and trying to scoot around to reach for things. If she stays this motivated, she'll be figuring out how to crawl/scoot some way soon. Mobility. Uh-oh! The only problem is that she knows how to get off her tummy and chooses to do so very quickly. Hopefully we can convince her to keep trying!

6 months old

Where has the time gone? Our little peanut is much less of a peanut and much more of a big bruiser of a 6 month old. Every day she learns new things and changes. It's been so fun to watch.

Maddy had her doctor's appointment this morning. Our bruiser weighed in at 18 pounds, 3 ounces. She was 27 and a half inches long. With both of those stats she was in the 90th percentile. Yes, she is a big girl. A lot of people don't believe me when I say that she is 6 months old- they think she looks older because of her size.

The big thing that we need to do from this appointment is: MORE TUMMY TIME! Maddy doesn't want to put her arms out straight (like a push up) when she lies on her tummy. The only cure for this is to make her lie on her tummy more. The doctor isn't overly concerned with this as long as we make an effort to get her on her tummy more. Maddy has also been suffering from an upset tummy over the last week and a half or so. The doctor suggested temporarily putting her on a lactose-free formula to help her digestion. And finally, Maddy needs to eat solids. She is still not interested. She has reverted back to shutting her mouth tight when a spoon is anywhere near her mouth. She could be talking, talking, talking, but when that spoon comes near... she's like Fort Knox.

Maddy is doing more talking every day. Her favorite sound right now is: ma-ma-ma. We don't think she is associating this sound with my name yet, but she sure loves to yell it. It seems that this happens most often when she is upset or angry about something. For example, when she got her shots this morning, she was crying and kept saying ma-ma-ma-ma over and over. Or, she was bored yesterday as we were shopping, so she yelled ma-ma-ma while we were walking around. She wanted to make sure we understood just how bored she was. She does know how to say da-da, but usually this comes out as one single DA! We love that she is making more sounds that are beginning to sound like words. We can't wait for her to make the associations and be more deliberate in saying them.

Finally, we had professional 6 month pictures taken of Maddy on Saturday. I put two of my favorites in the post.

A conversation with Maddy

Maddy: Hey

Mommy: Hey

Maddy: Hey

Mommy: Hey

Maddy: Grrrr

Mommy: Grrrr

Maddy: Grrrrr

Mommy: Grrrr



Yep, this can go on all day. But, it's pretty cute when your (almost) 6 month old growls at you!

Ms. Crabbypants

Finally we can quit calling Maddy "Ms. Crabbypants." Her tooth has finally come through! She has been crabby and ornery- definitely not her usual cheery self. Finally today she's acting more herself. Suffering from "I see my mommy... therefore she must hold me" syndrome has not been fun for anyone in the house. I would take a picture of the newest (and only) member of Maddy's mouth, but any time we try to look in her mouth she sticks her tongue out and tries to lick us. This could be a funny picture, but I haven't taken it. Hopefully we'll enjoy a few days of crabbiness reprieve before she has to get her shots on Tuesday!

So close!

Maddy is working on cutting her first tooth. There is a white spot on her gums that keeps getting bigger and bigger. She's gnawing on everything. She's got the runny nose and the excessive pooping and the diaper rash that everyone tells me goes along with getting a tooth. We're thinking it looks like it's going to come through in the next couple of days. So, we're counting down to the days when we won't let her stick our hands in her mouth again. It's coming soon!

And a random picture:

Eating

So Maddy has not been very excited about learning to eat. On Thanksgiving we started trying rice cereal, but Maddy hated it. Our doctor suggested trying oatmeal because it tastes better. She didn't really want that either. When she turned 5 months, we were told that we could try veggies- green ones- with her. We thought because these had a stronger taste, they might go over better. They didn't. Maddy was at this point getting very stressed out and upset just by putting her in her high chair. So we backed off majorly. (We did this about a week after Thanksgiving too.)

Well, over the last several days, we've tried oatmeal (with bananas, cough, we're not supposed to do that, cough) and she is actually starting to get into it. I will be so glad when she's eating regularly and food is not a worry! Hopefully she continues to want food and we can start reintroducing things again!

Cute Baby!

Catching Up

So much has happened in the last few weeks and it's just been so busy that I haven't had time to update about any of it. First, Maddy has learned to sit up by herself. Yeah! She became semi-proficient at this a few days before Christmas and, after what seemed like overnight, was suddenly sitting extremely steady. She can reach for things way in front of her or to the side and get herself back to a regular sitting position. My parents were gone for a few days and couldn't believe the progress she had made. Now we can sit her up in the middle of the floor and walk away for a second if necessary and not worry about her tipping over.


Also right before Christmas, Maddy turned 5 months old. Holy cow! Where has the time gone? In a very short time, she will be half a year old. Half a year! That's almost one whole year! In honor of turning 5 months old, Maddy got to try peas for the first time. Try telling a 5 month old that those are yummy. Doesn't work. She would make the most horrible faces with each bite. We've also been continuing to give her baby oatmeal. She has days when this is okay to her, but most of the time she's not interested. Solid food is just not her thing. A few days later we also tried green beans. This went even worse than the peas. She'll look at me and smile real pretty when I say "num, num, num" or "say ahhh" and then she'll close her mouth as tight as can be.

Really, though? I don't blame her. Luke and I don't like peas or green beans either. :)

Also in honor of turning 5 months old, Maddy got a cold. She had one when she was about 5 or 6 weeks old, but it was very mild. This cold was kicking her butt. She was miserable. She couldn't breathe and it was horrible for her to be laid down to sleep at night or take a nap during the day. Poor kid. It was so bad that we had to put a pillow under one end of her mattress in order to raise it up a bit. At least that helped. That and a pile of Vicks on her chest. She's finally starting to feel better, though she has moments where it's breaking up and she needs to cough, but she hasn't quite figured out that that action will help her feel better.

And that brings me to Maddy's first Christmas. Christmas was always fun, but it's even better with a baby in the house. It has been so fun to have Maddy and our newest nephew participate in the festivities. They had no idea what was going on, but the paper sure tasted good. The best was the moment they both tried to get each other's presents. Of course the present my nephew was trying to get was a pair of very cute, very pink shoes that Maddy had gotten from her aunt. I love how that sort of action causes his parents to cringe. It just makes me laugh every time!

We had a great Christmas though. Maddy was extremely spoiled (as were the rest of us.) So far the winning present has to be a set of bongo drums that play music (see the first picture above). Maddy loves pressing them and making the music go. The best part is that they also turn so that they're end to end and she can reach for them and push them and they'll roll. They're highly motivating as she works on her next accomplishment: crawling. Hopefully we'll have some great news to share about that soon!

I hope everyone had a great New Year's Eve! Ours was fantastic. We called it an early night after dinner and some time hanging out with friends. We were in bed by 10:30. Luke had to be at work by 5am. Boo! Here's to hoping that next year we can make it to midnight!