Category: Maddie

Who do you think will win? I hope it’s me! I leave in a few days for a weekend away with a bunch of girl friends. This will be my first time away from Maddie for more than a few hours. To say that I am nervous is an understatement. My friends riding with me have promised they won’t let me drive home if I get lonely and Chuck promises that even if things aren’t going well, he will lie and tell me everything is great. I guess my wonderful family and friends think I deserve a little adult time!

Monday I started “Operation Maddie needs to eat from something other than mom”. The first day couldn’t have gone better. Maddie still doesn’t like bottles, but she will drink milk out of a cup. (I think she is far too young to be able to do this, but she does great at it!) I was sure she would be up in the middle of the night, but nope. She slept from 8pm – 7:30am. She only woke up briefly at midnight and 5, then promptly fell back asleep. I was impressed.

Today she was a little more upset in the morning. I think she thought yesterday was just a big joke. She is still incredibly happy and I am getting as much food in her as she will tolerate.

Now it’s just a waiting game to get her to take a bottle….or cup, or anything to drink more than an ounce or two of milk at a time. But she has to want to do it.

Maddie’s doctor assured us that Maddie won’t starve. She will drink from a bottle when she wants to. She said there were two options…I could be strict and diligent and cut her off from nursing. Knowing that it would take a couple days since Maddie won’t want to take a bottle from me. Or I could just wait until I left and have Chuck deal with it. Which might be faster. I just wasn’t going to have a very good weekend away if I left saying “good luck, I’m outta here!” So I took the other, longer route. Who doesn’t like a good challenge anyway, right?

So the first battle of mommyhood has begun! Now I just have to be strong and not give in. I can do it! I can do it! I can do it!

Maddie likes her foam letters I got for her to play with in the tub. She does the funniest things with them. Her newest trick is to put one in her mouth and keep playing. So she has a letter sticking out of her mouth. When I went to take her out of her car seat and she had the letter “I” shoved in her mouth, I couldn’t stop laughing at her! What a goof!

Our baby girl is 6 months old! I can’t believe how fast she is growing up! But at the same time I am so excited for her to get older. She gets more fun every day.

Maddie was 14.15 lbs. and 27.25″ long. She is still very long and thin for her age. Her growth charts make me laugh. She also got a couple more immunization shots and was a good sport! She only cried for a few seconds, then was happy again. The doctor’s office also sent us away with a little fabric book for her. It’s cheap for them to do, but the parents like it! And it kept her happy after her shots while I made her next appointment (which will be at 9 months old).

Maddie has learned lots this month. She has gotten very good at sitting on her own. I still put a pillow behind her because she has a tendency to flail her body when she gets really exciting and fall backward. And she sometimes takes nose dives, too. I laugh at her.

And of course, she is also army crawling all over the place. She is speedy! It’s so cute to see her mobile. She will crawl into the kitchen to “help” me and she likes to bang things on the wood floors.

She has learned that she can reach for me. Therefore, she has started to be a little clingy these days. But I think part of the clinginess is because she is close to getting her bottom teeth. I feel like we have been waiting forever! The doctor told us at her 4 month appointment that she could feel her teeth and now, at 6 months, they still aren’t in. Oh well. They will come eventually. And won’t she be cute with a couple little teeth!?

Maddie has started eating solid food. On August first, a few weeks shy of her 6 month birthday, we started rice cereal. So far, she has also tried pears, green beans, carrots and bananas. She is a great little eater and says “mmmm” while she eats. She even helps and grabs the spoon and shoves it in her mouth.

Here are some pictures I took. These pictures are getting much harder to take. Maddie doesn’t like being in her crib because she thinks it’s time to sleep. So getting her to play in there isn’t easy. And she doesn’t sit still for even a minute! So I keep getting lots of action shots!

A little note: I put all the pictures I take of Maddie, for example, between 5 and 6 months, in the 5 month album. So there are lots more pictures there to look at from her previous month. Basically, it’s the pictures I took of her while she was _x_ months old. Just an FYI.

Here are the 6 month pictures I took.

5 month pictures & 5 month post

4 month pictures & 4 month post

3 month pictures & 3 month post

2 month pictures & 2 month post

1 month pictures & 1 month post

I also have a few more posts for the next couple days with some silly pictures of Maddie. So stay tuned!

Last weekend we went to our friends’ house to hang out and let our kids play together. Their daughter, Chelsea, is a little over 3 weeks older than Maddie. It’s so cute to watch them play together.

Here is a video of the girls playing! It’s hilarious!

Thanks for having us over to play, Fishers! Hope to see you again soon!

 

Maddie is officially mobile! She goes anywhere she wants now. She likes to army crawl her way to my glasses or a laptop. I love the determination in her eyes when she is crawling to something!

Chuck’s dad’s parents stopped by last week on their way to visit Chuck’s dad. I snapped a couple pictures when they were visiting.

Maddie and great-grandpa Chuck.

Maddie and great-grandma Kathryn (with great-aunt Deb in the background).

Maddie has her very own personal trainer. Did you know that? Don’t you wish you had one? Chuck’s sister, Paige, is an Occupational Therapist and likes to work with Maddie on things. Maddie is also a great guinea pig for Paige to practice on for the kids she works with. She helped work on getting her knees under her like she is doing so well in my last post. Paige is also working on sitting up with Maddie. Here’s Maddie and her personal trainer.

Maddie is sitting really well, but I won’t leave her unattended sitting. She isn’t quite strong enough and will still tip over or fall back (usually when she gets overly excited about a toy and flails wildly!).

Look how cute she is sitting! She doesn’t look big enough to do it!

Oh, I just want to kiss those cheeks! I love her so much!

Maddie has been scooting around. She inches herself forward to get to something she wants (which is usually a cord to a laptop or a mouse). She’s really getting her feet up and her knees under her. She just needs to push onto her hands instead of her elbows….then she’s really going to move!

She rolled and scooted almost to the front door while I watched her go. It was amusing.

I can’t believe how fast she is growing and how much she moves! She’s only going to get faster…and sneakier!

The other day I went to visit a friend from my old job who just had a baby. Maddie was quite fascinated by baby Joslyn! They are definitely bound to be great friends!

Maddie really wanted to eat her. I’ll pretend she meant to kiss her instead of eat her!

Welcome to the world baby Josyln and congrats to Danel and Darren!

We started giving Maddie cereal the other day. It went very well! Here is a long video of the first attempt. About 6 minutes in, she starts coughing, then sneezes and hits herself in the face with the spoon. Am I a terrible mother for laughing at that?

The second day was an even bigger hit. She kept grabbing the spoon and helping put it in her mouth. She just couldn’t get enough! Of course, I didn’t get a video of it, but dad did take a couple cute pictures of her.

Then day 3, she wouldn’t stop squealing. She was squealing all day. I had to get a video of this one. Although, I apparently had my hand right in the way of her face every time I fed her. But you still see her squealing…A LOT!

I can’t wait until we start food other than cereal in another day or so!