Week 75: June 17 - 23

Fun and interesting and GOOD week!

SLEEP
Let’s start with my personal favorite update: baby’s sleep. After getting a little anxious over Madeleine’s sleep again at the start of this week, I had a great conversation with a friend Sunday night. She talked through things with me and shared her experiences, and really helped me finally (hopefully for the last time!) feel at peace about the sleep.

And since then? This baby has been a super star. She is sleeping again until around 6:30 (HALLELUJAH), her naps are good (meaning around 2 hours). Her settling time at night is still a little long, but I am not going to complain.

There was a Wonder Week at 75 (so that either means 75 will be the worst week or that’s when it starts getting better). Madeleine has sailed through most of her Wonder Weeks with barely a bump, so I guess we were due a tough one. WHY it had to be so long, I do not know. Maybe the sleep thing had nothing to do with the WW. Who knows? I certainly don’t, and I probably never will. ALL that matters is that sleep is great for her right now. YAY!

One fun little side note: Madeleine napped in one of the bathrooms at church on Sunday so that we could stick around longer and hang out and talk. She slept an hour! What a champ!

CHANGES?
Madeleine currently nurses just twice a day, first thing in the morning and before bed. One night this week, she skipped the night time nursing. It’s funny because I said to Matt, as he handed her to me, “I might try not nursing her tonight.” He wanted me to, and I wasn’t committed to not, so I tried. But she must have been on the same page as me! She hasn’t skipped since, but maybe that change is around the corner.

SOME FOOD THINGS
Madeleine is not good at eating her veggies. We weren’t consistent enough in offering them when we were first starting out with BLW, so she got really used to some foods, while others not so much. However, I’ve noticed at times that she is better about trying foods when they’ve been offered a few times. Maybe by the third time she seems something, she’ll put it in her mouth.

At this point, trying the veggies is all I ask for. LOL. So we’ve started giving her a plate of veggies for a snack. Not very exciting, I know, but it’s been working! She’s been putting things in her mouth she never normally would, like yellow pepper. We just need to keep it up!

Saturday for dinner, Matt made pancakes so that we could take a bunch to church the next day for our brunch meal. So we got pancakes on all of our plates, and I buttered and cut Madeleine’s for her. Then Matt and I turned to our own plates. Before either of us had taken our first bite, Madeleine was DONE with hers and asking for more.

Now, it had been a little while since we had pancakes, but she rarely ever ate more than one before, and if we did give her a second, she’d maybe eat a fourth of it. Well, Matt got her another pancake ready, and she downed that one as well! And wanted more! She ate about half of her third pancake, but we were both just so surprised. If only she’d be that excited about green foods! :)

POOL TIME!
On Sunday, I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to hang out this week. She suggested we go to her neighborhood’s pool. Madeleine has never been in the pool before, so I said okay we’d try it. I went shopping for baby pool gear on Tuesday night. Got her a little swim outfit (shirt and pants with UV protection in them), a hat (UV protection!), sunglasses, and swim diapers. Oh, and a floaty thing.

We got to the pool after M took a 2.75 hour nap. I fed her half a PB&J that daddy made for her, then I got changed. My friend slathered M in sunscreen, then I put some on and blew up the floaty thing. After being there probably 45 minutes, we were finally ready to get in the pool.

BUT, it started raining, and the sky was ominous. I walked into the water with Madeleine, and she just CLUNG to me for dear life. She’d enjoyed watching the kids play around from the sidelines, and she still stared at them in the water. I tried putting her in the floaty thing, but she wasn’t having it. We only got to be in about 5 minutes before it thundered, which was lame.

Then it took maybe 15 minutes to get all our stuff rounded up. During this process, Madeleine noticed a beach ball in my friend’s things, and she about flipped out. She kept saying “Ball, ball!” over and over, wanting the ball more than anything else in her life, EVER. We couldn’t give it to her though, as we needed to leave. Next time we try the pool, I will be SURE to bring a beach ball for her!

LITTLE THINGS
Last week, I mentioned that Madeleine petted her little pet dog. This week, she also petted Lamby and even her little blanket!

She has really started pointing out things in books and naming the ones she knows. When she points to a bird, she makes the sign for bird.

Thursday, I got a very sweet gift from my little girl. As I always do, I sang to Madeleine before her nap. She usually either sits facing out while I sing and rock, or she’s got her head up on my shoulder. This time, she squirmed around a bit until she was laying in my arms, looking at my face. She watched me sing to her, and I just got tears in my eyes because it was such a precious moment.

SLIDESHOW