goo-ga-lie

today's word/noise is "goo-ga-lie" with lots of tongue and drool. she pretty much did it (or some variation) all day. enjoy the show! love.

we have returned!

maddie and i got back from kansas yesterday. i apologize for my lack of posts, but i forgot the camera cord and i was just plain exhausted by the time i got back from the office each day! this was my first attempt at bringing maddie with me on a business trip. her grandma flew up from florida to watch her for the week at her nana and papa's in kansas while they went to work too. she was totally spoiled by having three of her grandparents there to care for her. the visit was nice, but i think that we were both happy to get home and see her daddy. maddie wanted to follow matt down to the basement yesterday, but since the baby gate blocked her she just sat and waited.

madelyn has a lot of new tricks that she learned over the past week. one is seen in this video from last weekend - she didn't want to share her blanket with daddy so she would take it from him and then feel bad and try to give it back.

she can also stand up without holding on to anything for help. she just crawls over to what she wants and then stands up. she did it for the first time at the airport on saturday and i was so excited! she has done it a few times since then successful, but then today at the park she was trying to stand up with a stick and fell backwards on her butt with a "what just happened" expression. she is just that much closer to walking. she will now let go and walk 2 or 3 steps to me before jumping the rest of the way to reach me - laughing wildly!

there is also a not so nice 'trick' - temper-tantrums. she is definitely my child. she is so stubborn! if she doesn't want to do something she really doesn't want to do it. today she threw a fit because i stopped pushing her in the swing at the park and started crying when i took her out to go home. luckily, she settles back down pretty quickly.

she really missed her dad. he was working in the backyard this afternoon and madelyn just stood and watched him for long periods of time. she would stand on her tiptoes for a better view when he would get too close to the house for her to see him. i love to see how much she loves him. she is always giving him kisses. and he is the only one she kisses every time. i only get a kiss every now and then. i get lots of hugs, but matt gets most of the kisses.

last weekend madelyn started running a slight fever (100.3) and shivering. we ran errands all day on saturday, but when she woke up from her afternoon nap she was crying and had a really hard time calming down. since we were traveling on monday i wanted to call the doctor's office just to make sure that she was okay. it was just her body trying to deal with her molars trying to come in. i had to give her children's motrin for a few days to manage the fever, but it did the trick.

flying with madelyn by myself was interesting to say the least! she wasn't difficult per se, just her normal active self. and now she is tall enough to push her feet off the back of the seat in front of us. the flight there was a little more difficult than the flight home. she was happy and friendly and then fell asleep on the way home. actually the most difficult part of flying with her (especially for a business trip) is carrying everything! i had a big bag of stuff for her, my laptop, the stroller, and of course madelyn herself.

things that go

madelyn has been all about her toys on wheels today! here are some videos with her firetruck, tractor, and phone (the old school toy) powered by maddie. it was so cute to watch her push them all over the house. she even figured out that she has to flip them back on their wheels when she pushes them so hard that they turn over.

they have even been more interesting than looking in the cabinets (her current obsession). she pushed the firetruck into the kitchen and started opening cabinets. all i had to do was push the truck with my foot a little and she was all over it again. it definitely made my kitchen duties a lot easier tonight! (not to mention that my sweet husband had cleaned up last night because i wasn't feeling well.)

i think that her molars are making some more progress because she has been chewing on her pointer finger almost constantly and acting clingy and whiny. hopefully some will come in soon so that she can have a little relief.

another recent habit madelyn has is climbing into the toy baskets and sitting on the toys to play. she will stay in there for a while too, just playing with whatever she can pull out from under her. of course the other advantage to playing in the basket is that she can get up on top of the coffee table - well at least she can try...

that's it for tonight. i am off to bed early to see if i can shake this bug i picked up before maddie gets it. love.

food! glorious food!

okay, so i have a new finger food for you all to try - "snapea crisps" by calbee snack salad. madelyn likes them (as you can see) and i think that they are really good too. i heard about them through a mommasource bulletin board (thanks, kellie) as a finger food idea. we bought them at a health food store, but it sounded like they are carried by normal grocery stores too. they are sort of the consistency of the more common gerber stars or wagon wheels snacks but are meant to be a snack food or salad topping. all i know is that i am not a huge fan of peas and these are really good (well i might be a little over enthusiastic, but when you think about a crunchy peapod i don't think that the expectation is very high for taste).

plus we dropped like $70 on food for maddie today (organics sure are price-y)! among the new foods - kale, eggplant, veggie dogs (read "hot dogs"), and cauliflower. i am just trying to make sure that she gets more veggies and variety in her finger foods. she is at least letting me give her more foods on a spoon again. i am really thankful that was a short phase.

she also had her first sandwich tonight - turkey and swiss on a whole wheat bread. okay - so she didn't eat it in the traditional fashion. each piece was eaten individually, but it was fun to make her a little sandwich! tomorrow i am going to start new recipes for "toddler hors d'oeuvres". i will let you know how it goes. i am starting with a cream cheese ball rolled in ground seeds (and, yes, i might be a little nuts!).

i thought that this video was worth sharing. not only is it cute because she is laughing so hard, but she isn't even watching what matt is doing. she is just laughing at the noise while she keeps right on playing.

lastly, this is the best picture we got today of her walking with only a little support. matt was cleaning out the garage and maddie and i were enjoying the warmer (60), breezy day. her pants are really capris, but she is just too skinny to keep them up (not from a lack of eating though!). she is still getting used to walking with shoes on. she definitely prefers to be barefoot.

good night. love.

the park...finally!

as you can see, madelyn had wheat spaghetti noodles with her dinner tonight. i even tried giving them to her in a bowl (fully expecting the bowl to end up being thrown on the floor). she kept trying to pick them up out of the bowl - even after they were all over her tray and she never picked it up to drop on the floor. she really liked them once she figured out that they were for eating and not for squishing.

i have mentioned several times that madelyn loves her books and that she will go to her room to 'read'. well i tried to get some video and discovered something - she loves to 'read' so much that she saw me and the camera and didn't crawl right over! now that is some strong power books have over her. she will stay like this for 20 minutes or so and then come back out into the living room and play with something else or look for me. i love that she only laughs at certain pages.

today maddie and i went down to the neighborhood park for a little over an hour because it got over 50. woo-hoo! it was so nice to be out in the fresh air and sun! i even opened the house up for some airing out when we got home.

madelyn's walking improves everyday. she can now walk just holding onto one of my fingers. she can walk 10 feet or so until something else distracts her. it is very exciting for me! she even added bending down to pick something up today at the park. we were walking side by side with her holding my finger for balance and she bent down to pick up a stick, stood back up, and kept on walking! this was a first. usually she will just walk until she sees something she wants and then plop down and crawl. here she is jamming out on the 'bells' at the playground (at least she was until the camera came on - unfortunately she could only reach two of the bells).

we took daddy down to the park after dinner and then took a walk around the neighborhood. maddie got to ride on daddy's shoulders and discovered that they come with 'handles'. apparently she holds on really tight!

it seems that after each post i think of something else that i meant to tell you about maddie, but then when the next night comes i can't think of what it was... oh well. nighty-night! love.

sound of the day

today's sound of the day is...brooom. all-day-long.

she also claps her hands really well now. real, open-palmed, sound making clapping. she also does it every (some) time we say "yea"! or just for her own amusement. or when we go to get her out of her crib. actually, she does it a lot now. she was more interested in her toys than clapping, but you get the idea. i also like how she gets herself all excited and starts choking on the spit she sucked down.

lastly, i have another laughing video. for some reason she just thinks that it is hysterical for us to flip her toys at her like that. love.

on the move

madelyn climbed up on the couch today. (i might have helped her keep her balance and not fall backwards, but she did all the work to get up there.) it amazes me that she could get her knee up high enough to climb all the way up there.

i didn't get that on video, but i did work on getting some more of her skills on video. she can just get to me and the camera so quickly that it makes filming her on my own very difficult. i have been trying to just film for a long time and then edit it down to whatever is interesting. i am going to try and get some of her signing this weekend when matt is around to help me with the filming.

she can also pull a book down and turn the pages all by herself. she will be playing in the living room and make a bee-line for the bookshelf in her bedroom. i did manage to get some of her turning pages on video today. at the very end of the video you can see how she lifts the corner of the page to turn them. at this rate she will be reading on her own in no time! what's cute is she acts like she is reading them by tilting her head back and forth while 'talking' and laughs as she looks at the pages.

i also got some better video of her 'walking' with her lion.

lastly, i want to mention that my "handsome" grandfather went to heaven this morning. he blessed this earth with his smile for 95 years. my pa-pa always said that i was his twin and that i got my good looks from him - it was our running joke. i loved him very much and look forward to seeing him again in heaven one day. i am happy to say that madelyn was able to meet this wonderful man. i will miss his smile and hearing him greet me with, "hiya, shell." very much. he was special for many reasons. love.