the rat tail

i have wanted to give madelyn a haircut just about since the day she was born. at least the part and matt and i lovingly call the "rat tail". every time i mention cutting it off someone says that it is "so cute" and that i can't cut it. but after her first birthday it is coming off! it occurred to me the other day that i had never taken a picture of the rat tail intentionally so i set out to document it. it is pretty difficult to get her to turn her back to the camera. luckily one of maddie's favorite games is "chase" and she turns away to "run away" (which is really just trying to climb up whatever she is near).

i mentioned the other day that madelyn has been cheering when i come in to nurse her at night. so last night i took the camera with me. while she didn't show the same enthusiasm she had been, you can get the general idea. (and matt was pretty excited too.)

i also have two more climbing stories for you too. madelyn has learned to climb up the glider in her room to reach the top shelf of her bookcase. at first she was just trying to climb up the other shelves, but then took a look at how close the chair was to the bookcase and scampered on up. for an extra bonus she discovered that she could rock it for extra reach.

next for the big climb. i had finished feeding maddie lunch, taken her out of her highchair to play and then got to cleaning things up. i went back in to the office to check email and when i came back out madelyn was sitting, happily, in her highchair signing for more. i guess i was mistaken and lunch was not over yet. if it hadn't scared me it would have been really cute. needless to say i got some more food together for her.