Week 33: August 26 - September 1

Nursing
We are still doing well on 4 meals a day! I've stopped pumping before bed, which I did for almost a month. I now have a little over 1 day's worth of milk in the freezer, just in case we need it.

Sleeping
Sleep is going pretty well. Her naps have slowly dwindled to a little over 1 hour each. I didn't think much of it until Thursday, however. I gave her tylenol before her second nap because of her teeth, and she took a 2-hour nap! Now I think that her teeth are pretty much always bothering her. It's not enough to keep her awake or to make her cry, but after an hour of sleeping, she can't stay asleep.

I'd been giving her tylenol pretty regularly about 2 weeks ago, and she consistently took long naps in the afternoon. Then I stopped with the tylenol because she seemed to be doing a lot better--not chewing everything, not visibly in pain. But then her naps started getting shorter. Like I said, I didn't think much of it because a nap of an hour still seems like a good nap.

BUT! She's been ultra cranky at night, hard to keep happy, and generally fussy. Last night, she was great, happy, and in a great mood after her long nap.

So here is my theory: Madeleine is good about pain. It will take a lot for her to cry when she's hurt, so when she is visibly upset, she is really hurting. Since she has a high tolerance for pain, the normal tooth pain goes unnoticed by her parents, but it still can interrupt her sleep. Therefore, I'll be giving her tylenol before her second nap for the foreseeable future, and possibly her first nap. We'll see how it goes! And granted, at this point, I have only one day of evidence to support this theory. Well that's not true, I have all the old data from the days she WAS taking long naps.

Update: For her second nap on Friday, she got tylenol. She only slept an hour. :( So I'm thinking maybe she needs the orajel and tylenol combo, even though that doesn't make sense because the orajel surely wears off before an hour is up. Saturday morning she got both and slept 2 hours (though she woke at 5:30, so I think it was mostly making up that sleep. But still, she stayed asleep in order to do that!). Sunday we were at the Andrews' and the schedule was all messed up in the morning. More data will be gathered Monday-Wednesday.

Update again: Don't know what's going on. LOL. Sometimes she naps for about 2 hours, sometimes not. There doesn't appear to be a pattern. :)

Solids/Food
(need to get better about her eating with us! We aren't used to thinking about her and meals with us!)
Thursday: Breakfast was lasagna. Haha! Lunch was Chicken Pesto Florentine, and she really did well! She got a lot in her mouth and she worked on chewing. Swallowing is still not much of an intentional thing, though I am sure she's getting some food down.
Friday: We went to Chick-fil-A for lunch and she did pretty well on some chicken from my sandwich. I also gave her tomato, for the first time, but she wasn't too into it. :) And I finally remembered my camera--see the slideshow!
Saturday: Baby ate stew for dinner. Yum. Beef and tomato and green beans!
Sunday: She pretty much doesn't get to eat with us because of church.
Monday: Didn't get to eat with us. It's harder on days when daddy mows because it's SUCH a mess for me to clean and ... I'm kinda lazy... BUT! We are getting her smock soon, which will make eating much easier.
Tuesday: We got the smock and she ate dinner with us... more on that in "Misc!"

I think I'm done writing down everything she eats every day. It's a lot of work to remember! I'll hit the highlights and talk about new foods from now on.

By the book...
According to "Your Baby's First Year, Week by Week," during this week, Madeleine:
1. Stands with hands free if leaning against an object (nope...)
2. Distinguishes among smells (not sure how we'd know this)
3. Follows with eyes to what someone points to (she's been doing this!)
4. Pushes away undesirable object (either she isn't doing this or nothing is undesirable!)
5. Imitates people and behaviors, out of sight and earshot (not sure what this means!?)

New Things
Madeleine is getting really good at going from a sitting position to a crawling position. She still can't CRAWL, but she's able to get around. It's usually accompanied by little grunts every time she moves. What she really needs to learn is how to sit from her tummy/back. I saw her kinda trying to figure it out this week, but no success.

She's started to show interest in her spit-up (yes, she's still spitting! ugh!). She used to just keep doing what she was doing, paying no attention to the mess. Now she's like, "ooh, shiny!" and puts her fingers in it. We have to be extra quick to clean it or she'll make the mess bigger!

Misc
Saturday was Madeleine's first wedding! We got to watch Carli and Robert get married, and then we stayed at the reception for about half an hour. Madeleine tried HARD to drink out of daddy's glass of water. It was adorable. She also discovered that mommy's necklace is chewable! :)

Sunday, we went to church with Nathan and Teda and spent the afternoon at their house. It was a great time, and Madeleine got to play with some new toys. Adelaide and Liberty were especially interested in her, and even Scarlet welcomed her with big smiles.


Adelaide & Madeleine

Madeleine loves getting her nose dabbed with kleenex. Or the little part between the nose and mouth. If she's been crying, Matt will wipe her nose and she'll get really still and lean into the kleenex, sometimes even lick it. WEIRD!

Her hair is getting longer. I tried taking some pictures of it, but it's really hard to get anything useful. It's still thin, but the strands are pretty long.

We got the Eat and Play Smock on Tuesday and put it on for dinner. Little did we know that her first thought would be, "OHMYGOODNESS, you got me clothes I can CHEW!!" She was so distracted during dinner. She'd go to take a bite and notice her smock and then start licking that instead of eating. It was HILARIOUS.

On Wednesday, the mailman rang our doorbell to deliver something. Matt had Madeleine and took her outside so that he didn't have to deal with Layla and the mailman. I guess the guy was really ... bubbly and in her face, because Madeleine started crying really hard. She'd just woken from a nap, so that probably didn't help, but it appears she doesn't like strangers all up in her mess-kit. And who can blame her?? :)

She hasn't really pulled up on anything since that one day last week. She looks like she wants to, so we'll put her in the basket, and she'll start to pull but only get a few inches off her bum. Not sure what's up with that!

Recently, we got a back of 9-12 month onesies for Madeleine, and it has been SO NICE putting her in clothes that actually fit! I hadn't realized how small her older stuff is until I put on a onesie that I didn't have to stretch and pull in order to snap over her diaper!

Finally, on Wednesday, Matt said he was a little concerned because her nose was running but she wasn't crying or anything. So we'll see if anything comes of that!

Teething Update
Still coming in. Goodness, these things are taking forever! Is this normal? Here's the best shot of them this week [Click to see bigger]:



Slideshow

Video of the week!