maddie attacks

just a quick video of maddie coming to get me.

hi, doggie!

madelyn is extremely interested in our dogs now. she crawls over to the glass sliding doors to look for them out on the deck. and when they come up she laughs at and talks to them. i think "dog" or "doggie" might be her next word. she has come pretty close to saying it while looking at her books with dogs in them. she is just missing this vowels by saying "dg". you can see her trying to give maggie a 'kiss' in the picture while lady waits her turn.

matt went out last night to brave the cold because we were worried that maddie wouldn't be able to breathe with her congestion. so matt came home with a bag of supplies from walgreens and we woke her up. after plugging in a vapor fan in her room, putting saline drops in her nose and sucking them out again, and rubbing baby vicks on her chest we were all breathing easier.

and we all had a great night's sleep! due to concerns about frostbite (it was colder than -30) and maddie's sniffles we stayed home from church this morning. i hate missing church but it really was in madelyn's best interest. she slept until 8:30am!

here is a video of a well rested girl showing how fast she is getting at crawling.



did i mention before that she gives "kisses" now? she mainly gives them to matt (not that i am jealous or anything). they are the big, wet, open mouthed, "i'm going to eat your face" variety, but she gives them on request. very sweet. well, that's all for now. love.

mommy's home

sorry to have not posted sooner (especially since matt didn't post while i was gone) but i had a lot to take care of when i got home and maddie had some cold (or teething) symptoms. she threw-up for the first time on wednesday and had a slight fever on thrusday. not to mention that her cough has gotten 'juicier'. i think that all of this is from her molars coming in and not from a bug.

as with every trip i take, she changed so much while i was gone! she waves 'hi' and brings her hands together when someone claps. she has also figured out the "daddy" sign. i am not sure that she knows what it means, but she will do it when we do it so that's something. right? she has become a regular chatter-box! she babbles pretty much all day from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. at least while we are at home. when we ran errands today she didn't say very much. i think that there is just so much to take in that she forgets everything else.

here is a video of us playing peek-a-boo around her cup after lunch yesterday. she is just so giggly. she is also starting to laugh when tickled. her neck, right armpit, and feet are her ticklish spots.



the picture at the top is one matt took of her climbing under the coffee table when i was gone. and this picture is one he caught of her 'carrying' her toys while she is crawling.

tomorrow her uncle brad, aunt abby, and cousin annabell are coming to visit for the week. we are really excited to see them! i will do my best to keep you up on all the action! love.

improvised movements

madelyn wants to walk so bad. she has now started to crawl with her back legs straight like she is walking on all fours. she starts by standing with the help of whatever she can get her hands on and then can't figure out how to move around once she goes as far as the coffee table/couch/wall/toy can get her. then she works her way down to sitting and tries to crawl/walk to where she is going.

she has also developed a means for taking her toys with her when she gets on the move - she puts them in her mouth! its really funny when she does it with a stuffed animal. she looks like a mother animal carrying her young. she also did it with the balloon ribbon at the birthday party over the weekend so that she could take the balloon with her.

today we tried hard boiled egg yolks. i didn't have them ready in time for mixing in with her porridge (because of her nurse appointment this morning for the other half of her flu shot), so she had it for a mid-morning snack crumbled up for finger food. she actually did a lot better than i thought she would. i would guess that she ate at least half of it and the rest got smashed up or dropped on the floor in the process.

love.

follow the leader

i am happy to report that there was no blood shed today!

the new trick of the day is following us out of the room when we walk away. she has crawled out of rooms after us before, but it is usually because we are calling her and trying to get her to, but today i put her in the living room to play and went into the kitchen for a drink. i looked in at her from the kitchen and she had rounded the couch trying to follow me. she did the same thing to matt when he got home tonight. he left the living room and she took off after him.

we were lucky to have matt home earlier than normal tonight - maddie got some extra daddy time! as you can see, some of that quality time was spent taking a pre-dinner nap on the couch together. the video shows one of the ways they wore each other out - as with all videos, maddie stopped laughing once the camera and lights were on but you can get the idea.



where yesterday was shrieking, today was raspberries! at snack and lunchtime today she was blowing raspberries as hard as she could - there was spit flying everywhere. plus, she would take a huge breath and blow, her face would get all red and then she would take another breath and start all over again. it made lunch take a lot longer than normal, but i enjoyed a really great laugh. she just kept looking at me like, "what's so funny?".

matt may not agree, but i am going to call "da-da" her first word. she says it all the time now. everything is "da-da". i was joking with matt because she was calling the remote control "da-da" tonight. she was standing at the couch trying to reach it and just kept excitedly saying "da-da-da-da-da". i told him not to feel bad because she calls everything "da-da". she will also say "hi" back to me when i say it while she is looking at me, so hopefully talking videos will be in the near future.

she just has more and more of a personality everyday. its so cute how friendly and loving she is with everyone. we keep saying that she is going to be a little social butterfly when she gets older - oh boy!

love.

bumps and bruises

one of the challenges of having a child who had a lot of teeth before they can even crawl is keeping those teeth from getting knocked out. madelyn had another tooth slamming adventure this morning. she was crawling around the living room while i ate breakfast and watched the morning news. she then got up on the laundry basket, walked/cruised over to the coffee table, and then to her toy basket under the table. she continued going between the coffee table and her toy basket in a 'walking' fashion getting toys out and putting them on the coffee table where she could better see, taste, and shriek at them. she was having so much fun that she started waving her hands around and let go - resulting in her top teeth hitting the edge of the coffee table on her way down.

this time i was more upset than she was. she cried initially, but as soon as i picked her up she was fine and started chewing on my fingers with no signs of pain. her gums were bleeding again around the same tooth where there was bleeding the last time she slammed her mouth like that (right before we went to Kansas when she was trying to crawl on the hardwood floors). there is still a little dark blood spot on her gums right above her right, front tooth from today's falls (yes, "falls" - plural - keep reading).

then when i went to pick her up from her nap i noticed the long scratch on her face that you can sort of see in the picture near her eye on the side of her face. after feeding her, i clipped her finger nails for the second time this week to try and limit the number of marks on her face.

and madelyn was not done injuring herself yet. her new thing is to crawl her hands up the walls so that she can stand leaning up against them, but the catch is that she can't figure out how to get down. i guess she was trying to get back down when i heard a thump and then crying. she had a nice red mark on center of her forehead the size of a quarter from where the wall texture scratched her a little on her way down (she caught herself during her fall and was just kneeling with her hands on the wall when i went to get her).

but, wait, there's more! at playgroup today she slipped while crawling on their hardwoods and knocked her tooth again!! there was a lot more blood this time, but she quickly recovered and was biting my finger as hard as she could while i was trying to figure out where the blood was coming from. its not like she isn't a stable kid. i think she was just so excited by everyone running around (there were about 11 kids between the ages of 3 and 5 months) and got ahead of herself.

her mouth started bleeding again tonight while she was chewing on her pack-and-play but best as i saw, she didn't hit her mouth again because there was no bang and no crying. what can i say, the girl is fearless and wants to try everything. i am just going to try and keep her scaring injuries to a minimum...

maddie's preferred method of communication today - shrieking. from the time she woke up until the time she went to sleep shrieking was the way in which madelyn expressed herself (she did throw in a few raspberries, grunts, "hi", "da", "ga", and nose snorts, but the day was mainly shrieking). i never know what she will sound like from one day to the next. here is a video of her shrieking today with her toys and the crawling to the newly discovered printer stand in my office and the 'fun' reams of paper underneath it.

yesterday she pulled an open ream of paper off the shelf, shook the paper out and proceeded to play with the plastic wrapper. of course i had to be the party pooper who threw it away.

hopefully, tomorrow will be much less bloody! love.

play yard standing

tonight madelyn stood herself up in her play yard. i was probably a little too excited about it (i scared matt). i was getting dinner ready and looked up and she was standing. while we were eating at the table (right next to the play yard) she fell down - well she tripped on her lilly doll - and we got to watch her get herself back up again. she just worked her hands up the side and over the top. and she was pretty quick about it too! she was pretty proud of herself and could even walk end to end - back and forth. what was a little concerning is that she is already trying to get her legs up and over too. i can just hear her little brain thinking - "i am so out of here"!

i like this picture of her smiling because you can see most of her teeth. (you will need to click on it to really see them well.) it is crazy to see all those teeth in her mouth! i almost don't recognize her - she just looks so different.

maddie got her first paper cut today. the only reason i noticed was because she bled on the product catalog she was turning pages in under my desk. i couldn't figure out how she could have started bleeding because she didn't cry at all. and then i found the paper cut on her finger. boy is she tough. i have seen grown men make a fuss over a paper cut and here my six month old doesn't even make a peep.

she is also starting to get more daring when standing by letting go with at least one hand and trying to move between objects by reaching. luckily she doesn't cry every time she falls. i'm telling you, she is one tough kid. i think that she has to be tough in order to keep up with her active lifestyle!

oh, one more random maddie story from today. she crawled out of her nursery and into the guest bedroom out of pure curiosity - not to follow me. we had better get the baby gate on the stairs this weekend (or sooner).

i have to go get my mom at the airport tonight. she is going to be here until monday. love.

now we're moving

madelyn can get herself up to the top of the coffee table and walked down to where she could reach some magazines and matt's wii controller. i started filming after she got down to her basket of toys and started reaching for everything on the coffee table.



so then i pulled her down to make her try again so that i could film her getting herself up and down the coffee table. but then she fell this time - oops. (she stopped crying quickly and went down for a nap.)



yesterday, i let her have some cottage cheese as part of her finger food afternoon snack. she really got into picking up the little curds and getting them into her mouth. it was, however, very messy and she had to be stripped down. i didn't get her dressed again before dinner (avocado) which was just as well because - as you will see - dinner was very messy too. she had been biting the spoon as hard as she could (with all four top teeth and three bottom teeth) and wouldn't even let go when she would pull the spoon herself and that is what i was trying to film. instead you get to see how excited she gets for every spoonful and how she 'helps' get the spoon into her mouth.



today we introduced millet porridge for breakfast and it might be a new favorite! i was really doubtful that she would eat it since she doesn't like the texture of the rice porridge, but she really liked it. now that she will eat two grains, i can mix the oatmeal and millet with some veggies to create true "super porridge" for a complete meal. yea!

i also let her try a straw cup today and she was able to suck her water up. i was actually surprised that she was able to drink from it.

now that she can get around better - and quicker - she crawls over to my desk chair when she is ready to eat or nap. no, really. i know it sounds crazy, but all day she would play by herself in my office and then crawl over to my chair at the exact times when she has been eating and napping since we got home from Christmas in kansas.

sleeping update: saturday night maddie slept from around 7:30pm until 6:30am! and then last night she slept from around 7pm until 4am. the good news is that she went right back to sleep after i went and cuddled her for a minute at 4am. she was just sitting up in her crib and crying. i think that she couldn't figure out how to lay back down again. progress!

love.

sitting up captured

since i didn't post any pictures about madelyn last night, i thought that i would go ahead and post some videos this morning. this is not the greatest video of her trying the banana puffs for the first time last night, but she smiles in the beginning and you can see some of her three top teeth. she is eating one of the puffs and holding another in her hand. we tried them again this morning while i was getting her oatmeal ready and she ate all three by herself - using her pointer finger and thumb. i was so proud!



and then this video is from this morning. she kept crawling and sitting herself up and it occurred to me to grab the camera and catch this sit-up before she got too cranky to play any more and we had to move on to breakfast.



she crawled to me for the first time this morning as an extremely intentional action and she stayed on all fours the whole way (normally she drops to her belly at least once) - she covered about three feet. i was so excited! i told her to come to mommy and she did!

that's all for now. love.

one more day...

only one more day until Christmas! we are getting really excited here. i think that papa is excited to give maddie her presents. from the looks of the tree, we have all been really good this year.

madelyn has a lot of Christmas and winter themed clothes that i have been trying to get on her this week. here she is in front of the tree in a snowman dress that she wore to church tonight. she is much more interested in the presents than in the camera, so this was the only shot were she was actually looking at me.

i also tried to get some video of maddie crawling, but she just crawled backwards when i was filming which was something new. but otherwise she didn't make much progress today. although she did scoot herself backwards and into a full sitting position. i think that i was the only one really excited about this accomplishment though. you can sort of tell that there is a lot going on to distract her from her crawling.





for lunch we all went to matt's favorite restaurant, oklahoma joe's, and maddie got a new teething toy - nana's extra chewing gum! it actually worked out great because the gum was soft enough for chewing, the pack fit great in her little hand, and the packaging was drool proof. and she was perfectly content the entire time we were there.

we went to a lovely christmas eve service at westside family church tonight and maddie got passed all over. matt's parents' small group was so excited to see her in person that she got passed between several rows before falling asleep on one of their friend's lap. it was very sweet. he just kept saying that she was like a little angel.

we were also able to get a few family pictures after we got home from church tonight. (sorry about the red eye - i didn't have a way to remove it here.) papa picked up max for a few of the pictures and maddie thought that was so funny. she is developing quite the sense of humor.

after pictures and before we got maddie ready for bed, we participated in a z family tradition - we opened our Christmas eve pajamas. maddie is really getting the hang of opening presents. i think that she is going to be ready to go tomorrow morning - well, she might need a little help.



now i better go to sleep or i won't get any presents... love.

sitting on santa

we made it to kansas! (much to nana and papa's delight.) our flight got cancelled on friday night (almost everything out of milwaukee was cancelled due to fog) and that was difficult because our flight was already going to be at bedtime so we had a tired little girl and didn't even get to where we were going. plus, with all the flights cancelled on friday night, saturday morning was a mad house! but at least people were relatively calm and the lines moved fairly quickly.

maddie has already made friends with max the dog. he likes that her hands taste good after she has her food in the highchair and maddie laughs at max when he tries to jump up and get her when she is being held. the picture is of max holding maddie's leg still so that he can lick her foot.

it also hasn't taken her long to get into the presents under the tree. granted, i did pose her next to them for pictures before we went to see santa.



she is already one of the 'boys' (or is she already a 'boy magnet'?) hanging out with daddy, uncle derek, and papa.

today we went to get her picture taken with santa at the mall and she also rode the merry-go-round with her papa, uncle derek, and daddy.




she actually took a good shot, but they weren't very big on you taking your own pictures (in fact there were signed everywhere discouraging it). so we just has nana and matt stand outside the official santa area and take pictures. unfortunately, this was the only one that wasn't blurry. i will scan and post her official picture when we get back home.

oh! and i almost forgot the most exciting part! maddie is officially crawling! she now uses her hands and knees in a coordinated effort to move herself to where she wants to go. she isn't going very far, yet, but its just a matter of time. i hope to get some video of it tomorrow when there is more light.

time for me to get to present wrapping, so goodnight. love.

video fix

okay, so my 24 cold has turned into more of a 96 hour and counting cold. i could not be sick at a worse time! i have so much to do right now between work and christmas preparation. oh well, i just have to concentrate on getting better and what doesn't get done, doesn't get done. enough about me...

the pictures are of maddie in my favorite pjs this morning. they are a size 12-18months! she is just getting so big! her sleeping feat last night was to get both of her legs out of the 'legs' of her pjs and into the torso part! they fit so snugly i don't know how she managed to do that...

here are a few videos of madelyn doing her 'rocking' that i think could turn to crawling any day now. (actually, as i was waiting for the videos to upload, she took a few crawling 'steps'! she covered about two feet of the floor!)







she also has another tooth! there is one that broke through the gum on the upper left, one over from center. so that was pretty exciting. it looks like all four of her front teeth may come in at the same time - only time will tell.

well i should get back to my recovery. love.