the rat tail

i have wanted to give madelyn a haircut just about since the day she was born. at least the part and matt and i lovingly call the "rat tail". every time i mention cutting it off someone says that it is "so cute" and that i can't cut it. but after her first birthday it is coming off! it occurred to me the other day that i had never taken a picture of the rat tail intentionally so i set out to document it. it is pretty difficult to get her to turn her back to the camera. luckily one of maddie's favorite games is "chase" and she turns away to "run away" (which is really just trying to climb up whatever she is near).

i mentioned the other day that madelyn has been cheering when i come in to nurse her at night. so last night i took the camera with me. while she didn't show the same enthusiasm she had been, you can get the general idea. (and matt was pretty excited too.)

i also have two more climbing stories for you too. madelyn has learned to climb up the glider in her room to reach the top shelf of her bookcase. at first she was just trying to climb up the other shelves, but then took a look at how close the chair was to the bookcase and scampered on up. for an extra bonus she discovered that she could rock it for extra reach.

next for the big climb. i had finished feeding maddie lunch, taken her out of her highchair to play and then got to cleaning things up. i went back in to the office to check email and when i came back out madelyn was sitting, happily, in her highchair signing for more. i guess i was mistaken and lunch was not over yet. if it hadn't scared me it would have been really cute. needless to say i got some more food together for her.

home sweet home

we made it home, safe and sound. maddie slept the first 4 hours and woke up just before we got to ikea (outside chicago). we spent about 2-1/2 hours there and then maddie slept the rest of the drive home (about 2 hours). she even went to bed early! we got maddie the bead "roller coaster" pictured and a stuffed ostrich (ikea has the most random stuffed animals).

madelyn was really excited to be back home! it was so cute how excited she was to see each and every one of her toys. she was all over the place today happily playing by herself. you can get an idea about her enthusiasm in this video (she has some trouble standing up and walking because of a stuffed animal on the ground).

today maddie had her 9-month check-up and here are the stats - height-30-3/4 inches (99.83 percentile), weight-20lbs. 10oz. (79.57 percentile). luckily, there were no shots today! maddie also got a clean bill of health which was a relief. the fever and slight crankiness are just from teething - yeah!

one more quick story. madelyn has pulled her hair bows out of her hair for a while now, but on saturday she tried to put them back in. isn't that so cute?! she just kept trying to put it back in where she pulled it out.

the blur

maddie has a new super hero name - "the blur". i have been having the most difficult time getting a picture of her lately! even with the action setting on the camera with rapid shutter speed a hand or something is a blur in the picture. not to mention the very sight of the camera sends her racing towards me to grab it. this was the best shot out of like 20 and even here the comb is blurry. please notice her new hairdo. i figured that it was appropriate for her overalls.

she has discovered that she can stand on her own. she has been testing this ability off and on for the past day or two. it sort of surprises her at first and then she gets excited and sits down to come get me. she will take a step here and there, from the coffee table to the couch, from the coffee table to me, etc. but no major walking yet. i think that she will be there within the next month, but we'll see.

she also took her climbing to the next level today - literally! she used her entertainment/activity table to climb herself up onto the ottoman. she was so proud of herself and kept clapping and squealing. she was even able to back herself off feet first without falling!

as promised here is some video of her intentionally shaking the water out of her sippy cup. if i give her the sign for "drink" she will stop and drink it instead - or if not, the cup goes away.



we take matt to the airport tomorrow morning so it will just be us girls until saturday night when matt gets home. and then nana (matt's mom) is getting here on sunday. so while i will be busy over the next few days, my nights will be free so i shouldn't miss many posts. thanks to all of you who read about maddie's day-to-day activites. love.

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.