Week 59: February 25 - March 3

EC & DIAPER WOES
Hot off the heels of a few EC successes last week, we had an even bigger one on Friday: While Mimi was watching Madeleine, baby spread her legs (while standing) and looked down. The first time, Mimi asked if she needed to go potty, and Madeleine made the sign for potty! So Mimi put her on the potty and waited a few minutes, but baby got upset. Mimi went to put her diaper on, and she peed immediately into the diaper. Mimi thinks that if mommy had been there, she would have gone in the potty.

I sent all our cloth diapers home with Mimi so that she could strip them in her top-loading washer. The front-loaders just don't use enough water to get all the yuck out, and I'm going to have to be proactive in the future about stripping on a regular basis instead of waiting until it starts affecting Madeleine. But, we're also probably going to be doing a lot more diaper free time, with diapers at naps and at night. A friend of mine recently told me her 2-year-old was completely graduated out of diapers except at night. I'm hoping for a similar story with us!

Madeleine has also made the sign for potty a few times this week. I always then take her to the potty, but she has yet to go. I think she's actually signing WHEN or just AFTER she pees. But I still think it's progress!

SIGNS
We've been doing sign language with Madeleine since she was probably 6 months old. We faithfully did "eat", "milk", "bath", and "up" every chance we could. She's caught on nicely in the last month or so, but now it seems she's really getting it. This week, she did signs for milk and bath, and then Matt taught her a new one: shoe. He probably only showed her a day or two before she did the sign back to him! And said "shoe!" Now, her signing isn't perfect, but we always repeat the sign correctly. Just like they say to pronounce words correctly and not mimic baby-talk, Matt reminded me to always make the correct sign. Good job, daddy!

PLAY TIME
We have gone back and forth for MONTHS over the concept of "Independent Play." (IP) In formal (babywise) terms, this is scheduled, structured time where the baby plays alone with a set number of toys for a specific amount of time. The idea is to provide time to play alone so that as they grow up, they're able to entertain themselves. Babywise recommends putting the child in a playpen in a different room and shutting the door, with the idea that if the baby can see you, she won't be able to play alone and it's not fair to her. We've tried it, but Madeleine just cries the whole time. On occasion, she'll play by herself, but usually not.

WE HATE THIS. So we tend to not bother. But, there are times when we need to do something and neither of us can watch her. So in she goes -- and she generally cries. But we're okay with it because there's no other option. However, we aren't cool with adding this to our daily routine because she just cries.

On the advice of both our moms, we've put the playpen out in the rooms where we are doing things, and we've had some success with it. She'll play with her toys while we can get something done. But we still only do it when necessary, which thankfully (we are so blessed!) isn't too very often. Since we don't need to put her in very much, we haven't been motivated to basically do Cry It Out with IP.

Well, this week, it seems Madeleine has grown up a whole lot. She now plays by herself. All by herself. We can put her down in the living room where her toys are and leave the room. Now, we don't leave her for long, but there's not much she can get into she shouldn't. But here's the cool thing: she's totally mobile now. She's a pro crawler, she can get herself up and down lickety-split, and she WANTS to move.

Before Christmas, Matt bought Madeleine a push cart from Ikea. At first, she didn't like it much, but then she did. You may remember that she took her first real steps walking from Matt to the cart. Well, now she can get up from the floor by using the cart (that has WHEELS!) and then zoom! She is off! She gets herself up and is so very pleased with herself. The only problem is that the cart doesn't turn, so eventually she runs into something. Sometimes she'll go to the floor play if she ends up near toys, but if not, she looks around for one of us to come rescue her. We can either turn the cart around or take her hand so she can walk. But she is quite proficient with the cart now!

TEETH
Madeleine is REALLY chewing on her fingers these days. She has been for a few weeks, actually. I looked in her mouth this week and saw two teeth on top and I THINK one on the bottom. But they are taking their sweet time coming in. Unlike previous teeth, however, these don't seem to be bothering her the same. She has yet to have an otherwise unexplained cranky day or wake time or anything, which she had with every teething before. She'd just be fussy and cry for no apparent reason. Not with these teeth.

They also don't seem to be interfering with her sleep any. I've been giving her ibuprofen before her morning nap, but it doesn't seem to make a difference in how long or how well she sleeps. She also h hasn't really been waking early, which she's always done with teething before and is a sign of teething. I had read somewhere that eventually, babies kind of get used to the pain or discomfort of teething for the middle teeth because they've been living with it for so long. Sad, but also good? Then when they get their last teeth, those are whoppers and tend to cause the same problems that early teeth caused.

Right now, she's got 8 or her 20 baby teeth in, with 2 or 3 in the works. Almost half way there! And I think they get their last teeth around age 2.

LITTLE THINGS
Madeleine wore a jacket this week that used to be mine--even has my name on the back!

We think the weasel ball has been topped this week. Madeleine really enjoyed walking around the house carrying ... wait for it ... a bread bag! Just ... a bag of sandwich bread. We don't get it, but it makes her happy. [And that reminds me of something she did in week 56. We were at Harry's, and I put a loaf of bread in the cart. Madeleine wanted to hold it, so I let her, and she proceeded to take a bite out of the bread--through the bag!] Only time will tell if her favor really has left the weasel ball.

Matt messed up his finger a few weeks ago playing flag football. Occasionally, he'll wear a splint on it. Madeleine saw the splint for the first time and said "boo-boo." Only she doesn't say "boo boo," she said "buh-buh." LOL.

Whenever I put Madeleine down for a nap or bed, I like to blow on the mobile to get it moving. It wasn't too long before she tried blowing too! So adorable.

There aren't many meals where Madeleine will eat a lot of table food, but she very consistently stuffs her face at Chick-fil-A. This week, she ate maybe 4 whole strips of our chicken sandwiches (grilled, about 1/2 inch thick, maybe 2-3 inches long) plus about 4 slices of tomato. And it all went down!! Not a bit ended up on the floor or the high chair or her clothes. But she never does that at home, even when we take our Chick-fil-A home and eat there. There's just something about that place, I guess.... ;)

Madeleine had a couple of new interactions with Daddy this week. First, they played a game where Matt would put something in his shirt pocket and baby would take it out. Then she'd put it back in the pocket, and just grin like she was so big. Second, Matt put her on his shoulders, like a big girl, and she held on! He didn't have to put his hands behind her back to keep her steady. Granted, she got a nice hold of his right ear in one hand and a chunk of hair in the other, but she was safe and secure!

SLIDESHOW!