sitting pretty

manning loves getting up and down, in and out and opening and closing.  seriously, he is hysterical.  so tonight's adventure was on and off the bench.  it makes me a little nervous because the bench can tip over and is very heavy so i can't turn away for a second.  and there is no distracting him once he has picked his challenge.  watching him it is a little like he is trying to always beat his personal best time.  he tries different techniques, gets frustrated the second it doesn't go his way and once he completes the task he scrambles back to try again.

it is probably going to be good that i will have some alone time with him for constant supervision while the others are at school.  love.

climbing up

maddux carries his stool all over the place.  for some reason he left it in the living room today and manning found his way over to it.  at first he was just chewing on the corner of it, but then he crawled up to sitting on his knees.  this was a first and he was pretty excited about it too.  i am excited for him to get moving.  love.

this and that

okay, so last month i mentioned that madelyn was asking "what's that". shortly afterwords she stopped doing it as much. however, now its a different story! not only does she ask "what's that?" all day, but she has added "what's this?" into the rotation. and i am loving every minute of it! sometimes it is difficult to know what she is asking about because she points and sometimes she is pointing as something at a distance that could be any number of items.

it was fun today at the grocery store. she would point and say "what's that?" and i would have to quickly come up with a response without loosing track of what i was actually looking for - and i did loose track, several times.

to go with the questions and pointing is that she can point to things we ask about too. when we read books before nap time (daddy does bedtime) i can ask her "where's the dog?" and she can point to it! this makes story time that much more fun for me. and she must like it too because when we get to the end of the book she turns it back to the front cover for me to read it and quiz her again. (and if i don't quiz her she starts pointing and asking "what's that?") i am working on getting this on video. so far i have only gotten like one second because she looses focus when i get the camera.

her comprehension is getting really great too. i can ask her if she wants her diaper changed and she will go to the changing table in her room, tell her that it is bath time and she will head to the tub, when she wants milk she signs "milk" until i tell her yes, lets go get it and then she heads to the refrigerator, and last when i ask her if she is hungry she heads to the highchair and starts to climb. i think that she has climbed all the way up into the highchair at least seven times in the past two days. she just climbs up (silent as a cat) and signs for "more" when i find her. that is her sign for "eat" - we're still working on it.

back to the climbing into the highchair - well, i need more pictures. i will post more about that tomorrow. (the picture is a clue...)

she is also getting really good at her sign language - well, i am biased. she has added "daddy" to her signs. we were watching her baby einstein "first signs" dvd this afternoon (well she was watching while i made dinner for one of the neighbors) for the first time in a few months and she was trying to sign along (that is where the "daddy" dvd showed up today). when they came to the "eat" part, maddie signed "more". it gets her what she wants, so why learn the right sign, right? love.

more climbing and just more

thankfully madelyn has not tried to climb out of her crib - yet. but she does try to climb in. mainly she is trying to get in and get her "bear". here she is trying to lift herself in after getting a short step up on the bottom.

in addition to her crib climbing madelyn is obsessed with climbing up into chairs. this really started when she began walking. she had done it from time to time before, but mainly stuck to climbing up on the couch and glider. now she wants to climb up on the kitchen and dining room chairs (with her rocks in her hand the whole time). she fell off one of the kitchen chairs onto the hardwoods and is now much more careful. some lessons are learned the hard way.

one fun thing that madelyn has begun doing since walking is going to the bathroom for bath time at night. she would crawl to the tub from her room after we stripped her down, but now she can be playing in the kitchen and when we say/sign "bath" she stops what she is doing and heads straight to the bathtub! it surprised us a little the first time and now it is one of our favorite things to see each night. there is something so cute about seeing her toddle down the hallway to the bathroom.

that's it for tonight! love.

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.

life at warp speed

madelyn changes so much every day that a few days skipped and i have quite a few stories to share!

first of all - happy mother's days to all you moms! my first mother's day was pretty nice. we went to church this morning and i got a surprise gift from madelyn when we picked her up from the nursery. they had stamped her hand on a coffee mug for me with her name and the year on the bottom. on the back there was this message:

"This isn't just a mug as you can plainly see.
I made it with my hand which God made a part of me.

It comes with lots of love especially to say,

I hope you have a very special Mother's Day!"

of course that made me tear up! it was so thoughtful of them to make that with her. (although i don't know how in the world they got her to hold still long enough to get a clear imprint of her hand!) madelyn did her own artwork at home for her grandma and nana mother's day cards. usually i let her hold a marker, but i decided to try crayons. the markers must not taste as good as the crayons is all i have to say about that...

it was if madelyn knew that it was mother's day and said "ma-ma", "mom" and "mo-mi" a lot more than normal today. matt and i also agree that she is starting to call us by the correct names. (as you regular readers might remember, matt and i have to agree on a development before it 'counts'.) she will look at him and say "hi, da-di". or reach to one of us and call us "ma-ma" or "da-da". she does call matt "da-di" more than "da-da" though and i get called "mom" mostly.

and here is video of matt and maddie playing 'catch' today! she is not ready for the majors or anything, and the timing of her release needs some work, but you can tell that she is trying to throw him the ball. she was actually doing it mainly with her left hand and i was going to post this saying that she is a southpaw, but as soon as i got the camera she switched hands on me! figures, huh? enjoy.

just in case my life wasn't exciting enough, maddie added a new death-defying feat to her resume - standing in her highchair. now, i know what you are thinking, lots of kids can stand up in their high chair. but how many can climb up it to get the seat in the first place under the age of 1! she got up and in and up to standing in under 15 seconds! the speed at which it happened was probably the scariest part. of course this was not the time for a picture!

she has also really dropped her morning nap for good (i think so this time anyway). it makes my mornings a little longer, but i am pretty much guaranteed at least a 3 hour nap in the afternoon. she has even gone as long as 4-1/2 hours!

another new activity of madelyn's is talking. not just making noises, but actually 'speaking' softly as she does things or when she wants me to understand her. i don't quite know how to explain it and haven't had much luck getting a really good example on video, but it is so sweet. my favorite is when matt or i are holding her and she touches our face and talks softly to us. however, she also has the opposite form of talking where she grunts - until she gets red in the face. and these are not the same as poop-y noises. she does these for her own amusement and we find it to be hysterical! which of course makes her do it more. this video is a vocal version of the grunting, but she does it silently too until her face is almost purple and her eyes are bugging out and then she will stop and start laughing. it is just a game and not a tantrum where she holds her breath. take a look to see what i mean.

and here she is playing with the same puzzle with some grunting, but she does two other things that i wanted to share. first she thinks that the puzzle board is a big book and is trying to get it to open by turning the pages. if you watch you will see her try to lift the bottom corner and then turns it on the side to try and use her thumbs to get it open (this is how she acts with her books is the only reason i understood her confusion). and then she starts kicking her legs with all the puzzle pieces. you can even see at one point she tries to bring some of the pieces back within kicking range. she does this with her blocks too. it thinks she likes the noise of them all banging together and seeing them jump around when she kicks her legs. (warning: it is kind of long - almost 3 minutes)

lastly, i just wanted to share a picture of some of the tulips that i cut from our backyard this weekend. they are one of the first signs of spring around here. this morning there was frost, but the tulips promise spring! i really can't wait for our peonies to come in! we plants the bulbs almost three years ago and had all but given up on them and then - surprise - the bushes are coming in this year! yeah!

sorry for such a long post. love.

"Go! Go! Go!"

we enjoyed a beautiful day here in wisconsin today! and since i had the morning off we spent some time at the park. madelyn's word today was "go". she started saying it yesterday, but today it was said more often than "da-da". and it was appropriate! she climbed up the floating stairs at the park (see the picture). she has been eyeing them for a while now but today she made her move. she climbed up them a few times today and without much trouble either.

the other attempt at 'go'ing was walking in the grassy area next to the playground. i don't know if you can tell from the picture or not, but there is a slight incline and maddie kept falling backwards because of the uneven grass. (this picture was just seconds before she landed on her bottom again.)

her climbing is getting crazy, so we are trying to teach her that some things are not for climbing on - like the oven. yesterday she got a foothold on the storage drawer and was most of the way up the front of the oven before we knew it. luckily, the stove top burners were already cool from dinner preparation, but it was still a little scary. (daddy was on supervision duty and underestimated her climbing speed when following her into the kitchen from the dining room.)

in addition to climbing up the oven, she can also get on top of the kitchen chairs now. its only a matter of time before she learns that she can push them over to the counters and use them as a ladder. she already pushes around the bar stools and another little step stool we have. she has been pushing the step stool around and climbing up on top of it, but hasn't figured out the power of this skill - yet.

we love our little monkey! love.

she never gives up

madelyn is a climber. and she is determined to climb on everything! she just never gives up. here she is making her first attempt to get up on top of the coffee table without using the baskets for help. it was a bit of a stretch, but she made it. i wish that i had kept filming another 30 seconds because she did a sort of victory knee stand and then got on her belly and slid feet first off the end before crawling away to play with something else.

then after daddy got home i got a chance to film how good she is getting at walking. she will now let go and make the effort to walk to you when you ask (and sometimes when you don't). well at least she does with me. tonight was the first time she was willing to walk to daddy so we were all extra excited!

i hope that you enjoyed the videos. love.

yesterday's post

this is the post that should have been... i made a list during the day of all the things i was going to blog about but then i just ran out of day. and i just had to watch the american idol results show before i accidentally saw the results today. matt was finishing up the new concrete slab he wanted to put in place of our pavers under the deck and i was trying to entertain madelyn while cleaning up the house for our visitors today (more on that in the next post).

madelyn was having fun playing peek-a-boo during lunch and she actually did it with her palms over her eyes (instead of the backs of her hands) a few times. then because i like to keep my life interesting, i decided to see how she would do without her sippy lid on her cup. i hadn't done that with her in a long time, but she actually was more careful with the cup and didn't spill as much as she does with the lid on! i wanted to try it because she drank water really great on the airplane from one of their plastic cups - making me realize that drinking from a cup is a really useful skill for her to have. not only did she make less of a mess, but she was more interested in drinking everything in her cup. she never ceases to amaze me.

while daddy was working on the concrete, maddie and i went to the park after (her) dinner to get out some more of her energy. plus it was such a nice night that i thought we might run into some of her neighborhood friends. being the brave parent that i am i decided to try and take a few pictures while being on safety watch. she is a very good climber.

sometimes she is too good of a climber. and really fast! a few of the neighbors couldn't believe how quickly she can scale up 'rock' mountain like thing on the playset that i was trying to describe in my last post. and she did it over and over and over and over until she started to get mad at me for pulling her off the top each time she got there. one of the mom's was saying that maddie can get to the top because her legs are long enough to reach all the steps. we finally had to move over to the swings as a distraction. maddie is so over the toddler playset and moving on to the bigger one.

in addition to her park climbing, madelyn has also discovered pulling her dresser drawers open and climbing up them! that is too scary for me! thank goodness for straps to secure the furniture to the wall.

and that is the post i wanted to share yesterday. now i have to do my real post for today. love.

10 months today

madelyn is 10 months old today! which means that i better get on her "9 month" pictures before it is time for her 1 year pictures. oops...

today's trick was actually using her hands to cover her eyes for peek-a-boo. the cute thing is that she uses the backs of her hands instead of her palms. i couldn't get her to do it when i was filming video, but you can get the effect through these still shots.

she can also clap at the appropriate times when i sing "if you're happy and you know it". she started doing this last week, but is really good at it now. that is the next activity that i hope to capture on video to share with you all.

now that she is getting better and better about climbing all over and 'walking', she can crawl over to the playset at the park and climb up the stairs to go down the slide all by herself! well, sometimes i have to help her sit down. mostly she just turns around and goes down on her belly. this is on the 'toddler' playset, but she is now climbing up the 'rock' stairs (i'll have to get a picture because i don't think i could explain it right) on the big kid playset and its too high for my comfort. i have to quickly go up and get her to be carried back down.

lastly, she is saying "duck" and "dog" - at the right times. that is the way i know what she is saying. sometimes they are clear, but mostly they sound very similar to each other. i can ask her where her duck block is and she will pick it out from the other blocks and say "duck" (well at least her version). i am so excited to hear what she thinks about things! and, yes, i know that i have a little while to wait for that, but every little bit of progress is exciting for me.

that's it for today. i am ready for bed. love.

the blur

maddie has a new super hero name - "the blur". i have been having the most difficult time getting a picture of her lately! even with the action setting on the camera with rapid shutter speed a hand or something is a blur in the picture. not to mention the very sight of the camera sends her racing towards me to grab it. this was the best shot out of like 20 and even here the comb is blurry. please notice her new hairdo. i figured that it was appropriate for her overalls.

she has discovered that she can stand on her own. she has been testing this ability off and on for the past day or two. it sort of surprises her at first and then she gets excited and sits down to come get me. she will take a step here and there, from the coffee table to the couch, from the coffee table to me, etc. but no major walking yet. i think that she will be there within the next month, but we'll see.

she also took her climbing to the next level today - literally! she used her entertainment/activity table to climb herself up onto the ottoman. she was so proud of herself and kept clapping and squealing. she was even able to back herself off feet first without falling!

as promised here is some video of her intentionally shaking the water out of her sippy cup. if i give her the sign for "drink" she will stop and drink it instead - or if not, the cup goes away.



we take matt to the airport tomorrow morning so it will just be us girls until saturday night when matt gets home. and then nana (matt's mom) is getting here on sunday. so while i will be busy over the next few days, my nights will be free so i shouldn't miss many posts. thanks to all of you who read about maddie's day-to-day activites. love.

higher and higher

madelyn continues her training for mount everest by finding new ways to climb higher and higher. (matt is just off camera so don't worry about her falling. by the way she didn't fall, she got herself down safe and sound.) she tried to climb even higher after the picture, but couldn't get her foot to the window.

she has also realized that she can reach the water/ice dispenser part of the refrigerator. luckily she isn't quite tall enough to reach the controls - yet.

since she has learned that she can't open the fireplace doors, she looks for other ways that she can interact with the fireplace. today she tried scratching, climbing (pulling up on), and biting the stones. i think that she really loves the texture and cool feeling of the fireplace stones. i did add a blanket to cover the corners so that we don't have any more bloodshed. although, really, with madelyn i have the feeling there will be more in my future!

speaking of bloodshed... as you can see, even with her busted lip, madelyn is still a "pretty girl". she had a great night's sleep and a really great day! i was able to get a lot of work done because she is learning not to touch the things in my office that she shouldn't. plus, she played nicely in her crib while i had a video conference this afternoon. i was actually surprised that she did so well. this was the longest that she played in her crib without crying about being alone (and contained).

what can i say? madelyn was so good to me today! love.

we've got a climber!

so matt was playing with maddie in her room while i was prepping some food for maddie in the kitchen. when i heard matt call out "michelle come here. you've got to see this!" i knew that i should grab the camera on my way (i keep it on the kitchen counter for easy access). here is what i found...

she kept going up and down, up and down so i am sure that we are going to see this again. she has been lifting her right leg up to climb a lot lately, but hadn't figured out how to actually go 'up'. oh boy!

maddie really loves dogs - as i have mentioned before - and here she is 'talking' to the dogs outside. please notice that she is in just a diaper and our deck is covered in snow...



madelyn has added "ba", "bye" and "va" to her vocal repertoire yesterday. she also waves one hand and says "hi" when she wants you to look at her.

yesterday we didn't quite have the adventure that i was hoping for, but we did get out of the house. our big outing - the local library! actually, it was a really nice library and we got several books and music cds for madelyn. all in all, it was a very successful outing that i think we will repeat in the future.

today was warm (30) and sunny so we went to a new(er) outdoor shopping center on the north side of the city. it is funny to think of 30 as 'warm', but really it feels warm. matt and i didn't wear coats, hats, or gloves. and people working in the stores were commenting that it was much busier today because of the warmer weather. it was so nice to spend the day outside. we even went for a walk around the neighborhood after dinner. but it started to get cold again as soon as the sun started setting so we high-tailed it home. we have a big outing planned for next saturday, but you will have to wait and see what we do (pray the weather cooperates!).

success!

madelyn finally figured out how to climb over the center support under the kitchen table. here is a photo series documenting her achievement.

yes, she is crying in the last shot. the landing was a little harder than she had intended. but at least she didn't get stuck this time.

i am starting to see little signs of separation anxiety from madelyn. she has been a little clingy over the past month and shows a slight preference to me but today she cried when i would leave the room and stopped when i came back. she didn't do it once matt got home so that was nice. hopefully this phase won't last very long - it makes working a lot more challenging because i can't hold her all day (or rather let her hold on to me).

she also had the last of her front teeth cut through today. so now we wait on the molars.

i'm off to volleyball! love.

miller time

yesterday we took the girls for a highly appropriate tour of the miller brewery. actually it was a very nice tour and madelyn laughed practically the entire time! "miller valley" is actually pretty with some great architecture and it is perpetually "miller time". here is a picture of maddie enjoying her free coaster at the end of the tour while the grown-ups enjoyed tasting the "champagne of beers".

she has finally come around to embracing the cold wind and seems to be invigorated by it. she used to gasp over and over again, but now she squeals, laughs and wiggles with delight.

but the day didn't start there, earlier that morning madelyn continued her work on improving her climbing skills (or as i call it "up-and-over") and got stuck under the kitchen table. here is a front and rear view for your enjoyment.













today's time with uncle brad, aunt abby, and cousin annabell was pretty brief but we took a few more pictures of the girls together before we left for breakfast on their way to the airport. here they are playing this morning at the house in matching outfits from grandma.

and then here they are with the deep snow while we were waiting for our turn to be seated at the restaurant. (don't worry - we were just outside for the picture. afterwards we went back inside.) we sat them on their changing pads so that they wouldn't cry from the cold on their bottoms. like i mentioned earlier, maddie loves the cold!

we officially had 16 inches of snow on wednesday and there are probably 20 or so behind them in the picture. the cold air is coming back tonight and with wind chill they are saying it will be -28 or 30 tomorrow. burrr!