Ten months

I've written so much lately about Madeline's recent accomplishments that I won't belabor them here, but suffice it to say that the 10th month has been a whirlwind of activity. In mid-November she crawled for the first time, she started pulling up and she even sat up by herself.

Only a few weeks later she's almost forgotten about crawling as she attempts to walk everywhere. She only takes to her hands and knees begrudgingly when it become apparent that no one's going to help her walk. She shifts from crawling to pulling up to sitting as seamlessly and effortlessly as someone who's been doing it for years. She climbs steps tentatively (but is still getting the hang of going down).

A relatively slow fifth month forced me to think about adding new activities to our daily schedule. At 10 months Madeline seems to be doing new things every day - she's peeked behind the door of exploration and is getting ready to use her new mobility to kick it down and rush in. Today she led me on a walk around the front yard, stopping every five feet to bend down and inspect some weed or fallen leaf. I even taught her how to blow a dandelion - although the little seed puffs were attached too firmly for her gentle breath and she had better luck just shaking the thing.

Her energy level can be hard to match sometimes, but I'm so enjoying all of this. I'm excited to see what the eleventh month brings.

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10-month check-in

This month Madeline weighs 21 pounds, 3 ounces (with a dry diaper) and is 28.75 inches long. She's grown about an inch and a half since her last appointment, but last month's height was less than the previous month's, so something was awry. She's 12 ounces heavier, meaning she's put on just under a half-ounce a day (maybe some of that is holiday weight!).

Cousin Ozzy

Today we attended one last Christmas gathering, making the short trip to Lacey's parents' home to visit with some of her relatives from far-flung areas. It was nice to see everyone, and even Madeline had someone her own age to play with.

Little Ozzy, Madeline's distant cousin, was born about a month before her, and they share many similarities in mannerisms. I've always found it interesting to see other babies the same age as Madeline - you realize that many things they do, from their noises and motions to the way they react to certain objects and situations, are almost exactly the same.

Madeline and Ozzy enjoyed playing together and Madeline quickly opened up, unlike the last time she had an organized play date and took a little longer to warm up. I wonder if her weekly visits to the daycare at my gym have helped acclimate her to other kids? She seems to be opening up in public much more easily - sometimes I wonder where her outgoing nature comes from.

The two babies were the center of attention all day, but the highlight of the afternoon came during our stroll along the quiet road where the Englands live. At one point the two strollers were about a foot apart, and both babies reached out to hold the other's hand as we walked!

The curious case of the missing barrette

It was there, and then it wasn't.

For Christmas Madeline received some small, colorful barrettes to keep her increasingly long hair out of her face. That afternoon she was wearing one, well, until she wasn't wearing one. Once Lacey realized it was missing, she completely deconstructed the area in which it was last seen, stripping things down to their base elements and searching places she had just searched moments ago. It quickly became apparent that the barrette was likely inside Madeline.

A quick Google search showed that once swallowed objects reach the stomach, they're likely to pass on through with little trouble - the esophagus is the tightest squeeze. You just need to be careful of sharp objects that can perforate the GI tract's lining. The barrette was small, smooth and rounded. Madeline wasn't showing any signs of distress and was pretty much her normal self. But upon recommendations from our pediatrician's office, we took Madeline to the hospital for a confirmation x-ray this morning.

The procedure was quick and painless (not that Madeline enjoyed it), and within about 2o minutes the doctor informed us that, in fact, the barrette was visible on the x-ray. "It's down near the bottom," she said, indicating that any adverse reaction was unlikely at that point. We just had to wait and watch.

As a fitting coda to the entire episode, Madeline took her regularly scheduled poop as we were packing up to leave the ER. Sure enough, buried within last night's pumpkin and oatmeal was the missing barrette!

Final tally - harm to baby: 0; big lesson for parents: 1

The forty-third week

Our house is quiet tonight - a hectic season has at last come to an end. Madeline seemed to enjoy her Christmas and was duly showered upon, although she would have been happy to just play with the bows and ribbons that adorned the gifts piled under our tree.

She also enjoyed the company this week - there were grandparents, aunts and uncles everywhere in sight, and everyone was eager to spend time with Madeline. She has a way of soaking up the attention from everyone else and then, right when I begin to suspect that we could be replaced in her affections by any adult human, she lets us know that she still holds a special place for mommy and daddy.

Earlier this week I wrote that Madeline suddenly wants to do nothing but walk around our house. We had plenty of helpers here this week to offer fingers for Madeline to grasp as she made her laps. And she must have made a hundred of them - she could probably walk for a half-hour straight if our backs were up to it.

Occasionally, as we pass by a reflection during one of our strolls, I'm struck by the vision of my little baby (who, in some ways, still seems so new) walking intently, her head turning from side to side as interesting objects emerge into her sight and syllables of delight spill from her mouth. She's a real, tiny person, and that's something that sneaks up on me from time to time. Physically she's not that much bigger than the helpless infant we brought home from the hospital 10 months ago, and yet she's walking! Imagine if, as adults, we could achieve the relative level of physical and mental development over the course of 10 months as an infant. We'd all be Olympic athletes who belong to Mensa.

I imagine it will be a little difficult to watch Madeline grow and strive for independence because I always want to keep her so close to me. Someone said this week, as I complained about the discomfort from the awkward slouching position required to walk Madeline around, that I should enjoy these moments when she reaches for each of my hands, one by one, before leading me on a breathless sprint across the room. Because soon enough she won't need my fingers.

Merry Christmas!

Madeline's holiday portrait, 2008

First steps

Last week, Madeline would step forward tentatively while grabbing our extended fingers for support. This weekend she suddenly wanted to walk everywhere, leading mommy or daddy on laps around our downstairs as she babbled happily at the passing scenery. And then tonight, as she steadied herself on the Christmas tree, she took her first faltering steps toward Lacey, who sat a couple feet away.

Madeline's journey to walking has born little resemblance to the long, slow development of her crawling. In just a couple weeks she's gone from pulling up to taking her first steps. She's always loved standing, at first in our laps and later when she pulled up on furniture or people. It hasn't surprised me that she's taken to walking so quickly.

Obviously there's a long way to go before she's joining me for a run around the neighborhood. It will probably be months yet before she really is walking on her own, but all this practice she's getting is sure to help.

Tilt it back

Madeline is becoming quite the sipper. Our attempts to teach her to use a cup began more than three months ago, and now she's handling the sippy cup like a pro.

We got a new cup a few weeks ago that is easier for her to hold and has a miracle-of-science nipple that holds the liquid inside unless she's actively drinking.

Since her arms are pretty short she has trouble tilting the cup up far enough to get water when she's holding it with two hands. So in a remarkable display of Darwinian cleverness she's learned to turn her head to one side and use one hand to lift the cup higher.

The gates

Today we brought out the baby gates for the first time. With Madeline scampering around faster and faster every day, we knew it was time for some barriers - it just took us a couple tries to find gates the right width to fit our halls and doorways.

Today, when confronted with the gate, she didn't whimper or whine for the other side, as I thought she might. Instead she accepted her confinement with the stoicism of the British and, after a moment, cheerfulness. She pulled up on the gate and started singing and pointing at everything in sight, blissfully lost in her own little world.

The gates are the latest attempt at making our home mostly childproof. Every day Madeline discovers another object or latent danger that needs to be addressed. We've come a long way just in the past couple weeks, but I imagine there will be more comfort casualties along the way to living in a completely kid-safe zone.

The forty-second week

It's been a busy week as we gear up for next week's holiday. Not only have we had to finish up our shopping, but we're going to be hosting both of our families here on Christmas day. Madeline and I had fun on Wednesday and Thursday as we drove around town, from store to store, ticking things off the list and soaking up the holiday atmosphere.

Inexplicably, Madeline's nap schedule has returned to normal after last week's derailment. The day after we returned from Roanoke she was back to normal. I have a feeling that it took the major disruption of traveling for two days to get things back into synch.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that Madeline is at the perfect age right now. Despite the occasional grumpiness or naptime issue, she's just so much fun. I love watching her learn and explore, and when she crawls to me and climbs my leg. It's fun to see her stare wide-eyed as we walk around town, and when she points her tiny finger and issues a soft word. And I could listen all day as she talks noisily to the oversize book she's holding in her lap.

Then I realize I've thought she's been at the perfect age for about four months now. My dentist, who has a 5-year-old daughter, told me recently that he's experienced the same phenomenon - every age seems like the perfect age. I guess I have a lot to look forward to.

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Notes:

- Last week we finally stopped Madeline's acid-reflux medication. She had been taking it since she was 7 weeks old, and we were told she might be on it for most of her first year. We had tried a couple times to stop it earlier, but each attempt seemed to cause increased fussiness. Looking back, that fussiness could have been related to other factors, such as teething. Or not. In any case, she's done with it now, though I think she quite enjoyed the taste.

- Speaking of teething, it looks like she's getting a couple more. About 4 weeks after we spotted her top front teeth, the teeth to either side of those are now pushing through. I didn't expect we'd see any more for a while, but a baby's teeth seem to be the most unpredictable of the major developmental milestones.

Little bookworm

From an early age, Madeline has enjoyed books. She's gone from sitting motionless while they're read to being more actively involved. I've written before how she points to pictures and words, helps turn the pages and loves operating the flaps on pop-up books.

At last weekend's family Christmas gathering she received a shelf-full of new books, from classic nursery rhymes to oversize board books with lots of tactile delights.

Her father, an English major who works at a newspaper, and her mother, who reads entire books in one sitting, would love to see Madeline develop a love for reading. It seems to be getting harder in today's digitized world, but at least we can try to lead by example and make sure plenty of books are on hand (we only have about 4,000 in the house, so that shouldn't be too hard!).

Baby and the kitty

For most of her short life, Madeline has been fascinated by our cat, Saki. Ever since Madeline started to become more aware of her surroundings she would perk up whenever the cat would walk by. Often she would be completely engrossed in something else, only to freeze and stare wide-eyed as Saki passed.

As Madeline grew more vocal she would start to make noise at the cat, and often smiled when she saw it. Now she'll look and point at Saki when we say "kitty" and she even makes the same whispery "tuh" sound whenever she sees the cat, as if she's trying to say it.

On the other hand, Saki has been mostly dismissive and incurious about Madeline - she's just never taken an interest in the baby other than a quick sniff or two. But now that Madeline can move - and move fast - the cat has had to become more evasive, which, of course, cats are good at. Most of the time Saki will remove herself from the situation when Madeline comes too close, but other times she'll stay put and even allow Madeline to pet her. And, surprisingly, Madeline is mostly gentle with her.

Family Christmas

For all of my life, our family trip to Roanoke to visit relatives has been just as big a part of the season as Christmas itself. And this year, of course, we had an extra package to bring along with us (plus the diaper bag, the pack-n-play, the Cheerios and the bag of toys for the 3-hour car ride).

Madeline had a great time this weekend, and it seemed like everyone was happy to see her, too. It was the first time some of our relatives had ever seen her apart from pictures. Even though she didn't nap much because of all the excitement, she managed to put on her best attitude, soaking up the attention for two days.

By Monday afternoon she had used up her second wind (and her third and fourth) and was completely exhausted, as we all were. She was happy to get home and quietly play with all of her new acquisitions, from touch-and-feel books to stuffed animals to the band-in-a-box noisemaking kit. And the evening ended a little earlier than usual when she couldn't even make it to her regular bed time.

The forty-first week

This week we've found ourselves re-evaluating many of our old routines. Just a couple weeks ago I wrote that Madeline's sleep schedule was "as regular as clockwork" - and it had been for months. But this week we've thrown all that out the window.

It happened suddenly - on Tuesday she napped normally and then on Wednesday she revolted. No more putting her down at the regular time. Now she protested forcefully - crying, squirming and being generally disagreeable (to put it mildly). And if we just put her in the crib to work it out on her own, as we usually would do, she would just stand up and cry. Once she was standing in her crib there was no hope that she would sleep.

The perplexing thing is that she was mostly fine when she wasn't being put down for a nap - she's been otherwise happy and friendly this week (and, thank goodness, she still goes to bed well at night). We extended the time between naps to make sure she was good and tired. So, while she's already tired at the "regular" nap time, she's really tired after an extra hour.

We did a little research and discovered that a disruption in sleep routines at this age is actually somewhat common - even babies who have been sound sleepers suddenly have trouble napping. There's even a name for it - "nine-month sleep regression." It could be related to all that's going on in their brains and bodies - they know how to do so much that it's hard for them to settle, even if they're tired. Kind of like when you want to go to sleep but something is weighing on your mind.

So, for now, we're letting go of the old schedule and just flying by instrument, as the pilots say. Just like everything else, we know this is just a phase. Hopefully it won't be a long one!

She's got a point

Madeline is becoming more expressive with her hands these days, and the latest fads are waving and pointing. She's been doing these things for a while, but it seems as if recently she's associating the gestures with concepts.

She often waves in response to someone waving at her, even to the point where she'll mimic the number of hands you're using - wave with one hand and she'll do the same; wave with two and she copies.

Her pointing is generally directed at something she's interested in, and not random. There have been a few surprising occasions when I've asked her to locate something - a specific toy or the cat - and she'll point right to it.

For a while it seemed as if her gestures were limited to certain hands - she would only wave with her left and would point with her right, sometimes at the same time. But in recent days she's shown that she is ambidextrous when it comes to these particular skills (and others, too - she always seems to have two fistfulls of Cheerios at the same time!).

Tough love

As Madeline becomes more mobile and adventurous, she has exponentially more opportunities to injure herself. There are so many times during the day when I see her reaching out for something to pull up on but not quite paying attention to the task at hand. Suddenly images race through my head of her losing her balance and cracking her face on the table or ledge, or worse.

So far her most common issue occurs when she's standing next to a table. Once she's up, she might find something on the table that captures her attention. When she reaches for or grabs the object, well, she's not holding the table anymore, and she occasionally ends up toppling over. She's not quick enough to put her hands out to break the fall, which means she's experienced a few faceplants onto the living room floor.

Fortunately the living room is carpeted, but I worry more when she's in the rooms with hardwood flooring, or that her face might catch the edge of the table as she zooms past on her way to horizontality.

My instinct is to stay next to her at all times, ready to catch her at the first sign of imbalance. Or, if she falls, I want to sweep her up and comfort her through her cries (I think she cries because of surprise rather than pain). But is this the right approach? Does she need to experience a few tumbles as she learns to stand and walk? I want her to learn self-confidence and self-reliance, but is it too early to worry about those lessons?

My gut tells me that a few tumbles are OK, as long as we're keeping her away from the stairs and other highly dangerous areas. And, while I don't leave her unattended when she's crawling around, maybe I don't need to hover immediately next to her. And I can redirect her if she's flirting with a situation that's likely to lead to injury. (But it doesn't help that my mind's eye can imagine injury in just about every situation!)

On a tear

Madeline enjoys the magazines that populate our living room, but not for the articles as you might expect. No, she loves tearing the pages out, then ripping those pages into ever smaller pieces until they are scattered in finger-sized shreds all over the floor.

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Tonight Madeline stood by herself for a good 15 seconds (go ahead, count it out. . .). She was holding onto my knee and she just let go and stood there, grasping her toy Stanley in one hand.

I'm in awe of how quickly she has progressed since her first crawl just a few weeks ago. Once she realized that she could get around, she just hasn't stopped. And she's getting so much more confident - she's climbing on top of objects and she's wandering from room to room without hesitation. A few weeks ago I thought baby gates were not an imminent necessity, but now it's obvious that we need them.

The fortieth week

Over the past week Madeline's top teeth have really become visible (though not necessarily easy to photograph). And she's now getting more chances to use them for their intended purpose.

This week we gave Madeline Cheerios - her first small finger food. Initially she wasn't quite sure what to do with them. She enjoyed picking them up and holding them tightly in her hands, but she didn't catch on that she could put them in her mouth (a surprising bit of restraint for a kid who seems to put everything else in there). Even though she wouldn't feed herself, she would readily eat one if we put it in her mouth for her.

But after a few tries she was putting them in her mouth as soon as we would present them. She chews them around until they're soft and then swallows. Now she'll even bite them in half with her new teeth, chew the first half and then eat the second half when she's done.

But even though Madeline is growing adept at eating them, we still lose an occasional Cheerio. I feel like Lacey and I are arriving at a parenthood milestone now that we can say we've found Cheerios in the weirdest places!

Laundry

Lacey was folding laundry recently and Madeline, using a couple of her new skills, crawled over to the basket, pulled up on the side and began inspecting the freshly laundered apparel. Now if she could just learn to fold . . .

Ho, ho, holidays!

Ah, Christmas. This weekend we unpacked the fake tree from the attic, unwrapped the Santa Claus salt and pepper shakers and welcomed the season into our home.

I've always been a Christmas nut, although after I left college and entered "adulthood" the season began to lose its luster. It's almost as if making it through the holidays was becoming more of a chore and less of the carefree pleasure it once was.

But now Madeline's here and I'm discovering that there's no better way to reawaken those dormant holiday memories than to have a child of your own. Sure, she's a bit young to understand anything that's going on, but she sure knows that a glowing tree is fascinating to look at, that shiny ornaments are fun to grab, and that tearing wrapping paper can be the highlight of her day.

I know it's wrong to project your own expectations onto your child, but there's a part of me that hopes Madeline one day feels the same excitement about the season that I once felt. The only thing I can do is make sure her holidays are filled with family, fun and lots of gaudy lights and hope it catches on.

(I think Lacey, on the other hand, would prefer a month-long power outage every December over a husband AND a daughter who want to outline the roof in colored lights!)

Nine-month check-in

Today we took Madeline to the pediatrician for her scheduled nine-month check in. There were no vaccinations today but there was a hemoglobin test, which was just a prick on the finger.

Today Madeline weighed 20 pounds, 9 ounces and is 27.5 inches long (last month she was measured at 27.75 inches - I suspect there will always be a little variance with different scales, different nurses and a squirmy baby). She's put on 10 ounces since her last weigh-in. That's about a quarter-ounce a day over the last 33 days.

Today we got the go-ahead to introduce some meat and dairy products (but still not straight milk) into Madeline's diet. We also will consider eliminating one of her four bottles a day as she gets more of her nutrition from regular foods.