The weekend before last Danny's Mom decided to come down since it was the last bit of spare time she had before her classes started for the PhD program she is in. It's always nice having her in town :) Although Madison has been a little fuss bucket on/off this past month (I'm pretty sure it's teething related), we had a good visit as usual. That same weekend my best friend's Mom (another Mary) stopped by to see Madison. She hadn't seen her since she was probably 3-4 weeks old! And my Dad stopped in as well - he can't go more than 1-2 weeks without a "Maddie fix!"
This past weekend we took a longer weekend and went to SA. Madison still hadn't met my mom or her side of the family and we wanted to see Danny's cousin Stephanie whose daughter is 6 weeks older than Madison. It was a really great weekend! When Madison was first born I found a local Mom's group online that I joined with good intentions of actually going to events but it just never happened. So, aside from day care, Madison has never really been around any other kids! And even at day care, I never got to witness the interactions myself. Well, she was SURROUNDED by kids last weekend and it was awesome! Last time Brittany (Steph's daughter) and Madison "met" they were both pretty young and on opposite sleep schedules so they never really noticed each other. This time around, they had sooo much fun together! At the first introduction Madison reached out to touch Brittany and was just so intrigued by her all weekend! Madison is definitely an observer like her Daddy. You can just see the wheels turning in her head as she soaks it all in :) Brittany is already crawling like a champ and pulling up to standing. We've been trying to encourage Madison to crawl for weeks now so I though Brit might be a good influence. Well, she's still not there yet but I think she made some big strides. We are convinced she's going to learn to crawl from a sitting position (leaning forward in to a crawl) as opposed to her tummy since she just wants to roll from that position. This weekend she went further and further over and is now going from sitting to tummy (although not always gracefully)!
We also joined Brittany at The Little Gym (which is literally a little gymnasium complete with tumbling mats, balance beam, parallel bars; etc) where we did things like forward rolls over the hot dog, practicing walking, clapping, etc. It was a lot of fun! Madison's favorite exercise was definitely standing at the parallel bars (not surprising) but we also learned that she LOVES bubbles and a good 'ole plain jane rubber ball! :) She also learned to clap at TLG and has been doing so frequently since then - on her own! It's adorable! I had tried it with her before but she would just keep her hands in a fist when you "clapped" them together but ever since doing it in class she keeps them open and can even make a clap noise!
Of course, we took the girls on several outings to restaurants and a little shopping. I'm sure all the waiters and other people at the restaurants just loved having a table with 2 babies nearby :) They were actually both pretty good most of the time. Although, the Girling's and Werlinger's have both definitely mastered the art of efficiently eating out with an infant. We never lingered anywhere long...
The rest of the weekend was spent visiting family. One of my cousin's just had a baby 3 weeks ago and the other one has 2 daughters, 1 just a little older than Madison and another that's 3-4 years old. It was the first time that my grandparents had all the great grandkids under one roof so, of course, we had to get a picture! That was sure challenging! :) I don't think we ever got one really good shot of everyone but what can you expect with 4 kids ages 3weeks-4years old? LOL! And for some reason, despite having tried on numerous occasions to get Madison to wave at us, she decided to wave back at my grandfather and has been waving more often since! :) It's really more like reaching (I think) but I'll take it :)
We decided to drive home Sunday night, in part so that Madison would just sleep the whole way (which she did for the most part), but right before leaving we threw both girls in the bath together and it was soooo cute :) They had a blast! It was Madison's first time in the big tub (and I think Brit's too) and she definitely enjoyed it! I realized last week that she was just about done with the whale tub but I'm now compromising with an inflatable baby tub that's bigger than the whale but this way I don't have to fill the entire tub just yet. We still haven't had a chance to introduce her to the pool at the YMCA but as much as she loves her baths I think she will love the pool too!
We had originally taken Monday off as well (with plans to stay in SA) but we had a lot of stuff we needed to get done around the house and Madison did a little "window shopping" in Brittany's playroom, so we decided to do a little real shopping on Monday :) Danny likes to tease me so much about how I always like to buy stuff that Steph gets for Brittany but this time Danny was the one saying "we have to get this!" LOL! Now he understand how easy it is to do :) With such a huge selection of toys (and other baby gear) out there - some crap and some great - I don't know how else to figure out what's worth getting unless someone recommends it or I see her play with it - and love it! So we got her a bunch of new stuff, some that Brittany also has, other different things (including a tickle me Elmo which puts the biggest smile on her face)! As much as she still loves her play mat we decided to put it away to encourage her to move around more. She often remains content in one spot when we put her on the mat, which is nice at certain times but it's not helping her. And speaking of moving, she's really starting to move in her walker - albeit backwards! :) I think she had the most fun ever in it last night (while squealing at the dogs)! With our wood floors, once she figures out what she's doing she's gonna be all over the place! :)
The only negative thing to report is that she's been waking up crying more the past few days. She did it a few times in SA but would usually go straight back to sleep. She kept waking up and rubbing her face, but there was something in SA that was triggering everyone's allergies, so I wasn't too surprised. When we got home I decided that I wanted to try to get her off the sound machine (partly because I didn't think she really needed it anymore and mostly because it's a pain to have to take on the road with us). She did okay with the naps but woke up crying earlier than usual Tuesday morning (and she usually never wakes up crying, especially from night-time sleep). She went back to sleep on her own then but she woke at 4:30am this morning crying so I went to her and she was wide awake and calm while I held her but would immediately cry when I put her down. I finally turned the machine back on, gave her a paci, turned on her mobile and left the room. She eventually fell back asleep but this is all really out of character for her. She went to day care today and didn't sleep as usual (but was still in a good mood). She will usually take a nice long nap after day care but today she woke up really upset after only 3o minutes. Once again, I used to the paci and mobile to get her back down and she's been really fussy ever since :( Danny and I both came home with colds. I'm hoping she's not getting one. Maybe it's teething? It's so hard to figure out what's wrong sometimes. No fever or vomiting (except when she was really upset after eating yesterday and gagged). We go back for the 2nd part of her flu shut on Friday, so I guess I can ask the ped about it then if this continues.
Well, obviously it took me forever to get around to writing this post. I was going to upload some pics but everything has already been uploaded to Flickr. There's a link on the ride side of this page - lots of new pics and several videos!
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