Toofs!

Madelyn's days as a cute toothless baby are officially over. Her two front bottom teeth have started poking out. Yikes! She has also started working on her fine motor skills by feeding herself Cheerios this week. She will spend twenty or thirty seconds trying to very carefully pinch the little piece of cereal with her thumb and forefinger, and when she finally get it, she stuffs her entire hand in her mouth to make sure the Cheerio goes where it is supposed to. She is also getting better at pushing up onto her hands and knees. She can actually push up onto her hands and feet now. We'll have to see how much longer this lasts before she starts trying to crawl...

In Mommy news, Carrie's degree was officially conferred on Tuesday. Everyone can now start calling her Dr. Carrie. :)

Round of Applause

Sorry for the delay in posting Mady's 7 month picture. Now that I'm back to work it is a little harder to keep up with the blog. It is also getting harder to take these pictures of Madelyn. She gets very distracted by the note card and tries very hard to destroy it. If we can manage to refocus her attention, she will give us about 2 seconds before she starts squirming off the couch.

In addition to aging a month, Mady has started clapping her hands. She still isn't crawling, but she is scooting backwards now. Her method is not graceful, but she has time to work on it. She basically pushes up onto her hands and knees, then flops on her belly, then pushes up again. By doing this, she can very slowly back accross the room. She is continuing to sleep well, which is a huge blessing. Last night she woke once before we went to bed, then she slept for the rest of the night! We didn't have to get up at all. :)

VICTORY!

Madelyn's sleeping patterns have improved dramatically in the last few days (Carrie thinks I'm jinxing us by posting this). Until recently, a good night was when she woke up three times at 10:30, 1:00, and 3:30. But most nights weren't that good. Until now! For the last three nights, she has only woke up once around 3:00. That's it! We can definitely work with that. We have been leaving four pacifiers in her crib with her when she goes down. She is now really good about getting the correct end of the pacifier into her mouth. If she is waking during the night, it seems that she has been able to find a pacifier and soothe herself back to sleep without waking us. We are very hopeful that this will continue, and with any luck at all, we might even be able to eliminate her 3:00 waking. We'll keep you posted.

In other news, her little arms are now strong enough to bench-press her daddy. Ok, not quite that strong yet, but she is able to support herself in a crawling position now. She isn't crawling yet and is only pushing up a little bit, but when we put her on her hands and knees, she can hold that position for a while. One step closer to crawling. I'm terrified.

She is also doing a much better job eating now. She is much less picky with her veggies than she used to be. We've been making our own baby food by steaming and milling fruits and veggies, then freezing them in ice-cube trays. We visited the farmers market today and picked up some fresh squash for Mady.

Finally, here is a fun little video of Mady acting strangely hyper. Notice at the end how she seems to gravitate towards the one object on the floor that she shouldn't be playing with...

Fun in Ann Arbor

Last week we took Mady to the Ann Arbor Art Fair where she made friends with a large tatooed biker. Actually, the bald guy in the picture is a statue. Anyone want to buy that for their home? Ha! Mady had fun people-watching and taking in all the colorful objects. On Sunday we went to our church picnic where Mady got to play with her buddy Jack. Jack is two months older than Madelyn and he is very good at crawling. Mady and Jack interact by stealing each others pacifiers. I'm very proud of my little girl for dishing it right back out when the bigger kids pick on her. :)

Madelyn had her 6 month checkup earlier this week. She now weights 16.07 lbs (44% percentile)and is 27.05 inches (85% percentile). She is in great health. We asked the doctor about a rash she had gotten on her face a few weeks ago because we were concerned that it might have been a food allergy. We even brought in some pictures that we had taken. The doc told us that a real food allergy would have given her a rash from head to toe. This was just a "contact allergy" and that it was nothing to worry about. Mady also got another round of vaccinations, which she was not happy about. Since she got a fever the last time she had her shots, we've been giving her Tylenol this time to keep her temperature down. It has worked pretty well. By tomorrow she should be as good as new. :)

Road Trip!

We rounded out our summer travels with a road trip through Indiana to visit some friends. Mady handled the car rides really well. Our first stop was in West Lafayette to visit Sarah and Matt in their new home. Matt came through with some fun puppet shows for Mady and Sarah came through with the southern hospitality. Chris had fun playing racquetball and Wii with Matt. It bears mentioning that Matt sank a hole in one on Wii Golf while we were there. Way to go Matt!Our next stop was in Evansville to visit Jen and Tim and Samantha. It was nice to see Jen and Tim again, but we were especially excited to meet Samantha. Sam is 10 days older than Mady. When they met each other, the first thing they did was reach out and hold hands. It was adorable. Both girls developed a special talent last week and we caught both of them showing off their new abilities in a picture together (see below). Jen and Tim are in the process of relocating to Dubuque. They are moving next week, so they are trying to sell their house. We had fun playing with the girls in their swimming pool. Chris and Tim went on a man date to see Transformers (Jen and Carrie weren't interested for some reason...). Overall, we had a great time visiting our friends and catching up with everyone.
Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Mady celebrated her 6 month birthday last week. Her biggest development recently is that she is sitting really well on her own now. Her solid food repertoire now includes rice cereal, bananas, avocado, sweet potato, apple sauce, and peas. Feeding is a messy good time! :) Chris is starting back to work this week and Carrie will be staying at home with Mady until she starts teaching part time again in the Winter semester.

4th of July with Grandma and Grandpa

Madelyn got to spend her first 4th of July with Grandma and Grandpa Beyer in Trevor Wisconsin. She handled the car drive really well, which is encouraging for us, because we are taking her on another road trip next week.
Grandma and Grandpa have two big labs, Chocolate and Kirby. I was a little apprehensive about having our baby around the big dogs, but they were very well behaved. Chocolate probably only would have noticed the baby if we had thrown her for him to catch. Kirby was very curious. I think he decided that we brought her there to be a pet for him.
We had lots of good food to eat during our visit. We also had fun playing games and walking around the neighborhood. Grandma and Grandpa got to help with feeding, bathing, changing, and entertaining Mady. Grandma also got to embarrass Chris with childhood home videos that I had been very successful in hiding from Carrie until now. Thanks mom. :P

Tomorrow we are heading down to Indiana to visit some friends. Next Monday I'm back to work. The summer is flying by!

sickness, slings, solid foods, and sign language

During my week away at Traverse City, Mady caught her first cold. She was snotty and congested, but other than that, she handled it really well. If that is what colds are going to be like, I think we'll be able to it. :)

We got a new sling as a gift from my Aunt Marty. It has been fun to try this new method of conveyance. We do walk around with Mady a lot and sometimes it seems like the stroller is a bigger hassle than it is worth. We usually walk to the cafeteria twice a day and it is a mile and a half round trip. We know that Mady is comfortable in her new sling because she has fallen asleep in it a few times.

The biggest development this week has been the introduction of solid foods. We started with rice cereal, which Mady threw up the first time. She handled it much better after we tried adding some bananas. Next up will be avocado and sweet potato. We'll see how she likes those. Avocado is supposedly one the best things to feed a baby.

Finally, we've decided to start teaching Mady sign language. We're starting with three signs for now: eat, milk, and more. According to the books we've read, she should be signing back to us by 9 or 10 months. Once she figures out the concept of signing she should be able to learn more signs pretty easily. We'll keep you posted.