Madeline's Blog

Well, Maddie had another doctor's appointment yesterday because the Zantac doesn't seem to be working anymore, to which my Aunt Kathy can attest (again, Aunt Kathy, we are VERY sorry). While there, the doctor weighed Maddie and found her to be a whopping 14 pounds, 12 ounces. She's a chubby little thing! She's wearing size 3 diapers and is just edging into 6-9 month clothes, mostly because of the circumference of her tummy. Unfortunately, along with Maddie's clean bill of health (other than the reflux), the doctor told Mom to be more persistent in getting Maddie to take a bottle (we've only tried once since the last time when she actually took it, and that didn't work out too well). He said it will only get harder from here on out. He also told us to start putting Maddie down in the crib while she's still awake, so she learns to soothe herself. "It may take thirty or forty minutes of crying," he said. Thirty or forty minutes!! I'm not sure if we'll listen to this little piece of advice. Maddie was also switched to PrevAcid, which comes only in the powder adult form. So, as per the pharmacists instructions, I spread the powder out in a line, divide it into fourths, and that's her dose for the day. Thank goodness the powder is pink, or someone looking in the window might have a few questions. Then I mix it in a cup with a teaspoon of milk, quickly squeeze it into a dropper, and let Maddie suck it down. All this has to be done before the powder settles to the bottom of the cup or the dropper. It's definitely a process, but Maddie likes the taste more than the pepperminty Zantac, and hopefully it will work better. We'll let you know!

Okay, I know, it's been two weeks since I posted, and I am so sorry! But I have a good excuse; for the last ten days, we've been traveling to visit family. Maddie went along, of course (packing for an almost two-month-old is an ordeal, to say the least), and she did great! She met her Great Grandmother Iona, Great Grandfather Lee, Great Aunt Kathy, Great Uncle Larry
Joe, Great Aunt Becky, Cousin once removed (or something like that?) Hannah (who, by the way, was born to take care of babies ), Aunt Lanette, and Cousins Summer and Dominick. Whew! All of this included a two-hour trip to Grandma and Grandpa Blackburn's and a seven hour (nine hours with stops for nursing!) trip to Evansville, Indiana. All we can say is hurray for the person who invented PacknPlays!

Here are some pictures from that trip (don't worry those of you who live in Texarkana, yours is the next stop on our itinerary ):

Maddie with her Mammaw:


Mammaw is so good at getting Maddie to sleep!

Maddie with her Pappaw:

Maddie and her Aunt Lanette and cousins Summer and Dominick:

Excuse the drool (you'll see it when you hit this link). Maddie started that this week, too!

While at Mammaw and Pappaw's house Mama decided to weigh Maddie. But the numbers on Mammaw's rotary scale were too little for me to read while standing up and holding Maddie. So I tried to weigh my wiggly little baby by sitting her on the scale. Needless to say, it didn't work, but Maddie thought it was hilarious and it made for a great photo opportunity!

Maddie also experienced her first Easter this past week, complete with a little Easter basket and a frilly, uncomfortable, ridiculous, and absolutely adorable Easter dress. Here are those pics:

Maddie is changing every day. I told my mom that it seems like every
morning she wakes up bigger. She holds her head up all the time now, and
holds her chest straight too. Last Thursday she lifted her head up while on
her play mat (something she hadn't done before because she refused to lay on her tummy on that thing), and there was no wishy-washiness about it. She just lifted it right up, all the way up, and looked around. When you lay her down, she cranes her neck forward and rounds her back like she's trying to sit up. Her little head and back are so strong! Now she's so busy looking around she doesn't want to sleep. She fights sleep HARD. Her eyes will get heavy and start to close, and you THINK she's going to sleep (and start dreaming about all the things you could get done while she naps), but then she opens her currently blue peepers up again really wide and turns her head from side to side, trying to keep them open. She rubs at them with her little hands, too, something she just started doing this past week. But eventually sleep wins out, and with a little more fussing she goes down. We've sort of (I almost don't want to type it for fear of jinxing the whole thing) gotten a rough
night schedule down. She goes to sleep for the night around 10:30, wakes to nurse at 12am and 4am, and sleeps until 6:30am. Then she's up for an hour while I eat breakfast, then sleeps for another hour or two. It's kind of nice being able to get some sleep at night. I'd almost forgotten what it was like.

Maddie is smiling like CRAZY now, and, once or twice, she has actually
LAUGHED! She starts out with a little smile, then builds up to a full-body
grin, with her mouth open wide and her arms and legs moving all over the
place. And at the height of that smile she does a little "haha" and then
draws her breath in again really fast. For some reason she does this a lot
on the changing table. She LOVES to get her diaper changed. Go figure.
When she was a newborn it was like we were torturing her every time we took her pants off. Now we get that diaper off and she kicks her legs up and
rolls on her back making little dolphin noises. Honestly, she sounds like a
dolphin. I don't know any other way to describe it. And if you talk
and sing to her, she'll smile and laugh.

She can also hold a kind of rudimentary conversation now. She coos, saying,
"agoo!" and "gee!" and "ahhhh," and if you say it back to her, or just talk
to her softly, she'll look you in the eye and keep talking. Once last week
she and I went back and forth like that for twenty minutes while she was
sitting in her bouncy seat and I was down there with her. She gets so
excited when you talk to her, it's amazing. And she does NOT like it when
you just leave her alone. She learned this last week to cry in order to get
picked up. Now, of course, when a newborn cries, you pick them up to
comfort them and see what's wrong. But Maddie always had a strong
biological reason for crying; she was hungry or wet or had gas. Now she
cries just to be held. She'll cry in her crib and I'll think, oh, it's time
to feed her or change her diaper, and I'll get everything ready to do so.
But nope, as soon as I actually pick her up and walk towards the wipies, she
stops and snuggles down. It's wonderful, but a little scary; how will I
ever get anything done?!

And as far as the crib goes, Maddie has begun, in the last few days, to move
around in it. All of a sudden we walk in and she's in a completely
different position than the one in which we left her. Part of this is
because she's trying to roll over. She gets REALLY close, too. She gets up
on her side, teeters, and then falls back on her back. She does this a lot
when she wakes up at night. Last night daddy found her very close to the
crib side when he went to get her for mommy to feed her (good husband,
good!). Then, Maddie woke up SCREAMING at around 6:30. She almost never wakes up crying, so I ran in and there she was, with a leg stuck all the way through the crib slats! It was wedged in at an angle, too, so tight she couldn't move it! I got her foot out really fast and she calmed down, but we're going to have to get some kind of mesh bumper thing to keep her from sticking her arms and legs out.

As I said before, Maddie has found her hands, but now she is also using them, sucking on one finger at a time and touching her knees. They don't stay in little fists anymore, but are almost always open and ready to grab. She especially loves her silky satin blanket and Mom's hair.

Well, I'm sure you are all sick of hearing all the wonderful things Maddie can do. Hey, at least I made up for not posting for so long, eh? Maddie, Matthew, and I are off to take a nap, and we hope you all have a great week. Stop back often (at LEAST every two weeks ).

Well, this has been a very big week for us! As you can see from the pictures below, Maddie has indeed started smiling! When you look at her and smile really big and talk to her, she smiles back. Sometimes it's just a little smile, sometimes a crooked sideways smile, and sometimes it's a big toothless grin, but every time it melts my heart.

Here's one where we think she looks just like Matthew!

Maddie also found her hands this week -- before now, she never even brought them to her mouth. Now they're always there, and Maddie gets so confused! She hates to have anything in her mouth, but there's her hand, brushing her cheek. So she instinctively puts it in her mouth, then spits it out and makes a face, as if to say, "Yuck!" It happens over and over!

We gave Maddie her first bottle of mommy milk yesterday. She screamed as if we were hurting her at first, but then she started sucking away. Dad gave it to her, and mom watched, kind of sad because now Maddie and Daddy can just do without her (I know, I know, it was mommy milk anyway, so I'm still an integral part of the process, but they looked so peaceful, just the two of them together!). Mama consoles herself, though, knowing that now she and Dad might get to go on a date once in a great while! Of course, we got pictures of the great bottle adventure, but only with the still camera. We'll upload them, though, as soon as we get them developed (thank goodness for Walmart picture CD!).

Maddie's (and my) thrush is not getting any better, probably because she manages to spit out all the medicine that goes into her mouth -- Daddy says it's more of a "wash" rather than a "swallow" with her. She's still getting bigger, as evidenced by some of her clothes becoming "muscle" shirts, "muscle" pants, and "muscle" pajamas. Maddie continues to be an unbelievably squirmy little thing, and she protests loudly when you hold her where she can't see the goings on in the room; she really prefers to be up on your shoulder or sitting up on your lap while leaning against your tummy and facing outwards. She and I have also made it to our original goal -- six weeks of nursing! We had so much trouble at first, but I promised myself and her that we'd try it for six weeks and then reevaluate the situation. Well, we're both doing a lot better. We have our problems her and there, but we're going to keep going. Yay! Maddie is also crying a lot less now; they say six weeks is the peak of crying, but for Maddie it was more like three or four weeks. In fact, on days when she's not having tummy trouble, she cries very little. Now, instead of just crying, she's starting to coo a bit, usually quiet "ahs" and "goos". Occasionally, though, I'll hear an unexpectedly loud "ah!!!" from her that makes me jump and then laugh. She also makes A LOT more noises in her sleep, so much that sometimes Mom has to turn down the monitor!

Here are some things Maddie is doing now, and things she's learning to do:

Things Maddie has mastered:
Holding her head up while on her tummy (if you put her down in that position, she can keep her head up, but it's hard for her to lift it up after her head is already down).
Watching people as they move around the room.
Bringing her hands to her mouth.
Smiling!

Things Maddie is working on:
Getting her head up smoothly while on her tummy.
Sleeping in the crib again; we had it down, but Mom's been slipping and letting her sleep in the vibrating chair or on her chest when it's past Maddie's bedtime. So, we're working on that again. Ah well. The times when she fell asleep in my arms were worth it.
Using her voice; I think a laugh might be coming soon!

Well, we hope you all have a great week! Check back often for more Maddie info!

Look how tall our Maddie is getting! And she's such a chunk! Thanks Grandma Julie for the Noah's Ark suit!

We went to Once Upon a Child this past week and got Maddie a bunch of new outfits (she needed more 3-6 month clothes). We got her one that we thought was particularly "Springy" and put it on her this past Saturday when it was in the 70's (!!!) here. She was so kind to pose for us!

Below is a picture of Maddie wearing an outfit her Aunt Daron got her. Thanks Aunt Daron, she looked so cute! Everyone especially loved the shoes!

Maddie doesn't sleep much during the day, but she does snooze every once in a while. We thought you all might want to see what she looks like while falling asleep. She looks so peaceful, doesn't she?

Going ... Going ... Gone!

Please join us in welcoming the newest member of the family, Maddie's cousin Lila Grace! She was 8 pounds, 5 ounces and 21 1/4 inches long -- a tall girl! Congratulations Paul, Cassie, and Seth! She's beautiful!

Well, this week has been a big week for us!

On Friday, Madeline had a doctor's appointment for a weight check and weighed . . . drum roll . . . 12 pounds, 11 ounces. Two weeks before that she weighed 11 pounds, 10 ounces, so that's more than a pound in two weeks and more than an ounce a day! Yay! The doctor also said it would be okay to give her a bottle of expressed milk maybe once a day so Mama can get more sleep. We haven't tried it yet, but we'll let you know how it goes. Unfortunately, we found out at the same appoinment that Maddie has thrush, and has to take medicine four times a day for it. Bleh! She's getting REALLY good at spitting out her medicine, too.

Friday evening we set out to visit Grandma and Grandpa Blackburn, Madeline's first car trip. It's only two hours to their house, but we were still a little nervous. Four pm was our scheduled departure time, but didn't get away until 6pm due to a litte, ahem, diaper explosion (Note to self -- if she hasn't pooped by mid-afternoon, prepare yourself. She's storing it up for a much grander display than usual. -Insert "JAWS" theme song here-). Madeline did wonderfully, though, sleeping through the ride there, and basically being a happy baby throughout the weekend, though she did have some tummy trouble.

I believe now that Maddie must be going through a growth spurt, since she's nursing like crazy. She's getting bigger everywhere, and doesn't begin to fit into her old 0-3 month clothes anymore. She's also holding her head up all the time now, whether you're sitting her up or she's on your shoulder or wherever. She's so busy and just loves to look around! In fact, sometimes it's hard to keep a hold of her because she's so determined to look at a light or window or some other interesting thing and she'll do all she can to turn towards it even while in your arms.

All the books say that Maddie will start smiling and laughing this month, and I'm so looking forward to it.

We'll keep you all updated!