37 Weeks

Madeline is 37 weeks old today, which means she has been out of the oven as long as she was in it.  Pretty. Darn. Crazy.

For some reason, I don't remember a heck of a lot of my pregnancy.  The only part that really stands out is the summer months.  In retrospect, those eight months feel so quick!

I don't feel that way with Madeline at all.  The past 37 weeks seems years long...in the best way possible of course.  Seriously, she's the most awesome mini human on the planet!  Probably Mars too.    

I think the part of the reason that it seems like Madeline has been in our lives for-ev-er, is because she's grown so fast and learned so much in such a short amount of time.

She's no longer a helpless loaf of bread.  She's a person now.

Some person-like qualities she now possesses?

She pushes us away and scowls if we try to do something she doesn't like.  If she doesn't want her spoon...dirty look.  Pacifier?  Dirty look.  Want to cuddle?  Dirty look.

This new behavior shows up the most during meal times.  The baby who used to gobble down everything in sight now refuses to eat.  If she sees me as much as pick up the spoon, she cries, turns her head, locks her lips, and shoves my hand away.

I've been trying to get her to feed herself more, but she doesn't quite understand the process.  Her pincher grasp is developing well, but she doesn't understand the next step of putting the food into her mouth.  Still, she's her mother's daughter, so I suspect that her full feeding capabilities will kick into gear any day now.  

On the other hand, she's obsessed with cups.  She loves it when I hold up my water glass for her to sip from.  Her sippy cup?  Well, she hates that....obviously.  That's for babies, Mumma.

Madeline is now able to hold herself in a crawling position! Up on both hands and knees!  Exciting stuff.  I think we'll have a crawler on our hands this summer.

She's getting so wiggly.  If I have her on my lap, and she sees something she wants, she'll lunge for it...even if that means taking a nose dive off the couch.  I keep a tight grip on this one nowadays.

Maddie still continues to make us laugh and smile on an almost constant basis.  She finds any "Yuck!" sounds to be hilarious.  After she gives me baby kisses (aka slobbers all over my face) I say, "Bleck!" and she laughs like it's the funniest thing she's ever seen in her life. (Actually, it probably is the funniest thing she's seen in her life...37 weeks doesn't leave the gal much time to live a little.)  

Her new favorite sound is "Bah."  She repeats it in her crib every morning when I go in to get her.  I'm wondering if she's trying to say "Bub" because that's what we call her bottles.....curious.  

 !!!LATE BREAKING NEWS!!!!

Madeline has now decided that when she no longer wants her pacifier, it's necessary to throw it across her bedroom with all her might.  Which is why I'm so late in posting my weekly update.

Happy TUESDAY folks!




 

Long Weekend Fun

This Memorial Day weekend we...

Had a picnic in the park...

 Went to the Sowa Open Market in Boston...

(Where we learned that Madeline deals with heat the same way as her Mumma....by getting grouchy.)

We played in a playground for the first time...

(Which Madeline LOVED!)

 We went to the zoo...

(The Maddie Bear was not interested in these actual bears.)

(She has bigger plans in mind...) 

And what else???  Hmmm..

Oh yeah!  We put an offer in on a house, and it was accepted!

I'm not breaking out the champagne until the inspection is done, the paperwork is signed, and there's a big pink bow with my name on it on the front door, but fingers crossed, this will be our last summer in the apartment.

Pin Happy

Meet my newest obsession...

Pinterest

It's my new favorite thing. (Besides my child, obviously.)

It's perfect for someone like me who sees something I love on a random blog I've stumbled across, and then am never able to find it again.

Also, I didn't realize how deep my obsession with all things blue and yellow was until I started adding things to my boards and realized EVERYTHING is blue or yellow.

Fun, fun, fun.  

Have a pin-happy long weekend!

Oprah Who?

I feel a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of women's voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.....Oprah is OVER!   
[Cut to thousands of audience members ugly crying and falling to their knees.]

Take THAT Harold Camping!  THIS is what an apocalypse looks like. 

(Boo-ya!  I get 100 nerd points.) 

Sadly, I will not be able to watch the final episode until much later tonight because I am incredibly busy playing with my lightsaber being awesome this afternoon.  Although the past few episodes lead me to believe I won't be missing much. (As much as I love The Oprah, all that phony kiss-assery over the past week has been too much for even me to handle.  I threw up in my mouth at least three times while watching yesterday's episode.)

Meanwhile, Eric is rejoicing that there is no danger of Madeline falling victim to Oprah's propaganda. (Eric has irrational man hatred for all things Oprah.) 

At least Eric will always have their hypothetical daughter to remember Oprah by. 

36 Weeks

Madeline was so busy doing gymnastics,

 playing peek-a-boo,

 screeching, 

 and rolling about

That I almost thought this month's bunny picture was not going to happen.  Luckily, she did manage to stop wiggling for a split second.  Ta-DA!

Last night, we realized all this rolling about means that Eric and I are totally screwed from now on.  Usually, when Madeline can't sleep at night, she has no choice but to lie there like a slug until she falls asleep from pure boredom.

Now that she can move around?  Not so much.

She amused herself for a good hour last night by rolling around, grabbing her feet through the bars of the crib, and trying desperately to get a hold of her noise maker.  This wouldn't have been too bad except she would cry holy murder unless one of us were in the room to watch her tricks.  Pretty soon she'll be able to pull herself upright in that crib.  I. smell. trouble.

I think she's going through a growth spurt.  She's always hungry, sleepy, and a bit cranky.

She's getting very, very long, but I don't feel like she's grown drastically over the past two months.  She's still wearing most of her six-month clothing...which she's been wearing since Christmas.  The nine month clothes are starting to fit well too though.

I know I say this every week, but I can't get over how sweet she is.  She's just so lovely!  She's only eight-months old, but I can tell she has a huge heart.

She's becoming such a kid. (I know, I know, I say this every week too.) She plays games, she's more independent, she has a sense of humor.....  

Madeline's going to be grown up before I know it.....sniff.

Twinsies

 Can we discuss how we wore the same exact outfit today?

I love how Maddie's face already seems to scream, "OMG, I can't believe I'm dressed like my mother..." Yup, we're only one step away from appearing in a JC Penny Catalog.

For the record, Eric was the one who found Madeline's shirt and insisted it was hilarious that it matched mine. (We have matching denim jackets too.)    

For the second record, I notice that there have been a lot of pictures of me wearing this shirt on the blog recently.  There are not twenty pairs of identical blue checkered shirts hanging neatly in my closet...I swear.  I own many shirts.  Shirts that I wear on regular basis.  I promise.  Pinkie swear.

Nursery Photos

I recently took advantage of all our spring organizing to take some pictures of Madeline's nursery while it was 100% clean.

We're not allowed to paint the walls, so I tried to bring color in everywhere else I could.  I got a blue crib, a wall decal, I painted the wooden alphabet on her wall, I decoupaged her dresser, and there are lots of bright boxes and toys littering up the place.

I have two small craft projects in mind to add to the walls, but her nursery is pretty much finished.

I really love Madeline's room.  I always feel so happy when I'm in there.  I hope she does too.