The twenty-second week

This week Madeline has gotten closer than ever to rolling from her back to her front. This type of maneuver takes much more coordination and momentum than a tummy-to-back roll.

When she's on her back she'll often roll to either side, throwing her opposite leg over and coming this close to going the distance. For practice I'll lay a toy just within fingertip reach near the side of her head. She'll turn and crane her neck and reach with all her might. I have a feeling she'll get there soon.
.
Also this week, Wednesday was the first day that Madeline has taken all her naps in her crib. For a few months she had been taking daytime naps in the swing, its gentle motion often a surefire way to make sure she stayed asleep. She's been sleeping at night in the crib for some time, and we moved her morning nap from the swing to the crib a couple weeks ago.

The ultimate goal is to ensure she's not dependent on being in motion in order to sleep. We've been working gradually to replace swing naps with crib naps in tandem with our efforts to get her to sleep more soundly on her own at night, which seem to have been largely successful up to this point.

Five-month check-in

Madeline doesn't have another scheduled doctor appointment until September, so I took her by the office today for a five-month weigh-in. She weighs 16 pounds, 11 ounces and is 25.5 inches long. She's grown an inch since her last appointment, at the end of June, and put on 1 pound, 10 ounces. That's 26 ounces, or 0.8 ounces a day, over the last 31 days.

So sleepy

Madeline, exhausted from our walk in the neighborhood today, napped heavily on our bed when we got back. She was so tired she couldn't even make it through an eye-rub before she drifted off, her hand draped limply on her cheek. Maybe riding around in a stroller is more tiring than we might think.

Five months

Lacey commented during our walk yesterday afternoon that Madeline's fifth month has seemed longer than the others, and I agreed.

My theory is that the month has seemed longer because less has been happening. While Madeline has been showing advancements in many areas, she hasn't made any major developmental leaps. Each day is a subtle progression on the last. Cumulatively she's more skilled than she was at the end of June, but the abilities that have been improving involve comprehension and fine motor skills - things we notice as her parents but that may not be so obvious to the casual observer.

On top of that, Madeline's meal and nap times have become quite regular, and Lacey and I have built our daily routines around Madeline's activities. The days are mostly predictable - nap, play, eat, nap, etc.

Because of these factors, our lives seem to have quietly fallen into a comfortable schedule in these recent weeks. We generally know what works to get us through the day.

The downside is that Lacey and I find ourselves ticking off the days as they go by, our goal each day simply to perform the routine and make it to bed that evening. We're focused solely on the present. I find myself stretching to come up with a long-term goal to capture my attention but, in the end, lacking the time and/or energy to follow up.

There's nothing wrong with adhering to a schedule - it can make everyone's life a little easier. But we need to be careful about becoming slaves to the schedule, and we need to find ways to spice up the daily routine.

Now that Madeline is a little older we have less of an excuse to stay home and stick to the rigid daily regimen. We owe it to Madeline to introduce the world to her, and we owe it to ourselves to make sure our lives are more than an ever-growing accumulation of merely completed days.

Notes on the month:
- Madeline's evening sleep has become very regular. No matter how the day's been, she is invariably ready for bed after her evening feeding at about 6:30. In bed by 7, she sleeps soundly until Lacey gets her up at about 9 p.m. for one last feeding. After that, she sleeps through the night until about 6 or 6:15 a.m.

- The 9 p.m. feeding seems to be a relic of the days when Madeline ate more frequently in the evening, and the fact that she doesn't wake on her own for this feeding makes me question its necessity. But we're wary of stopping it in case it makes her hungrier earlier in the morning. She sleeps so soundly through the night that we're cautious about disrupting the routine that's been working well up to this point. Now that she's started solids for her evening meal, we may try to ease away from the 9 p.m. wake-up call in the coming weeks.

Her first meal

Tonight was a very big night. We've been building up to this moment for weeks - acclimating Madeline to her high chair and letting her join us at the table during our meals. Increasingly she would watch us eat with interest and excitement, and when she sat in our laps at the table she would reach for the plate. We also gave her a baby spoon to practice holding and sticking in her mouth.

Tonight the preparation culminated in Madeline's first solid food. Until now she has only had her mother's milk, anywhere from six to twelve times a day for the last five months. In recent weeks she's been showing all the signs of being ready for solid food, including her interest in watching us at mealtime and her propensity to put everything she can grab into her mouth.

Tonight's meal was a small bowl of rice cereal, mixed with a bit of water. From the first spoonful she seemed to know what she was doing. After a couple more, she was keeping the entire spoonful in her mouth instead of letting some dribble out. When she saw the spoon coming she would lean toward it in anticipation. She finished nearly the entire bowl.

Madeline didn't seem to concentrate too much on the taste of the food. She pretty much took it in, noshed it up for a couple seconds and then swallowed it down. Granted, rice cereal is probably one of the blandest foods available, and the doctor said Madeline was already familiar with different tastes since the milk she's been drinking to this point reflected the foods Lacey had eaten. We'll stick with rice cereal for a while, starting once a day and then adding more feedings as warranted.

The twenty-first week

It's been quite interesting to watch Madeline over the last couple weeks. It seems like she's progressing so rapidly, improving her skills with every passing day. She's gone from casually batting at objects dangled in front of her to determinedly reaching for things that catch her eye. She can sit up mostly unassisted, but she occasionally needs a little extra support or to be righted after listing to far in any direction. It's fun to watch her play with her toys while sitting up or while sitting in her high chair.

She's even started playing with toys while on her tummy. At first she was so focused on just lifting her head, and once that was mastered she started looking around the room. Later she would notice a toy nearby, but now she plays with the toy and doesn't seem to be thinking about the fact that she's on her tummy. This has all happened so fast - it seems as if every day she takes her skills to a new level.

I am a little frightened to think of the potentially volatile mix of her inquisitive nature, her increasing mobility and her penchant for sticking everything in her mouth. It's making me think a lot more about the cleanliness of our house as well as the things we encounter out in the world.

Also this week:

- Twice this week I've had the chance to take Madeline to lunch, once with about 10 people from my work and again with my brother. Both times Madeline was just as good as can be - she quietly absorbed the activity of her surroundings and, after a while, fell asleep in my lap without a peep. In both restaurants there were loud children all around, and I couldn't help but wonder when Madeline will begin to act out in public. She's just been so angelic every time I've had her out, I feel like I must be due for a meltdown!

Here today, . . .

It's funny how, the day after I posted the last video, Madeline stopped making the razzing noise. She's back to communicating with her normal "oohs" and "ahs." It seems like no habit she discovers lasts very long - something that captivates her for two days might be completely forgotten on the third. When everything in your world is new, it must be hard to focus on just one skill.

No matter what the noise of the moment happens to be, Madeline loves to talk. She'll go on incessantly, talking to her toy, to the calendar on the wall or to nothing in particular. She talks with purpose, her wrinkled brow imparting weighty significance to the topic at hand.

But what I love the most is when she talks directly to me, when her face is close to mine and she gently places both of her tiny hands on my cheeks, drawing me close and looking into my eyes while offering a forceful discourse on whatever it is that occupies her active and blossoming mind.

The latest craze

For the last few days this has been Madeline's new thing. She does it when she's happy. she does it when she's getting ready to be fussy. She does it when she's hungry and she does it when she's tired. She can do it for many minutes on end, presumably until her lips get tired. It's like she's forgotten everything else she was learning and this is the only way she vocalizes.

Most of the time she does it with pursed lips, but she also does it with her tongue out. She first did it months ago, but it seems as if she rediscovered it this weekend and is working on perfecting it into an art form.

Of course, the fact that I can't stop laughing when she does it probably doesn't discourage her.

1,000

I love keeping track of numbers, mostly those representing some of the more mundane data in my life. For instance, I log every mile I run in a computer database, along with time and pace, and I remember the date of the last time I, um, lost my lunch (Dec. 24, 1988). Having a baby is a data-keeper's dream, and this blog has allowed me to make record of every accomplishment and event, no matter how insignificant.

I also enjoy photography, and today my two proclivities intersected when I took Madeline's 1,000th picture (that number doesn't include the hundreds of images I've immediately deleted from my digital camera because of poor quality or missed moments). I've averaged 203 photos each month that Madeline has been with us. Madeline is 143 days old, so that means I've taken an average of 7 pictures a day.

The 1,000th photo was not necessarily the best of today's bunch (I like the smaller one, No. 999, better, and ended the day on No. 1,015), but if I keep up this pace I'll have about 24,880 more chances at decent photos by the time Madeline turns 10!

The twentieth week

I am posting this video with three goals in mind:

- To illustrate Madeline's newfound enjoyment of putting everything she can grab into her mouth;

- To show why we've started putting a bib on her during the day; and

- To provide fodder for thorough embarrassment when she gets a little older. (Hopefully when she's even older she'll realize how cute it is!)