Madelyn's 10th Month!

My kid is hilarious! HI-LAR-I-OUS! I find myself laughing at her several times throughout the day. Her facial expressions and voices are so varied and spot on for whatever situation she is in. She is seriously oozing personality as if it can't be contained in her little body.

Big things this month:

1. Pulls to standing. She first did it in the middle of the night and I thought to myself when I walked in the room around 4am, "Self, I should go get my camera and capture this moment" but then I remembered it was 4am and I would rather be sleeping so I waited until morning. This resulted in a few challenging nights until she figured out how to let go of the crib rail and sit back down. She would pull herself to standing and then not be able to get down which would result in crying until one of us would help her down. She would then pull herself up again as soon as we left the room. Wash, rinse, repeat for at least an hour each night. Now she pulls herself up on everything which means we are to the next phase of baby proofing. I think the worst incident was when she pulled the kitchen chair down on herself. Thankfully, we have pretty light kitchen chairs so it didn't hurt her but it definitely caught her off guard. Since then, it hasn't been an issue.

2. Waving bye-bye. She finally figured out waving bye bye and has even added a "ba" when she does it. In true Madelyn fashion, she will only wave when she wants, not when we want to show her off.

3. Clapping. I am still working on getting this on video but she is very excited to finally clap with her hands unfisted since she can make noise this way.

4. Food - she went through a phase in that she only wanted food in it's original form. Corn - on the cob. Peaches - don't cut them. Bananas - whole. Bread - give me the whole slice. Then she went through a phase where she wanted all her food cut up into bite sized pieces so she could eat it out of a bowl like the fancy schmancy girl that she is. Now she's somewhere in between but I'm pretty sure she will always eat corn on the cob. She thinks she is too cool for school with that one.

5. Other things worth mentioning. Since birth, Madelyn has crossed her feet at the ankles. It is the most adorable thing I've ever seen. She will do it when she eats, sleeps or is just playing.

Madelyn thinks her brother Ben is super and goes absolutely nuts whenever he comes in the room. She also sticks her face to the glass door when he leaves.

I think we are getting close to the end of her nursing days. She is only nursing 2-4 times a day and it is usually only when I offer it to her. I would really like to get her to a year and then use my stash to have her continue to get breastmilk until that runs out. I really don't see weaning being an issue with her - she's just got too much other stuff to do.
She pulls every.single.book off her bookshelf every.single.day. My mom finds this hilarious because I used to do the same thing and she thinks it's karma coming back to me.

6. Potty training. Yup, I said it. Miss. Madelyn has some very distinct sounds when she is going to trash her diaper. She also makes these sounds a good 2-3 minutes before she actually starts to go to the bathroom. I was telling my mom this and she suggested taking her into the bathroom when she does it so she starts associating the bathroom with going to well, the bathroom. Since Madelyn is cloth diapered and I really don't love dealing with the poopy diapers now that she is eating solids I decided to take it a step further and put her on the toilet when she makes the noises. It has been 3ish weeks since we've been doing this and it is working out really well. I LOVE not having to deal with those diapers and she thinks she is the coolest kid ever when she is sitting on the toilet. Who knows if it will make potty training easier but it's worth a shot.

7. New teeth. Madelyn has fangs. They both came in on the same day and she got through it like a champ. No fussing, no drooling. Just one day, there were 2 more teeth. Her smile is absolutely ridiculous now.

8. Last big thing - Madelyn's newest friend, Charlie Fraylick was born! August 26th - Finally there was another baby that decided due dates were BS and came late. I was beginning to think I had the only stubborn child when it came to this. Anyway, he was a whopping 9lbs 1oz and 22.5" (yes, I typed that correctly) - way to go Mama Kristyn!! Welcome to the world, Charlie!

It's long enough for....

....French braids!
I've been dreaming of this day since she was born. I used to love when my mom would braid my hair. Now, Madelyn doesn't really feel the same - in fact, she'd rather crawl around like a mad woman than sit and let me play beauty salon but I'm gonna do it anyway. After all, what fun is there in having a girl if you don't play dress up and put bows in her hair all day.

Madelyn's Ninth Month

My sweet girl has now been on the outside longer than she was on the inside. She's so big and it makes me sad. I love every new thing she does but I find myself staring longingly at her newborn pictures trying to remember those squishy early moments that are almost impossible to commit to memory.

Miss. Madelyn has officially starting crawling. She started with the worm but that only lasted a week or so. Soon enough she had moved onto crawling on all fours and man alive is she fast! She has also figured out how to open the basement door if it isn't latched completely. She has also discovered the cat door and water dishes - fun!

Waiting for Daddy to come home from work

She has really started working with her pincer grasp and loves foods that allow her to practice. I can't keep blueberries stocked! On the food front, she also loves hummus, zucchini, and eggs. There isn't much she will turn her nose to. Nick and I's families are fixated on giving her ice cream so I am glad I was able to find a tutorial on banana "ice cream". Freeze a banana and then throw it in the food processor - soon enough it turns into an ice cream type consistency that Madelyn seems to love.

The problem with her developing her pincer grasp and her persistenent personality is that she will find the smallest things on the floor and obsessively work on picking them up and stick them straight into her mouth. Much to Ben's dismay, this means the end of Legos in the livingroom. Sadly, we have found a Lego on the floor one to many times and the bright colors are like a beacon to Madelyn.

Her favorite toys are her wooden puzzle and laughing baby doll. Nick has started using the jumperoo with her again and she has figured out how to really launch herself in it. Just when I thought we were safe to put away the swing she started using that again as well. We also installed a swing to our tree in the backyard. Madelyn loves spending time out there and can't get enough time in her new toy!

Just the other day she finally started saying the beloved "ma ma" and it was awesome! I went bananas when she did it so now it is becoming her favorite word since she always manages to get a reaction from me. She picked up the shaking her head no trick again and this time she knows people find it funny. More often than not she will use it at the right time and follow it up with a smile. I've caught her on more than one occasion playing the dog or cat toys - she look up at me, shake her head no and then smile and continue playing. *Sigh* I've got my work cut out for me with this one.

Her fangs seem to be coming in but they haven't broken through yet. It'll definitely make for some interesting pictures once they poke through.

We also "transitioned" Madelyn to her crib this month. I hesitate to use the word transition because it really was a seamless process. We kept with our normal bedtime routine but instead of nursing her in my bed, I nursed her in the rocking chair in her room and put her in her crib instead of the pack n play. She went to sleep without any issues and woke up at her normal times. She has also slept through the night a couple times so I think it was a good move! I had noticed we were waking her up when we went to bed - no matter how quiet we tried to be. Plus, the pack n play couldn't have been that comfy. Add to that the fact that Nick and I would hear every grunt or sigh meant neither one of us were getting a good night's sleep.

First night in her crib

Miss. Madelyn got to finally meet her friend Dexter this month! Yay! I think Madelyn enjoyed not being the oldest one for once and had a friend to interact with that was bigger than her!

Overall, another fantastic month! Keep it up sweet love!!

Fourth of July

Fourth of July has always been a big holiday in my family. My grandma's birthday is the 4th and for as long as I can remember, the entire family got together for the weekend. Typically we would gather at my grandparents' lake house for a weekend of food (oh the food), water, giant slip 'n slides, boating, family, fireworks and fun. My grandpa usually planned the whole weekend from the deep fried junk food lunch to the AMAZING fireworks show he put on every year. I don't even know the last time I've been to a fireworks show other than my grandpa's.

As you can imagine, this year was going to be rough come July 4. Not only is my grandpa not here to lead this family in our traditions but it was the double whammy for my grandpa in that it was her first birthday without him. Sucks. We asked her what she wanted to do and she said to avoid the lake scene altogether. We decided to spend Fourth of July in the woods instead.

I think it was a great idea and we all had a great time even though I think everyone had their moments in which they reflected on Grandpa not being there. The hardest part for me was my brother lighting off fireworks at night. I think we were all kind of pretending it wasn't really Fourth of July but you can't deny what the fireworks mean.

On the actual 4th, my grandma wanted to visit my grandpa's hunting spots on the property and spread ashes. It was the perfect day to do it and a great way to keep my grandpa "part of the action" that weekend. My dad even created little memorials at each of the locations so you can give him a wave when you drive by on the four wheelers.

Going to spread ashes

At one of the hunting spots

Grandma and her brother (Uncle Dick)

Drinking a beer with a baby on my back. I'm klassy like that.

Madelyn and her Grandma

Bar 10

All in all, it was great to spend that time together as a family and we all realized we will get through this together!

Madelyn's Eighth Month

Let me just say, I have myself a fiery little 8 month old.  This girl has taken to grunting and growling when she isn't getting what she wants.  I've got it on video as proof when she gets older and doesn't believe me.  I know I talk about how opinionated she is every month but I'm not kidding.  We now have full blown "conversations" that go something along the lines of:
Madelyn - ah ba ba ba
Mom - ba ba?
Madelyn - ba da da ba
Mom - really! da da? how about ma ma?
Madelyn - da da
Mom - thanks for the love kiddo
Madelyn - ba

We took our first vacation this month and went up north for Fourth of July. Family tradition and my grandma's birthday dictate that we spend that time with my family. Fourth of July has always been my grandpa's holiday. He organized it, prepped for it, executed it. Since this was going to be the first year he wasn't here we decided to hit up Bar 10 instead of the lake. It was a blast! Madelyn went on her first four wheeler ride and LOVED it! She also loved going on the Ranger and would squeal while she jumped up on down on my lap.

Just a hillbilly baby and her dog

She spent a lot of time in the Ergo while we were up north and she really seems to like it. She can be a part of the action without anyone touching her. She also naps really well in it and I've been able to get over an hour nap out of her whereas in her crib I am lucky if I get 20 minutes. We've used it a lot of shopping as well.

We went swimming while we were up there and she spent some time in her baby pool.  Miss. Madelyn loves the water! I'm really glad and hope that by starting her early we will avoid any fears of water in the coming years!

We had so much fun Fourth of July that we followed it up with a second weekend up north.  This time the Barish family joined us!

Crawling - we're still working on that one. She is getting really frusterated and it is starting to affect her sleep so I hope she figures it out soon. She has started waking up in the middle of the night and will be on all fours rocking and crying at the same time. She has also started separation anxiety and gets really upset whenever she's left alone in a room. I think once she masters crawling and can "find you" she will calm down. At least that's what I keep telling myself. In the meantime, she is an expert at "the worm" and it seems to be working for now.

Everything is still going well on the food front.  No allergies to speak of and she seems to like everything.  Her favorites right now are zucchini and peaches. She still isn't a fan of bananas. We also tried eggs for the first time this month and she thought that was super! Her poops have also officially changed and really freaked out about her diapers staining. I have some disposable liners that I inherited somewhere along the way and we've been using those for the time being. I also bought some unbleached muslin that my mom is going to use to make reusable liners. Hopefully it does the trick.

Speaking of diapers, we've officially completed our diaper stash for the rest of her diaper days (hopefully). I decided to go with the Fuzzibunz One Size instead of mediums and I was able to find some awesome deals. The one size should get us the rest of the way so now any diaper purchases will just be because I can't stand the cuteness, not because she needs them.

We also had another giant playdate this month. We went to the Detroit Zoo. Madelyn was more interested in playing with her toys than the animals but I think Ben had a pretty good time!

Overall, it was a pretty decent month but I will say, I am fearing month 9. The last week or so has had some pretty nasty sleep challenges, including one night that made me feel like we were back in the newborn stage. If we don't get this under control soon, I just might lose my mind!

Flipping me the bird after a bedtime battle - told you she was fiesty!

Happy Father's Day

Nick finished up his semester just in time to celebrate Father's Day.  We spent Sunday just hanging around the house eating, lounging and getting odd jobs done.  I've mentioned Nick's recent facination with food on a stick and I decided to base an entire day's worth of food around this obsession.  It all started with presents...

Ben and Madelyn decided Nick would love a hose reel for the garden hose, a new hose nozzle and some stainless steel skewers (that I had to use for our cooking activities)

Breakfast was pretty basic - just skewered some fruit, a dollop of Cool Whip and a leftover crepe from dinner the night before.  That's right - I made crepes.  Easier than I thought it would be.

After breakfast, we started the relaxing portion of the day.  Nick finally got to use the hammock I got for his birthday over a year ago!

Madelyn decided to hang with Dad for awhile.

Then it was lunch time.  I found a cool recipe for BLTs - skewer style.  They were pretty tasty.  The grilled bread was definitely my favorite!

After lunch it was time to clean the house.  And yes, I stayed in jammies all day.  That's what Sundays are for. 

Nick and Ben worked on a Lego shelving project in the garage.

Then it was dinner time.  In honor of my Grandpa, we made Shrimp Boil kebabs.  The picture was taken after we pulled everything off the skewers.  It was by far the best meal of the day!

Hope you all had a great Father's Day!

Madelyn's Seventh Month

And the changes just keep coming!  I swear I can't keep up with this girl - she is just getting smarter and more physical day in and day out.  She had even more big accomplishments this month!

Teeth - two of 'em to be exact!  Within three days of each other.  We made it through with minimal fussing and really the only reason I knew it was coming was because Madelyn couldn't keep her fist out of her mouth.  The first one popped through and I thought, that was easy.  Out of nowhere the next one popped through.  Wow!  Didn't see that coming.  She seems to love her new chompers as it has made eating a lot more enjoyable which brings me to my next subject....

Solids - Miss. Madelyn L-O-V-E-S solid foods.  I'm trying to get beyond the mess factor and let her eat more often throughout the day but ugh the girl loves to create new rockin' hair styles with peaches, sweet potatoes, avocados, you name it.  Also - note to new cloth diaper mamas out there - solid foods stain diapers on the outside!  A couple of our beloved Fuzzibunz have permanent stains on them and that makes me sad.  Still no stains on the inside though!  Since I hope to sell the diapers one day, we had to adjust our strategy.  Our new method involves a naked baby, bumbo seat and plain old prefold diaper sans cover.  The warm weather helps here and so far it is working.

Breastfeeding - this is getting more challenging since Madelyn is so easily distracted.  She's always been a fast eater but we're talking 2-3 minutes per side (if I can even get her to eat off both sides).  And if there is someone else in the room or the TV is on, forget about it.  She's only nursing 4-5 times a day and once at night.  Her stats keep going up so I guess she's getting what she needs.  The chompers have been a bit of an issue.  Yup - she bit me.  And my reflexes smacked her little mouth.  Now relax, she didn't even cry and really I would call it more of a tap.  She actually pulled off and stared at me as if to say, "what - not a fan?"  Since that incident she's been kind enough to gently "test bite" as if she's seeing whether or not she'll get away with it and I just pull her off at that time.

Diapers - my chunky monkey is getting to the end of her size small Fuzzibunz and I hadn't really planned beyond that stage.  I really like our current diapering system so I want to continue but I'm now scrambling to get some mediums into our rotation before her current diapers start cutting off circulation in her baby thighs.  My price point is $10.00 or less per diaper.  I am also going to try a few of the one size diapers since I figure the bulkiness won't be as much of an issue at this stage.  I've also started line drying the diapers and am always amazed at the power of the sun.  It had gotten every.single.stain out her diapers.  It also has gotten stains out of some of her clothes that sadly were recipients of blowouts here and there.  And there is nothing cuter than a bunch of diapers on the line.  Love it!  I was also pleased to see that the sun got out old stains as well.  I was concerned about drying the diapers all winter and then trying to sun them but it hasn't been an issue.

Rockin' and Rollin' - She's not crawling yet but man alive is she close!  She rolls everywhere and has recently started getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth.  She has also mastered crawling backwards which works well until she backs herself into a corner, literally and then freaks out until you move her back to her starting position.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  Madelyn has had a couple face plants into the floor when she's tried to move forward but she keeps trying.  I feel bad for her because she's clearly getting frusterated at not being able to move yet but I also am slightly dreading the day she figures it out since we will be chasing her from that point on.

Toys - Madelyn has started to get interested in her toys and there are some real front runners.  She loves Sophie and her Nuby teether for chomping on.  She loves pulling the blocks out of her sorter and I love asking her to find the "green circle" in the pile as if she understands what I'm even talking about.  She also loves any toy that makes noise and will squeal while she reaches out to hug it.  She also loves books!  Anytime I sit down to read with her she starts jabbering and flailing her arms around like a crazy woman.  We had to invest in some cloth books since as soon as the story ends, she wants to eat the book.

Classes - I started taking classes with Madelyn when she was about two months old.  Ann Arbor has a great program called First Steps that offers tons of different classes for babies from birth to age five.  We started with the Baby & Me Together class which was about 25 minutes of massage, songs and activities.  The rest of the time was discussion for the moms which was my real reason for signing up.  That and it was nice to have a reason to leave the house.  We took that class twice since the next one up was Wiggle Worms and she wasn't quite there yet.  This summer we are trying Music Together.  I've already been playing the CD for a few weeks and the songs are pretty cute. 

Madelyn has also started taking swim lessons!  She is a natural in the water and loves every minute of it.  I'm so glad I started taking her as early as I did because she is much more relaxed than the older kids in the class.  For example, at one point we work on getting the kids used to going underwater.  The method for Madelyn includes singing Ring Around the Rosy and at the completion of her song I blow into her face which causes her to hold her breath.  I then ease her under and pull her back up.  She is startled when she comes back to the surface but quickly goes back to whatever she was doing before she went under.  Not one tear or sign of fear or discomfort.  There is a little boy, I assume is around 18 months.  Same method but after the fact, he is crying for a good 10 minutes.  There is also a 3 year old in the class and her mom spends 5-10 minutes trying to convince her to even try.  Madelyn knowing how to swim in extremely important to me and I really believe if she grows up in the water we can hopefully skip any fears of the water.

Carseat - We upgraded to her convertible carseat!  After many, many, many hours of research, discussion and opinion gathering we decided on the Britax Advocate 70 CS.  It was not a cheap carseat by any means but I was able to score it for $150 less than retail by combining a sale with a coupon code which made the pricetag a bit easier to swallow.  At the end of the day it came down to this - Madelyn can't be in the center of my car as per the manual plus I can't use the LATCH system in the center seat either.  As a result, side impact protection was a biggie for me.  The difference between the Advocate and other Britax models comes down to these plastic bumper type things on the outside of the carseat.  It cost an extra $40.00 or so but it is supposed to serve as some protection for other backseat passengers.  If we could spend a little extra money but provide some protection for Ben, it seemed like a no brainer.  Hopefully we never need to be glad we "splurged" on her carseat but I rest a little easier knowing we've done what we can to ensure she is safe.

Lastly, we found out Madelyn's next BFF is going to be a Miss. Lily Eaton due sometime in October!!!

And now I leave you with this...a little glimpse into what our house sounds like these days....