Ten Fingers, Ten Toes, and TEN MONTHS!

We’re in the double digits! Madden’s one-year birthday is just a little too close for comfort. I’m already thinking of party details and décor. This has definitely been the fastest year of my life. No wonder people have so many kids in medical school, it’s the best way to make the time go by faster! I would give almost anything to stop time though, even if it meant being in school for forever. I know one day we’ll look back on these schooling years and really miss them. We’ve been able to spend so much more time together this year than we did in the past two years, and we’re so grateful that Jeff has been here for all of Madden’s little milestones. Those two have such a sweet little bond, and I love seeing how much Jeff loves Madden and how much he loves being a dad. He’s really good at it. We were just talking about how we’ve been in Florida for five months now which means Madden has lived here just as long as he lived in Missouri. Can we really have moved that long ago? Time is flying by so fast. But we are loving life and our continued adventure here in Florida.

 

1.       Madden is a mama’s boy, which I adore about him. He always wants me to be close to him and he follows me around the house as I walk from room to room. And when I’m standing still, he pulls himself up on my legs and wants me to hold him. All the time! When Jeff gets him out of his bed in the morning, he brings him in to our room and he gives me the biggest smile, it really is so sweet. We miss each other during the night nowadays since we don’t have many middle of the night encounters anymore. Madden loves playing with his dad- as soon as he hears the door open when Jeff comes home from work he flips out and starts breathing really fast and crawls over to the door to see his daddy. But whenever he’s sad or hurt, he doesn’t want anyone but me, he scrambles and crawls to me as fast as he can. We love our baby boy!

2.       He is pulling himself up on everything and walking along the furniture and the walls. He’s finally figured out how to sit down after standing up which is awesome because before he would get stuck standing and not know what to do. A couple weeks ago, I was in the kitchen and Jeff was at the kitchen table and I looked over at Madden in the family room and saw that he had climbed onto his toy walker and was balancing on top. We couldn’t believe it, he’s so fearless! We made sure to get a picture before we helped him down. Then, about a week or two ago Madden was in the family room playing with toys while I was in the kitchen and when I looked over to check on him, he had stood up and was walking with his toy walker for the first time! Such a little champ! He’s getting big way too quickly but it was so exciting watching him walk with his toy for the first time.

3.       Right around nine months he was having some issues sleeping in his crib. I would nurse and rock him to sleep like I have always done and usually he’d stay asleep when I put him down in his crib. But for a while, as soon as he hit the mattress, he would be wide awake and start crying. He would cry and cry and cry until I went back in to get him. Sometimes the carpet would even be wet from his tears right beneath where he was standing. So sad! This went on for a week or so, and then we had lots of company here which temporarily solved the problem because he slept with us while our family was here. After everyone left, I was determined to start sleep training him since I need to start thinking in terms of weaning him in the coming months. I’ve always nursed him to sleep which has worked great for us, but I’ve been wondering how I’m going to get him to sleep once I stop nursing. So about a week ago Jeff and I just decided that we’re going to let him cry it out and see how it went. Well, Jeff cracked first after about 20 minutes of tears and he went in to get Madden. But I was the bad guy that night and took him right back to his crib and he was not a happy camper. He cried for another 45 minutes or so and finally fell asleep. It has always been so hard for Jeff and me to let Madden cry like that, but we knew it needed to happen. I was thinking it would take a couple weeks of crying and misery for Madden to get the point, but the next night when I put him in his crib he curled right up and fell asleep. What?? I thought we just got lucky that night, but the next night the same thing happened. It’s been a whole week now and there have been no night time tears! We have the best baby, seriously. So now our new routine is nursing, brush teeth, books, bed. I always heard that babies thrive on routine, and I’m thinking that they’re right!

4.       Madden had his nine-month doctor’s appointment this past week on Dec 3, and he weighed in at 21 pounds and 31 inches long. Dr. Shapiro says he is growing into a perfect point guard (Jeff was so proud.) He got one shot this time and he didn’t even cry! Such a little stud. He must have been brave for me since he knows what a wuss I am with shots.

5.       Mad is eating just about anything now. We’re done with baby food, he never really show much interest in it anyway. I actually have a lot of fun making his meals because he is such a good eater. He loves grilled cheese, quesadillas, blueberries, bananas (which he likes to feed to himself and shoves his mouth completely full until he gags, but he won’t let me take it out of his mouth), apples (he likes to finish off my apple core), cooked carrots, quinoa, oatmeal, string cheese, goldfish, applestraws, crackers, avocados, and noodles. Oh and toilet paper, he’s discovered how to unroll the toilet paper dangit.  He also loves water, especially from my glass. And he’s still not holding his own sippy. The funniest thing about how he eats is he shoves his mouth full of food and he takes forever to swallow anything. Sometimes even a half hour after I take him out of his high chair, he still has food in his mouth!

6.       His new favorite thing around the house is the dishwasher. I used to let him stand up and play with the cups and things while I had it open, but then he discovered the detergent slot with leftover soap in it and he thinks its food, so now every time he sees the dishwasher open he crawls over as fast as he can and sticks his finger in the soap. Why do babies always find the dangerous stuff! I have to be really really fast opening and closing the dishwasher now.

7.       Madden loves going to church. He loves the scratchy walls, the long hallways to crawl down, the huge gym with dirty floors that ruin his shirts, the pews to walk along during sacrament, and all the young women that fight over who gets to hold him next.  He’s such a social little butterfly- as long as he’s being held, he’s a happy camper.

8.       This past month Jeff and I taught Mad how to do high fives. He’s really good at it too! He gets really excited and slaps our hand about a dozen times. He also claps his hands all the time now too, especially when we start singing patty cake, or when we say, “YAY Madden!!”

9.       Yep, Mad is still a biter. I think all these months of biting have only made his teeth more sharp. Whenever I’m holding him he turns around and chomps on my shoulder so hard that I have bruises. He’s also attacking my face more and more. Sometimes I get bitten on the cheek but sometimes I get lucky and get a slobbery raspberry blown on my cheek. When I pucker up for a kiss he leans in and eats my lips. I say it’s close enough to a kiss.

10.   He hardly ever whines when he wants something, instead he grunts and kicks his left leg until he gets it.

11.   We have a picture wall in our family room, mostly of pictures of Madden, but there’s one of our little family of three. I take Madden up to the wall and point to the pictures and say, “Mama, Dadda, Baby, Mama, Dadda, Baby.” He smiles so big and jumps up and down in my arms. I think he’s getting the rhythm of it too because every time I’m about to say, “Baby” he looks up at me and smiles.

12.   Our baby is crawling normal now! It’s been all army crawling up to this point, and he’s been so active walking around that we kind of thought he’d skip the whole normal crawling thing. But last week when we were at the beach with Jeff’s family, he was scooting around in the sand naked and I think he finally realized that he didn’t want certain parts touching the sand, so he picked his little tummy up off the ground and started crawling like a big boy! I even got it all on video! It took a couple days to start doing it at home, but now he’s crawling all over the place and he looks like a little robot  baby doing it too.

13.   My favorite thing Madden does these days is smile. He’s always been the most smiley baby but he has a new smile that makes us melt even more. He scrunches up his nose and squints his eyes and gives us the cheesiest grin. It is so funny and the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. I hope it’s not just a phase, I think I’d be totally fine if he flashed that cheesy grin the rest of his life.

On to another month of kisses, hugs, and lots of boy stuff! We’re excited for our first Christmas as parents and we’re even braving the frigid weather and heading to Denver for a real snow white Christmas this year. Christmas in Florida sounds nice, but it’s just not very festive down here. We love our Madden more than anything and are grateful that he’s ours!

Nine Months!

I have a 9-month-old. All of a sudden, Madden is really starting to look like a little boy! Maybe it’s because he now has six teeth, or it could be that when I look over at him he is pulling himself up next to the coffee table. Part of it kind of breaks my heart, but also I’m loving how active and mobile he is. More than anything I love that he’s growing more and more attached to me and hearing him say “mama!” The only downside to motherhood is that these precious days won’t last forever, so we make sure to savor every minute with our little man. He makes our life so happy. We love you Madden boy!

This month…

1.       Madden really likes it when I say no to him. He’s become quite the little biter. He bites anything and everything, but most of all…me! He bites when he’s nursing which has been a bit of an issue. But he also bites my face, arms, fingers…well just about everything on me. It’s really surprising and it hurts so I usually react with a loud, “No Madden! We don’t bite!” For whatever reason, Mad thinks my reaction is hilarious. He just laughs and goes in for another bite. Over and over again. After looking up online how do deal with a biting baby, I realized that I’m doing it totally wrong. I’m not supposed to react at all, I need to just put him down and walk away. Looks like this next month I’ll be trying to reverse the damage I’ve done!

2.       He is still a little copier. Sometimes when we’re holding him, he will all of a sudden blow air really hard out of his nose. So we do it back at him, and then we spend a couple minutes of blowing air back and forth at each other. I don’t know why he likes it so much!

3.       Madden started feeding himself! I brought out the cereal puffs that I bought forever ago and almost forgot I had, and within a day he was eating them all on his own. It is so cute to watch him focus so hard on one little puff. Even when he accidently drops the one he wants, he won’t just move on to one of the other puffs on his tray. He stays determined to eat that one that dropped. He is also doing better with his sippy. When I’m sitting with him he still wants me to hold it for him, but when he’s in the car seat he’ll do it by himself.

4.       We’ve been experimenting with more foods lately. First of all, he is a great little eater all of a sudden. Messy but great! He eats solids in the morning and then at night before bed. I realized he wasn’t sleeping through the night very well because must not have been getting enough calories. Anyway, he still loooooves sweet potatoes, avocados, bananas, and applesauce. He seems to like vegetables better than other fruits though. And lately I’ve been mixing a little quinoa into his baby food and he loves that too! He also loves zucchini bread. He can’t get enough of that stuff.

5.       We’ve established a nice little routine these days, and I’m hoping it stays for a while. No thanks to day light savings our mornings are now starting a 6:30 instead of 7:30am, but my sweet hubby is already awake then and just keeps Madden out in the family room for a little bit and lets me sleep a little longer. So we play and snuggle in bed for a little bit, give kisses to dad and send him off to work, then we go out and play with toys and read our morning stories. Madden then has his breakfast and makes quite the mess, so I usually strip him down right there in his high chair and take him straight to the tub. In the past, I’ve gotten ready during his morning nap, but I have so many other things I want to do during his naps other than my hair. So I just let the water run in the tub, and he rolls around and plays with his toys while I get ready for the day. We get out of the tub, snuggle some more then go down for the morning nap at 9. It’s working out pretty nicely so far, hopefully this schedule will go on for a while. He usually sleeps until noon then takes an hour nap around 3 or so. Lately Jeff has been getting home from work around 3 so we spend some of the afternoon with him, and usually go for a walk at the park. Our nighttime bed routine starts around 8pm. We eat dinner, get in our jammies, read stories, and usually Madden and dad wrestle quite a bit before it’s time to wind down. I just usually nurse Madden to sleep in my bed and then I knock on the door to signal for Jeff to turn off the kitchen light before I walk through to Madden’s room. If Madden sees any lights on its dooms day for us, and it takes a while to convince him that there isn’t a party that he’s missing out on.

6.       I always miss Madden when he’s in his crib on the other side of the apartment. I usually go to check on him and smooch his cheeks a couple time before I go to bed. Sometimes after he’s asleep and Jeff and I are lying in bed Jeff will say, “Just go get him and bring him in here with us!” Sometimes we do and we have a little cuddle fest in our bed, until Madden gets too crazy and starts smacking us in the face. One of our favorite things is going to get Madden out of his crib in the morning or after one of his naps. Jeff and I usually race to see who can get to him first! Madden is always so smiley and happy when he wakes up and he wiggles and squeals when he sees us.

7.       Now that Madden has his top teeth and his bottom ones, he’s trying to figure out how to use them. With that has come a lot of teeth grinding. I’m cringing a little just thinking about it. It’s awful!

8.       Madden is so smart, he has started clapping his hands by himself to the patty cake song. In the past I always clapped his hands for him when he did patty cake and now anytime he hears someone singing it, he looks around and starts clapping all by himself!

9.       Now that he’s started pulling himself up onto the furniture, he’s figured out how to sit on his knees. He looks so old yet so tiny when he sits on his knees, it’s really the cutest.

10.   He laughs when we nibble on his shoulders, tickle his sides, eat his hands and feet, and make sneezing noises. He also laughs at himself after he sneezes. Who wouldn’t? It’s a funny noise!

11.   Jeff and I are trying not to caudle him too much when he falls or bonks his head or something. Jeff doesn’t want Madden to be a sissy pants, and to be honest I don’t want to deal with a whiney kid later on either. So instead of making a big deal out of a fall we just let him roll over and realize that he’s fine. It’s totally working by the way, Madden is a tough guy.

12.   Madden has finally said “mama!” except I don’t know if it really counts as the real things yet because I’m not completely sure he’s associating the word with me. Lately he’s been scooting around following me around the house saying “mama, mama!” until I pick him up. That’s the only time he says it so maybe it’s a fluke, but I still love it.

13.   This is one of those mom things I guess, but I love how Madden’s breath smells. I can’t even describe it, but it’s just the smell of my baby and I’m sure that ten years down the road I’m going to get a whiff of nostalgia and I’m going to miss kissing my sweet baby boy.

14.   Mad is a paper hoarder. Jeff sometimes leaves his papers around, and somehow Madden finds every single one and attempts to shred them into bite size pieces. He LOVES paper! He sucks on the sacrament meeting program until I notice that the whole corner is missing. And every time I know exactly where to find it…in a slobbery wad stuck to the roof of his mouth! Every time! I should be a little worried that he might actually eat the paper, but I really don’t think he has any intention of eating it. He just packs it away on the roof of his mouth like a little hamster.

15.   Madden is a little speed demon and he cruises all over the house on his tummy. Whenever I’m in the kitchen and I look over to his toy blanket to see him he is long gone, and almost every single time, he has pushed open the bathroom door and is playing with the little knobs on the base of the toilet. He is obsessed with the toilets and it’s driving me crazy! The only good thing is that it’s been a good incentive to keep my bathrooms squeaky clean. Or I just keep the doors shut.

16.   The only time he crawls with his tummy off the ground is when he’s nakey and in the kitchen or the bathroom where we have tile flooring. It’s just too cold for his little tummy.

17.   Madden has the highest pitched little screams. Sometimes he goes into screaming rampages and makes a ton of noise. Sorry to our neighbors, and everyone in sacrament meeting. It’s amazing how noisy he is for being so little. He’s got some pipes! They are pretty girlie screams though, super high pitched and shrill. I think we have some good ammo to use when it comes time to embarrass him as a teenager.

18.   He’s starting pulling himself up on everything! It’s amazing how fast this has happened too. He’s even starting to walk along the furniture. He might skip the whole crawling phase and go straight to walking. Yesterday I went in to get him out of his crib after his nap and found him standing up in his crib!! I told him to stop growing, it’s not allowed anymore.

19.   The other night Madden and I went to my Activity Girls activity. We were in one of the primary rooms and I held Madden up to one of the pictures of Jesus. It was so sweet to see him look up at Christ’s face and smile. Madden just stared at the picture and jumped up and down in my arms and reached out to it. Such a sweet reminder of who we are and whose we are. I’m almost positive that the veil is still very thin for our little ones.

20.   Madden has the brightest eyes. Whenever he smiles, his face lights up and makes everyone around him just swoon. He really is the best thing that’s ever happened to us and we couldn’t be luckier parents. We love you Mad man!