Week 29: July 29 - August 4

Nursing
Big changes here! See the Special Topic for more info.

Sleeping
Since going to her new eating schedule, we've been extending her waketimes, and her naps have extended as well. Sometimes she sleep almost 2 hours, and sometimes we have to wake her up so she won't mess up her bedtime. Miracles do happen!! She's doing so well on the regular, consistent sleep; she's such a joy to be around!

Solids/Food
(need to get better about her eating with us! We aren't used to thinking about her and meals with us!)
Thursday: She had apples and yogurt for a snack. At first she didn't know what to make of the yogurt. She just played with it. But once she got a taste, she was hilarious with her hands in her mouth! Pasta primavera for dinner again. She gnawed on squash, and of course carrot. She isn't a huge fan of the green veggies yet.
Friday: Breakfast was cheese toast! She really liked it. Then she had apples and yogurt again for dinner, plus a few pieces of chicken.
Saturday: We had pancakes again for breakfast. She loves pancakes! Dinner was white lasagna again, and she had a great time eating. I know that she got a piece of artichoke down because I saw it the next day in her diaper! :D
Monday: Today was our weekly outing to Chick-fil-a, and Madeleine was more interested in biting the table edge than the pieces of chicken I gave her. Oh well! Dinner was leftover lasagna.
Tuesday: Breakfast was oatmeal, and it was a huge mess. Then we went to the Rays for brunch, and Madeleine gnawed on some apple slices and peaches. She was too distracted by all the new people at meal time. But we got to use our portable chair from Ryan, and to our delight, it has hippos on it!

Layla, as you might expect, loves Baby-Led Weaning. She is always ready to help with clean up and make sure the floor stays nice and shiny (with dog slobber, of course). She reminds me of ball boys and bat boys, always ready on the sidelines to rush out and clean up sweat, fetch wayward balls, or retrieve bats. She is always on alert whenever Madeleine is in her high chair, and she often gets lucky. I just dread the day when Madeleine figures out that she can FEED the dog.

Madeleine has started to make the most of her dining experience by licking the tray of her high chair.

By the book...
According to "Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week," during this week, Madeleine:
1. May be rolling over to move around the room (not really, but she does roll all the time to get to a toy!)
2. May raise and lower buttocks while lying on back to move about (she's been doing this)
3. Likes to say "ma, mu, da, di" (she has been making these sounds lately!)
4. May associate picture of baby with herself and make appropriate sounds (haven't tried this...--UPDATE! Sunday she saw a picture of herself on the fridge, noticed it, and then smiled and cooed! Very cool.)
5. Wants to be included in social interactions (definitely!)

Special Topic #1: New Schedule!
You may recall that on Wednesday, Madeleine missed her first meal of the day and ended up with only four that day. Well, that pattern has stuck! It's Saturday, and both Thursday and Friday she ate just four meals. It started with Thursday. She had a very long awake time in the morning, about 2 hours, then took a great nap, not waking until about 10:30, which was 3.5 hours after her first meal. I fed her first thing.

Before her second nap, she was awake 2.5 hours, much longer than she'd been up recently, and took another good nap, waking almost 4 hours from her previous meal. When I fed her, it was almost 2:30pm. I had two choices: two to cram two more meals in before bedtime and somehow fit a catnap into the day, or just feed her right before bed and hope for the best, knowing she might wake up in the middle of the night and need food. We put Madeleine down for a catnap around 4:30. Well, she spent the whole time cooing and talking to herself, so we got her up at 5, not wanting her to fall asleep so late and then mess up bedtime. We'd just put her to bed super early.

Down she went around 6:30 after eating. It took her a little over 15 minutes to fall asleep, and she slept all night! She woke Friday morning around 6:30, and we got up and started our day. Friday she again got four meals, plus two really great naps. We even had to wake her up from her last nap so she wouldn't have a hard time going to bed! Truly amazing!

Madeleine is now on a 4-hour eating schedule, where she eats 4 meals a day (plus solids, of course!). It's strange. I knew this would eventually happen, but we've been on a 5-meal-a-day routine for so long--about 4 months, maybe more!--that it's a little sad for me to move to this new one. My little baby girl is growing up! Haha. She's getting bigger and stronger and able to go longer stretches between meals. My days of nursing are numbered. I knew she wouldn't nurse forever, but our routine had been the same for so long that I'd sort of taken it for granted. Four meals a day is awesome, but it just made me realize that this won't last forever. The precious time I spend with Madeleine every day, just the two of us, won't always be there. At least, not like that. Sure, we'll make up for it in other ways, but there's something special about nursing. Mamas who have done it, you know what I'm talking about!!

I truly don't look forward to the day she finally stops.

Special Topic #2: Awesome-ness
This isn't exactly new, but Madeleine is awesome right now. I mean, she is SUPER fun. Matt and I are constantly amazed by how incredible she is. She's just so much FUN to be around. She smiles and laughs easily, she's very interactive. We adore her tremendously.

New Things
Madeleine is starting to get chub on her medial phalanges. Check it out! [Click for larger image]



Misc
Matt got Madeleine a "Jenny Jump Up" a few weeks ago. Her inaugural run proved her to be too small for the toy, so we put it away for awhile. Just this week, Matt got it out again, and Madeleine is big enough! And, to his great delight, she LOVES it. It didn't take her long to get the hang of jumping. She also likes being on Layla's level, and the dog takes more interest in her when she's in the jumper than other times. So it's a win-win for baby!

I love her little pod-feet. When she's wearing low socks, she just looks like she has puffy pods on the end of her legs. :)

I have started to take a ridiculous amount of pictures of Madeleine. Sometimes over 100 in a single day. It's a blast doing it, but kind of a chore to sift through them all looking for the best! I think part of it is because she's eating. I've taken a LOT of food pics.

Thursday (29th), Joanna came over and took some pictures of Madeleine. I haven't gotten the CD from her yet though

Tuesday we spent the day at the Ray's of Woodstock. Chuck fixed a delicious brunch of eggs, all things pig, and fresh fruit. Madeleine was awesome, taking 2 decent naps in her pack-n-play away from home! She delighted our hosts and bonded with Chuck. Matt and I got to play a whole game of Cities & Knights (of Catan) with Chase and Thomas. Chase won, but it was a very close game all the way.

Slideshow

Video of the week!