TV Junkie

Elimination Communication

Ok, confession time. We've refrained from talking about it too much until we saw how it went, but since it's going well... If you haven't heard already, Madison is potty trained. We started infant potty training, or elimination communication ('EC'), at one month of age. By two months of age, she was doing almost all of her poops in the potty. She still wets in her diaper because she doesn't have the bladder control yet to hold it for too long, but she also goes most of the time when I put her on the potty.

If you're wondering how this is done, I simply hold her (under her legs in a squat position) over the potty after each time I feed her & she just goes. I read about this concept while I was pregnant and we decided we had nothing to lose but a lot to gain in giving it a try. Babies are born with an awareness of when they need to go, but typically we cause them to lose this awareness by 'training' babies to eliminate in their pants. (And then parents have the nightmare of having to retrain them a couple years later.) I've kind of custom adapted the concept for my own use. Some people literally try to 'catch' every time. I decided before I started that my goal was not to catch 100% of the time but to begin familiarizing Madison at an early age with the potty as the place to 'go'. If we caught even 50% of the time through the process, that would just be a huge bonus. Well it's worked out very well and we are blessed with changing very few poopy diapers, as she does about 90% of her poops in the potty.

As eating or sleeping patterns have changed, so have her pooping patterns. (For those that don't have kids, please forgive the focus on poop. It's amazing what a discussion topic poop becomes once you have a baby. ;-) Recently, and coinciding with Madison starting solids (baby cereal & applesauce), she's been going longer & longer between poops. At first it was a day or two; now she seems to be going regularly every 7 days!! The first two times this happened, she ended up doing a huge poop in her pants - and at church. BOTH times. (This week we were sick & didn't go to church... so I was almost afraid, with the way she'd been saving it for church, we'd have to wait another week for her to go!! ;-) The irony of course was that for months she'd been going solely in the potty - and when she does her biggest, messiest one, she does it in her pants at the most inconvenient time. Almost like she was saving it for us, just for the drama...

Well today was Day 7, and sure enough, she did her poop - and this time in the potty! I was so proud of her - and so happy I didn't have to immediately swab the deck & give her a bath after cleaning up a mess. Now that her body has adjusted to solids, we should be back into a regular routine again -- and hopefully back to that 90% of poops in the potty!

Again, while I don't necessarily do EC the way everyone else does, if you want to learn more about EC, check out www.diaperfreebaby.com.

Little Monkey

We call her the Little Monkey,

but when she goes out in the cold, she's a little bear!

Generations - Mom's side

Four generations

Multi-generations

Cousins

Boppa with the girls

Lily (left) was especially enamored with her baby cousin

Madison hasn't been around dogs much yet, but she loved Elsie! Elsie licked her in the face whenever she got the chance.

Christmas in NY

We made it back! Our Christmas visits in NY were wonderful. It was so good to see everyone again - it had been too long. The week was super hectic - we didn't have a lot of down time unfortunately, but it was still fun. All 3 of us came down with colds the day before we flew out, so physically we felt lousy the whole time - bummer.

Our flights were mostly uneventful. The layovers in O'Hare were delayed by 2 hours both going & coming home, but we were very thankful that we even made it. There were SO many flights cancelled. I felt so bad for those getting stuck in the airport just days before or after Christmas. Madison did great on the flights. For the most part she was distracted by her surroundings, but occasionally she would get so overtired she'd have a meltdown & scream for a couple minutes before dropping off to sleep.

I will get a few pictures posted now & do a bunch more later on Picasa. Once I got home, I realized how few chances I had to use my camera during our visit. Most of the time I was doing the visiting rather than photographing those visited. The rest of my family took pictures though so I will be getting more from them.

Merry Christmas!

We fly out tomorrow morning for Christmas in New York. I'm excited but a little nervous about getting through the airports on time and with Madison. Please keep us in your prayers! I probably won't be posting again until after we return, so...

From our family to yours, have a very Merry Christmas

and a blessed New Year!

Winter Wonder

20 weeks old... It wasn't that long ago I couldn't WAIT to survive 'til the 20 day mark. Wow.

Madison's been sitting up straighter lately. Still needing to prop herself with her hands, but holding herself up better without falling over.

Out of Season

Well I finally had to face the fact - as I assume all parents do - that there are some adorable outfits that Madison will never wear. I was packing away clothes that are too small or out of season, and I just had to put a few of my favorites on her for a picture. Maybe my next girl will be born at the right time of year for more wear out of these outfits...

We Have No Bananas Today

Last weekend we decided to try giving Madison some solid food - a little bit of rice cereal. The first time we tried, much of it ran down her chin, but she quickly got the idea of how to mush it around and swallow it. Since then I've given her the rice cereal twice a day. She seems fine with it -- not desperate to have it but not super excited with it either. I'm not in a big hurry to get her into solids, but figure it doesn't hurt for her to start learning - plus have a little extra in her skinny belly.

So this morning I decided to try some mushed banana - give her a little variety. All babies like mushy banana right? Well, Madison is a VERY expressive baby - and I thought we'd seen all of her 1001 expressions... but this is definitely a new one.

Enjoy. ;-)

O So Fashionable

Aunt Kelly & Cousin Meghan are making sure Madison is at the height of fashion!

Thanks for the coat (etc.) guys! We love it!

19 and a Half

I suppose I should start counting in months now... but keeping track of how many weeks old she is certainly helps when labeling & identifying picture files.

Everything goes in the mouth -



Who me?!

Buyer Beware

Remember our brilliant find of iOffer.com? Well... we're definitely not recommending it to anyone else. We made several purchases - a couple turned out ok (movies which we received but the quality wasn't what the seller claimed) and one turned out to be a scam. It was a fairly significant amount that the seller has run off with, too. The big problem with iOffer seems to be that it is simply a forum but has no provision for dispute resolution like Ebay, making it an easy target for scammers. We're currently working with both Paypal and our credit card company through their dispute/fraud services, ugh, but what a hassle.

Ironically, two years ago at this same time of year we had one of our two bikes stolen. What is it about people robbing us at Christmastime? :-P

Push Ups

Madison continues her quest to push up on all fours. Previously she had only pushed up on her back end, now she has conquered pushing straight up on her arms. What she has yet to figure out is how to do them both together.

A few more 19 Week photos here...

O Christmas Tree

It's fake... but we like it - it works for now.

Photography Success

LOL - I love this! Here's the key to successful photographs... Matt & I smile and pose, Niecey takes the pictures, and Rene watches ALL the kids! Haha!!

I think you need just a few more there, Rene. ;-)

Holiday Spirit at 4 Months

iOffer

Anyone heard of this site before? iOffer.com I'm using it for the first time and hoping it's reliable. Looks like a neat concept. I am sooo excited. I've purchased the Polly movie with Keisha Knight Pulliam as well as the full Even Steven series! Both of which I've been looking for for some time.

Stripes

Watch out for this little striped sweetie pie!

She's practically crawling away!

I'm 4 Months Old Today!

Little Person

When she's dressed like this (in regular people clothes and not in "baby" clothes), we just call her the 'little person'.

Confessions of a Goodwill-aholic

A picture says a thousand words...

...I'm not even going to begin to confess how many clothes I got for her. O:-) But it was a 99 cent clothing sale! How can you go wrong!

On Thanksgiving

Madison enjoying Thanksgiving dinner...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey, potatoes, stuffing, pies... it's all coming soon!

But for the morning -- chex mix, egg nog & the Macy's parade completes the tradition!

Have a blessed one!

SNOW!

Snow has arrived in Nebraska --



In fact, in the minutes since I took this picture, it's coming down a lot harder. I suppose it wouldn't seem like such a big deal (it is the end of November after all) except it was about 80 degrees just two days ago!! And it's actually coming down so fast, it's accumulating on the ground & cars! (I told my husband this morning, 'No honey, it won't accumulate, the ground is too warm.' Well I admit - I was wrong!) I need to figure out what winter clothes I need to get for Madison. So far I've had plenty seasonal clothes for her, but I don't think I have much in the way of warm stuff, especially for outdoors.



Our baby sling arrived the end of last week --



We've been trying it off and on, still trying to get the hang of what's comfortable for baby & the person carrying her.



Madison is going on 17 weeks and just had her 4 month checkup today. The doctor said, and I quote, "She looks great." I think every mom likes to hear that from a 'professional'. Her weight - now 13 lb. 3 oz. - has lowered in percentile from last time but her height/length (26 in.) has gone up from 90 to 95%! She seems to be stretching out instead of chunking up as far as babies go. I uploaded a few various 16 week pictures.



Ok, one last picture here that makes me laugh. My husband was being a good hubby & helping wash the dishes. Only he added soap and went into the other room to do something. I walked into the kitchen to see soap suds getting higher & higher in the sink!!



Oh well - at least he's trying to help!

Smallish Friends

Madison with her friend Zoe (8 months)

Few more photos of them here

On Top of Spaghetti

Let's try another one...

13 Week Video

Ok, let's see if this will work...

Stuffing Birthday Week

My birthday week is coming to a close (it was last Wed. 11/7) and I just finished the rounds for the last of my free birthday meals. Call it being thrify or cheap or just knowing how to work the system, but I had signed up for the birthday 'club' deals at a whole bunch of restaurants. When my birthday came, I got emails from them with - for most of them - a coupon to get a free meal. You also get a week to use the coupon, which gave me time to get my free meal from each restaurant. Delicious! Ugh, but now I'm so stuffed from all these big meals... Back to eating light the rest of this week!

If you haven't already, be sure to sign yourself & each member of your family up for the following restaurants' birthday deals (and if there are more places I don't know about, pass the tip on to me so I can get signed up there, too!) -- Noodles & Co., Famous Dave's, Red Robin, Caribou Coffee, Coldstone Creamery. Enjoy!

On Veterans Day

Matt has today off so we've enjoyed a nice quiet day here as a family. Madison's tendencies seem to change like flipping a switch rather than gradual. Since this past weekend, instead of fussy she's suddenly increased her wake time and is super smiley & content most of the time. It's great!

She seems to have re-discovered her thumb and we've been catching her sucking it quite frequently the past few days. She may turn into a thumb-sucker after all. She was sucking her thumb in the womb (we had a 3-D ultrasound the day she was born) and it drove her mad the first few weeks of her life that she couldn't coordinate her hand to get it back in her mouth. She hasn't really attempted to find it again over the past couple months, until now.

She's made the next step toward pushing herself up on all fours. Her 'swimming' and wiggling on the floor has progressed to being able to push her back end up on her knees. The problem is when she does this, her arms go straight behind her and her face goes flat into the floor. It's very funny seeing her trying to push herself up in this position. (Hard to see in this picture since her outfit & the blanket she's on are both pink :-P)

C'mon Mama! Give me a break! I look RIDICULOUS in this silly bow you put on my head! I look like a cross between Aunt Jemima & a Christmas gift. Go ahead, laugh - I'm glad YOU think it's funny!!

Tailgating

Today was the last Husker tailgate party at the Governor's Mansion for 2007. It is so hard to believe the whole season has gone by. It was another early one today, but it's always a lot of fun to help out and visit with friends.

Lil' Pilgrim

I've started Madison's historic costume collection - Hooray! I just bought this dress, only hers will be a sea green colored jacket. Madison's Civil War dress in previous pictures was borrowed from her cousin, Natalie. Now, the Pilgrim dress I'm getting for Madison will be too big for her, so she's going to let Natalie borrow it this year!