Beware of Child

Last week Uncle Steve and Aunt Krista stopped by to visit Mady (and us too?) on Sunday afternoon. They have been married for almost three months now. It was nice to see them again. They stuck around long enough to give Mady a bath. Stevie just started his doctorate at the University of Akron. They brought some tasty buckeyes from a party on Saturday, which we enjoyed devouring (much like USC). Speaking of football, Michigan started their season 3-0 for the first time since 2006. Go Blue!

In one weeks time, Mady progressed from her first clumsy attempt at crawling to zipping around our apartment like a maniac. She actually opened up a kitchen cabinet today. I'm charging the battery for my cordless drill because I need to install some baby latches on our cabinets tomorrow. Mady also pulled herself up to standing for the first time today. She picked her swing and her toy piano to help her up; the two least sturdy things in the whole room. She seems to gravitate towards danger. For some reason, she will go straight past all of her toys to get to a cord, or a choking hazard, or a cup of coffee. Keeping her alive has been pretty easy until now. I have no idea how our species has survived this long.

Mady has also found lots of excellent uses for her pointer finger. She is very good a pointing, poking, and scratching. She also uses it to pick her nose as often as she can, whether or not her nose actually needs picking. I'm sure we'll get a picture of that to share soon enough. It might be a comfort thing. Some babies suck their thumbs, ours picks her nose.

Here is a short video we filmed of her crawling. Enjoy!

The World Is No Longer Safe!!!

So Mady has some big news for this week. Not only did she turn 8 months old but she also has started to crawl. Carrie bought some leg socks on ebay. The socks should give her enough padding to get around comfortably on our hard floors. (Plus they will make diaper changing a breeze!) Now that Mady has started to crawl, she has discovered a whole new world of "toys," including mommy and daddy's shoes, table and chair legs, backpack straps, and so much more!

Mady has been doing well in the food department, too. She's getting better at feeding herself food, including cheerios, crackers, rice cakes, pieces of cheese, and clumps of mashed potatoes. Her favorite food recently is tofu--straight from the fridge. We never buy the stuff but a friend recommended we give it a try and Mady loves the stuff! We don't see the appeal. :-)

Mady had some visitors briefly stop by on Labor Day--her grandpa and grandma Beyer. They were driving back to Wisconsin from Cleveland and made a detour our way to see Mady (and us). :-) We went for a picnic in the Arboretum, a perfect way to celebrate the day off!

In other news, I'm back to work with a more regular schedule. I also started classes this week; I have one class on wednesday night and one on thursday night. Carrie found out that she got the job offer to teach part-time at a nearby university. Carrie also got a Tom Pease CD (i.e., folk music for kids) for Mady this week, so she has been busy learning all of the songs so she can sing them to Mady. Never a boring day in the Beyer household!

See my toofs!

If you look closely, you can see her first two teeth coming in...Also, don't forget to check out her album to see more recent pics.

The Mady B Show

RA training is nearly over and move in is just around the corner. Carrie has had lots of quality time with Mady this last week. Here are a few videos of Mady--the pretty and the ugly. Enjoy!

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...