happy new year!

its the first day in 2008 and we spent the day getting everything in order for the new year. matt worked on baby-proofing the house and i worked on cleaning up my office for optimal organization and maddie friendliness.
while we haven't counted it as an official first word, maddie does say "da-di". i have been working with her on saying "daddy" for months now. my goal was to get her to say it by Christmas (like i have any control over these things). today she looked at matt and said "da-di" more than once, but we aren't convinced that it isn't just a coincidence - yet. she also did a good job of playing "where's daddy?". i ask her "where's daddy?" and she looks all around for matt until she sees him and then smiles. the video doesn't quite capture it because she was more interested in my new camera, but you can get the general idea. its pretty cute how much she loves her daddy.



in addition to office organization, i worked on prepping finger foods for maddie. we introduced cubed pears today and she did pretty well. it takes her a while to 'chew' them up because at first she just sucks on them like the banana puffs waiting for them to dissolve. once she realizes that they don't work that way she sort of gums them and bites them with her teeth. most of them fell out of her mouth while she was chewing with her teeth because she hasn't figured out how to close her lips while chewing to keep the food in. after i finish blogging i am going to prep and freeze avocado, banana, and mango cubes to try in the future.

as you may have noticed in the pictures, i tried a new hairdo today for keeping her hair out of her eyes. matt doesn't like the little clips because they could be a choking hazard and the big bows aren't really practical for everyday play, so this was what i came up with...

here are some more pictures from our day at home.

maddie helping mommy clean her office.

while this isn't a great shot of maddie, it was the only way i could get a picture of at least two of her front teeth.

playing ball in mommy's office. she was laughing as she would kick it away with her feet and i would roll it back to her.

one last note - i started introducing sign language a few weeks ago and i think that she might be trying to sign back. tonight we were saying "daddy" over and over doing the sign (open palm with the thumb touching the forehead and then moving away from your head) and she kept bringing her hand to the side of her head after we would do it - sometimes her hand was even wide open. i know, you are thinking to yourself that i am crazy, but i found it to be encouraging to my signing efforts.

as part of the signing effort, i have been letting her watch the baby einstein signing dvd. and she sits and watches it! i'm not really sure how long it is, but it is at least 15 minutes. she will glance at the tv when we are watching it, but she has never paid this much attention to it before. (don't worry, she doesn't sit that close all the time. i had actually turned it on for me to learn the signs to do with her, but when i saw she was watching it i took a picture and then moved her farther back.) she even gets excited at certain parts and talks to the little boys in the video (yes, she already gets excited about boys - more about that another day.) she likes when the mommy puppet tries to feed the baby puppet with a spoon. she started talking to the screen at that point both times we watched it.

okay - i am done sharing for tonight. love.