Madeline's Blog

Well, nowadays Maddie isn’t just eating cereal. Once she turned six months, we figured it would be okay to try veggies, too (we started cereal a few days before six months because she seemed to want something to eat when we were eating). Her first veggie is butternut squash, and I’m afraid it isn’t too big of a hit. She tolerates it okay when she’s really hungry, but otherwise she pretty much clamps down and won’t let the orange stuff past her lips. It’s strange; if you wipe off the squash and put cereal on the spoon, she’ll open up just fine! Can’t pull one over on her!

I’ll be honest, though, I don’t give her solids every day. I’ve read that at this point giving solids won’t replace any of her other feedings and that it’s just for practice, so a lot of times we just stick with nursing. It’s just so much easier to do that than to get the cereal and squash ready, get Maddie ready (bib, strapped in her seat with a large toy under it so she doesn’t bounce, shirt off, etc.), feed her the food, and then clean up her face, her chest, her hands, her feet, the chair, the floor, the wall, my face, her clothes, the dishes, etc., etc.

Another drawback to starting solids has been the poop and the gas! Man, my little six-month-old baby is FOUL! She can blast me out of the room in the morning! I’m sorry Maddie, I know you might be reading this when you’re a grown woman, but these are things you need to know; when a breastfed baby starts solids, watch out! It’s a whole new ball game!

That being said, however, I think that after we get back to Arkansas we’ll move on to carrots and see if she’ll like that better.

Here are more pictures of Maddie eating solids and of her first experience with vegetables:

Mmmm, I love the spoon!

There's nothing like eating lunch in the buff!

Maddie's first squash feeding. Will she like it?

Hmmm. It's not so great.

But she's got a smile for Daddy, who loves it when we come to visit him at work so he gets to feed Maddie!

Another short update. We had professional portraits taken for Madeline's 1/2 birthday. These aren't big enough to print out, but they are big enough to share here! Enjoy! (NOTE: This is as big as they get. If you want to save these pictures, just right click on the images on this screen)

Maddie's back is blotchy in the above photo because of the previous photo, where she was laying on the silk flowers. Can you say sensitive skin?

Madeline's first attempt at saying words!

Last night, while I was off doing lawyer things, Madeline found out that she had a tongue. We recorded this this morning...

Madeline speaks!

Hi. We've had some trouble blogging lately. We are actually running out of space on our current webhost. Some long-term fixes are in the works. In the mean time, here are some cool pictures.

Grandma Debbie was kind enough to come visit Madeline in DC. Everyone had a good time. She bought some nice clothes for Madeline . . .

Madeline was very sorry that she had to go, but she's looking forward to seeing her soon back home.

She's still working on the "learn to crawl" thing, but she's making progress:

In other news, our baby is eating solid food!!! (This was, I think, her first time ... rice cereal ...)

Stay tuned for more updates (hopefully from Darla - she's a better blogger)