Happy Mother's Day

Today was my first Mother's Day!

Some cards were homemade...

Like this one that Madeline "made" in daycare.  I die!

 Some were heartwarming...

Like this one from my mother  

And others made me just plain laugh...

Like this one from Amy of Everyday A

Thanks for making my first Mother's Day special!  


Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful mother's out there!  
(Especially to my mother, Nanny, Eric's mother, Hollie, and Dawn.)

Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving~

Last night I was feeling a bit of nostalgia about my past, so I wrote a post about what I've learned from my twenties and what I hope to learn in my thirties.  I was thoughtful and reflective.  I re-read it this morning, and um.....snoozefest!

So Instead I Bring You:

Thirty Reasons Why I'm Awesome!!!

I'm not crying over being old in the last one.  I'm laughing at myself on the monitor.

1. I'm crafty, not in the Beastie Boys kind of way though.  

2. I take ridiculous photographs of myself on my computer.  

3. I take ridiculous photographs of my baby.  

4. I'm a good Mumma

5. I'm a patient teacher

6. I am not a patient girlfriend, but I try  

7. I'm smart 

8. I think I just heard a duck dying outside my window and I tried to look for it...that shows I'm caring.  

9. I'm good at drawing

10. I come up with good ideas for books....maybe someday I'll actually write them.  

11. I read really fast

12. I'm a ginger, and somehow, I still manage to have a soul.  

13. I'm a human jukebox  

14. If pressed, I could probably recite most of Romeo and Juliet 

15. I'm persistent (some people may call this stubborn) 

16. I'm a good whistler 

17. I'll watch anything that involves a corset or a vampire  

18. My hair smells good 

19. I gave birth to the cutest baby in the world! 

20. I'm good at keeping secrets

21. I'm loyal

22. I can touch my tongue to my nose

23. I'm polite to everyone 

24. I'm up to date on current events

25. Eric says I'm pretty....awwwww. 

26. I wake up with the baby with in the middle of the night and let Eric sleep.  

27. I'm a good dancer...at least Madeline thinks so.  

28. I can walk around in high heels

29. I now wear pants!!! (Most of the time.) 

30. I'm actually excited to turn 30!

Will She Eat It??

Madeline's baby food supplies were starting to run low, so I spent a full day throwing a baby-food-making party for me, myself and I.

 I made so much food that I had to run to the store to get more ice cube trays.  P.S.  Not very many places sell ice cub trays.  It was an epic search.  It ended at Sur La Table where I was tempted to buy everything in sight.

New to Madeline's repertoire:  Mangos, Sweet Zucchini and Carrot, and Cinnamon Apple Oatmeal Raisin.  Also new: peaches, sweet potatoes, fish, and yogurt.

The most adventurous new food she's tried is fish.  Eric and I were eating it for dinner, so I decided to blend some up for her.  I mixed it with some carrots and she ate it all up!  Yum, yum, yum.  In fact, she eats all of her food all up.  She doesn't seem to be too picky.  

I also gave her some yogurt for the first time last week.  Unfortunatley, she developed a nasty face rash on the days I gave her yogurt.  She gets the same face rash when she drinks regular formula instead of soy.  Not looking good for the dairy department, but I'll try again in the future to see if it really was the  yogurt of it was something else causing the rash.  

Future foods coming Madeline's way:  baby guacamole, cauliflower, chicken, and salmon.  

March for Babies Progress

See this girl?

Are you blinded by her awesomeness?

Because you should be.

In just a few short days, Emily has managed to raise a significant contribution to our March for Babies team.  

Emily - 105 points
The rest of us.....zero.

She wins!

Thank you Emily and Emily's sponsors!

Please consider supporting our team by either clinking on the button in the sidebar, or by following this link:

Much Love,
Summer

Money Maker

I've been thinking that I could turn Madeline's drooling problem into a lucrative new business.

What if I could sell baby drool as an anti-aging face cream??  

Before you recoil in disgust, consider:  

People are willing to do just about anything to appear younger than they actually are. I mean, come on, people are willing to cut up their faces, inject chemicals into their faces, and transplant ass fat into their faces.  Surely, in comparison, baby drool is nothing.  

Also, because babies are quite youthful, (they are babies, after all) I think I could market their drool as containing youth-creating enzymes guaranteed to make the toughest skin as smooth as a baby's bottom.  The fountain of youth in a bottle!    

Also, because this drool skin cream is created by real babies in their natural habitats, I could market it as being environmentally friendly, which is like, soooo in right now.  I could even have a special line of drool skin cream from exclusively breast-fed babies because that drool skin cream would be organic.     

Also, because each baby only drools creates youth-enhancing skin cream for a limited amount of time, that means that I could probably jack up the prices really high.  And if something is expensive, it must be good...right?  All the real housewives of (insert real city) will be lining up around the block for this stuff!  

All I have to do is get one of those bibs with the scoop at the bottom to collect all of baby's messes. If I put it on Madeline first thing in the morning, and let the drool skin cream pool up in it throughout the afternoon, I bet I'd have at least a pint of drool skin cream by the time she goes to bed.  (I won't collect drool skin cream from her during the night....poor girl deserves a break after all.  Besides, she doesn't drool produce much youth-enhancing skin cream at night.)  Since she's now teething, I might even have a gallon.  

Guys?  I'm. Going. To. Be. RICH!  

The only thing missing is a good name. Hmmm, what's a nicer way of saying, "Slather my baby's drool on your face so I can retire early?"    

Before use of Slather My Baby's Drool on Your Face so I Can Retire Early

AND

After use of Slather My Baby's Drool on Your Face so I Can Retire Early

See, having Madeline slobber on my face has done wonders for my skin!

33 Weeks: The Tooth, The Whole Tooth, and Nothing but The Tooth

Big news in the world of Maddie Bears!  So big, in fact, that I think the President should hold a press conference.

First...............................she rolled over today!  Several times!  From her back to her tummy!  Hoo-ray!

After a series of particularly ear-piercing wails via baby monitor at 1 AM, I found Madeline lying in her crib...on her tummy!  I was so shocked to find her belly down that I scooped her up and looked under the crib to see if the Sleep Monster was up to his old tricks.  I didn't find him, so this afternoon I tested Madeline to see if she had been responsible for rolling over onto her tummy.  She didn't disappoint.  She rolled from her back to her belly three times in a row for me, and then twice for Eric when he got home from work.  I was so excited, I almost peed.  

Madeline is also getting much better at standing.  We're now able to let go of her as long as she's holding on to a table or the couch.  Standing by herself really freaks her out though.  She had giant tears rolling down her face when she did it this afternoon.  I think she gets scared and doesn't quite know how to get herself down.  She can't get herself up either for that matter. Our girl is not a climber...yet.

Because...her upper body strength is starting to improve as well. Observe:

I see some major baby proofing in our immediate futures.  It seems like everything is finally starting to click in place for Madeline, and before we know it, she'll be running around the living room.

In other news, Madeline got her first tooth!  It's right in the middle of the bottom row.

Every time she's been cranky for no reason over the past few months, we've blamed it on teething.  Yesterday, she showed us what teething really looks like.  She was a total grumpus, poor thing.  It's no wonder.  On Sunday, she didn't have a tooth.  As of last night, she has a sharp, pointy, white nibblet poking out of her gums.  She keeps using her new mini tooth to chew on my finger.  She may be part vampire.

Unfortunately, her new tooth kept waking her up last night.  I was hopping out of bed every half hour to comfort her, and Eric's sister was sleeping over, so eventually I moved her into bed with us.  She slept pretty well after that.  I did not.  For such a little baby, she takes up an awful lot of room in that bed.  

She was in a MUCH better mood today.  Hopefully that means she'll sleep well tonight.  After all of today's excitement, I'm clean tuckered out.

If any veteran moms have any advice on how to comfort a teething baby, I'd sure appreciate it!

April: Behind The Scenes

We take a lot of photos...A LOT.  Obviously, not all of them make it on to the blog because, like I said, there are A LOT of them.

Ah, to be a baby in the 21st Century.  Madeline is just seven months old and she already has a digital footprint bigger than mine.  Her entire life will be documented in about twelve different formats...photos, blogs, baby books, Ipod mixes....

You should see how much video footage I have.  There's at least an hour of Madeline playing in her Jumperoo.  I haven't posted any of that on the blog because if it's too boring for me to sit through, then it's definitely too boring for anyone else to sit through.

Today, I thought I'd share some of the behind-the-scenes photographs from April.  Enjoy.

Goodbye, April...

This would have been a really cute picture, except...what happened to her arms?

Hellooooo, May!

P.S.  In the next week I will finish life as a twenty-something, and embark on life as a thirty-something....BRING IT MAY!