43 Weeks

Good golly Madeline is changing so much, so quickly...I don't even know where to start.

She gets around a little bit better every day.  Every time she gets up on her hands and knees we hold our breath waiting to see if she will crawl.  It's going to be any day now, I just know it.  Even her early intervention teacher was impressed.  We've been quite busy chasing her around the apartment.

It's becoming clear that when she babbles, she's trying to imitate our words.  During her lesson yesterday, she kept trying to repeat the word "baby" because she was playing with a book of baby pictures.

Speaking of which...boy, is she fascinated by other babies.  Usually when she's dropped off at day care in the mornings, she's excited to see her teachers.  Eric said that today she was more excited to see the other babies than the adults in the room.  It was if she missed her friends over the past week and couldn't wait to tell them about all her adventures.

When we see babies in public, she lights up like a firefly.  Her favorite books all have pictures of babies.  She squeals in delight when she looks at her reflection in the mirror.

I think she's starting to realize that she's looking at herself when she looks in the mirror.  Today I put a tissue (unused, obviously) on her head while she was looking in the mirror.  Instead of turning away and taking the tissue off like she usually does, she reached for it while keeping her gaze locked on her reflection.  I've heard that's a good test to establish whether or not a baby recognizes herself.  Who knows? Might be.

She's still a silly-willy most of the time.  When she is standing holding onto the side of the couch or the coffee table, her new favorite trick is to let go and let herself fall backwards like a tree being chopped down.  She lands on her butt with a thud, cracks up, and scrambles to stand back up so she can do it again.  Every time she falls, there's a moment where a look of panic mixed with pure joy crosses her face.  I have a feeling Madeline may be a daredevil.  I don't know where she got that from.  Her Mumma hates roller coasters, flying, heights, and just about anything that could possibly involve falling.  If Maddie keeps this daredevil streak up, she just may give her Mumma an early heart attack.    

Madeline almost always refuses to let me feed her now.  The only time she seems to take food from a spoon is when she's really, really hungry or when she really, really likes the food.  Otherwise, she'd prefer to do it herself, thank you very much Mumma!  This is both awesome because it means she's growing up, and frustrating because it means most of her food ends up on the floor instead of in her tummy.  I'm always worried that she's hungry.

Good thing we've got a steady supply of Cheerios, Mum-mums, and Gerber Puffs to serve as between-meal snacks.