Dr. Mommy!

Madelyn and I would like to officially introduce Dr. Carrie Beyer Ph.D. (or Dr. Mommy as Mady calls her). Dr. Beyer successfully defended her dissertation this morning and received glowing praise for her work. We are very proud of her and we're glad she's done (and so is she). Thanks to everyone for your prayers and well-wishes.

Roll over, roll over

Here is a short video showing Mady's new hobby. When we get her up from her naps now we usually find her on her belly, even though we never leave her in the crib that way.

Bad Baby

In an effort to maximize sleep for everyone in the family, Carrie and I have surrendered our bedroom to Madelyn. We decided it was time to move to separate rooms because every little snort and whimper was waking us up. Since our bedroom is the darkest and quietest room we have, we are letting Mady stay there. The two of us are sleeping on a pair of twin mattresses on our living room floor. It isn't a permanent solution, but it is working pretty well for now.

Mady is now going to bed between 7:00 and 7:30. This is a really huge improvement, considering she was up until 1:00am just three months ago. We are now starting her bed time routine right after dinner. We've been reading about the importance of getting babies to bed when they are drowsy, but not over-tired. Our Doctor has also been encouraging us to put her in her crib awake rather than rocking her to sleep so she doesn't become dependent on us holding her to fall asleep. This should also help her to fall back asleep on her own when she wakes up during the night. So far it seems to be working pretty well. She now falls asleep on her own without too much help from us most nights. She still needs some intervention when she wakes up during the night. Putting the binky back in her mouth usually does it.

Mady is rolling over more now. She is also making lots of razzing noises (mouth farts). It is really cute. She keeps all three of us entertained with her noises. She also discovered that she can turn on her mobile by kicking the buttons. Carrie thinks it was accidental, but she has done it the last two mornings when she woke up. Her new favorite toy this week is Mommy and Daddy's lips. She loves grabbin lips.

That's all the exciting news this week. We hope everyone is enjoying the nice weather.

4 month checkup

Mady had her 4 month checkup today. She is healthy and growing. Nearly 14 lbs now. Time to move up a diaper size! She got some more vaccine shots today. She wasn't too happy about that part of the visit, but she handled it well.

The biggest challenge we are having with her right now is sleep. Thanks to her bedtime routine, we can get her down by 8:00 every night. She even stays asleep for 5 or 6 hours most nights. The trouble is that after that first night feeding around 1:00 or 2:00, she wakes nearly every hour. We're going to have to work on self-soothing with her so she can get herself back to sleep.

Otherwise, she is doing well. The weather has been beautiful so we've been going on walks and taking her outside more often.

4 months old!

Madelyn Joy is 4 months old today. She celebrated her birthday by rolling over from her back to her front (she has already done front to back a couple of times). I started a little slide-show of her birthday pictures to show how she grows and changes each month. If I can keep up with it, it will be a cool way to document her first year of life. It is really strange to look back and see how much she has already grown and changed.

We also added new pictures to the April album and started a May album.

Whoa

The last couple weeks have been full of adventures and milestones for Miss Madelyn. Let's start with the adventures.

Grandma and Grandpa Mittelstedter drove up to visit us from Topeka on Tuesday. They stayed for a few days, then headed up to Flint to see the Greanyas for a couple days. Sarah and Matt (Godparents) also came to visit because they were in town so Sarah could receive her diploma and get hooded and shake the President's hand. Congratulations Dr. Sarah!


On Saturday, Carrie and Grandma took Mady on her longest road trip yet. They went all the way to Cleveland for Krista's bridal shower. Mady did pretty good in the car ride out there, but it must have worn her out because she wasn't too excited about being passed around to all of her relatives. Other than our baby being a bit cranky, it sounds like the shower was a big success.

On Sunday half of the Greanya family came down to visit and we grilled steaks. It was a wonderful break from the cafeteria food! Madelyn was much better behaved for them. I guess she likes Carrie's side of the family better... j/k family, j/k, she was just a bit road weary on Saturday (The truth is she missed her Daddy).


I mentioned milestones. Here they are. Mady had her first official roll! Yay! She has done it at least twice in the last couple of days. She also discovered her feet this week. She likes holding on to them and even sucks on her toes. Once she used both hands to grab one foot and tried stuffing the whole thing in her mouth! We got her to sit up by herself for a little bit. She does slump over after a few seconds, but she was able to stay up long enough for us to snap a few pictures. Finally, she has been laughing so much more this week. It is hard to guess what will make her laugh. She found her bath turtle hilarious a few days ago, but hasn't been too excited about it since then. Today Carrie had her in stitches by tearing paper.

All in all, a very exciting couple of weeks for Madelyn. Lucky for us, we were able to stick to her bedtime routine through it all!