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!