Babbling Maddy

I'll post photos from Halloween later this week, but I wanted to post this because I've been trying to get a video of Madeline making this sound for months. Plus she's such a character toward the end.

Maddy's Ear Tubes

Four weeks ago I took Madeline to the base hospital to get tubes put in her ears.  She couldn't eat anything after midnight.  By the time they took her to the operating room it was after 8 am.  Here she's being prepped and is hungry enough to eat a piece of metal medical equipment.  The hospital staff said she was surprisingly pleasant for a baby who went without food for so long.

Right after the surgery.  The nurse assigned to us warned me that Maddy would be fussy and upset, and that it would be because of the anesthesia, not the actual surgery.  The surgeon said the procedure itself only took about 3 minutes all told.

The anesthesiologist was awesome.  He explained everything that was going to happen before the procedure.  (They just gave her a gas mask - it wasn't general anesthesia - but I was worried anyway.)  He was so nice, he offered to take our picture.  I am grinning like a fool because I was so relieved that the whole thing was OVER.

In her recovery room.  We stayed there for about an hour.  She was hungry, but she was also really sleepy.

One of the guys in the O.R. area tried to make Maddy less grumpy by making a balloon out of a hospital glove.  They hospital staff took really good care of her.

Grabbing the Camera

This is what happens almost every time I try to get a video of Madeline: she does something super-cute, I take out the camera, she sees it and stops doing the super-cute thing and goes after the camera. I try in vain to get her to do the super-cute thing again.

Pumpkin Festival

I promise, I'll write about Madeline's pending surgery before long...but for now, I'm catching up on our October activities.  And I am four weeks behind...

We went back to Young's Jersey Dairy at the beginning of October for their annual Pumpkin Festival.  First order of business: lunch, including homemade potato chips and pumpkin donut holes.  PUMPKIN. DONUT.  HOLES.  Sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.

It was only in the fifties that day so we bundled our pumpkin up nice and warm.  No pumpkin donut holes for her.

This visit, Ben did something besides jump in the bouncy cow.  He is all about the slides lately.

All this hay had him sneezing a lot, but he didn't have any problems with his asthma.

Ben saw the other kid here throwing corn kernels in the air, so he tried it.  But when he figured out he couldn't control where the corn landed, he just placed a bunch of kernels on his head.  Control freak, just like his momma.

There were just enough people and activities to keep Maddy interested without upsetting her.

Train!!

Cheesin' it up in the pumpkin patch.

As we headed out we stopped for dessert.  Ben HAD to pay.  Those were his words.

Pumpkin ice cream.  This stuff was awesome.  Even Ben liked it.  I was lucky that he let me have a couple of bites.

Eleven Months Old

Madeline is eleven months old today.

She is hurtling toward the one-year mark.  And she has her game face on.

I love fall because it's a good reason to call her "pumpkin."

She is still content to lie in a pile of toys and play by herself for a long time.  Especially if they're Ben's toys.

This month has been the Month of One Sock.  No clue why she pulls off only one.

These teeth came last month, but the two on top that you can't see made an appearance two weeks ago.

This month has brought many doctor appointments and diagnostic tests.  Eating is still an issue.  More on that later, hopefully next week.

Her hair is so much tamer these days than when she was a newborn.  But we can still count on some awesome bedhead at least once a week.

Naps are getting a little trickier.  There's so much to see, and she doesn't want to miss anything.

Good Friends

We spent a lot of time in temporary housing before we moved into our house.  It was pretty boring for Ben.  We are fortunate that friends we knew for many years in Georgia also moved here this summer.  They let us hang out with them a lot at the end of September.  We celebrated Mike's birthday with cupcakes at their house.

Early autumn chill in the air = perfect toasted marshmallow weather

Totally worth the wait.

I haven't been reading to Madeline as much as I'd like to, so we've been making a real effort to have story time be part of her daily routine.

Mesmerized by the Wii.  We don't have a Wii.  Ben would like that to change.

Maddy always makes a beeline for electronics and loves to pound on keyboards.

Speaking of a love of electronics... Eric should be glad Ben didn't try to steal this keyboard.

Three words: Kara's pumpkin pancakes.  A whole lot of awesome.  She made them with Ben one day and he had blast.

One Kind of Crawling

This is how Madeline is crawling this week.  Maybe creeping is the right word.  She pulls herself forward with both arms, pushing off a bit with her legs.


I tried to get a better angle another day.  She can really motor when she crawls this way, but every time I got the camera out she slowed down.

Things to note:
1. In both videos, Maddy is ultimately headed to the cat's food and water dishes in the kitchen.
2. Each video ends with her trying to eat inedible things off the floor.