Author: heather

For the longest time, when we put Maddi down, we could count on her to stay put. She would wake up in the same spot in which we laid her in her crib. If I left the room for 20 seconds to turn the bathtub faucet on, I could be certain she was still in her Gymini. At BabyTalk sessions, other babies propelled themselves about the room by crawling or rolling, but Maddi was content to stay in one spot, taking it all in quietly with her wide blue eyes.

Those days are now a thing of the past.

For the past week or so, Maddi’s been breakdancing around the crib on her back. At first, I thought she scooted around only occasionally. Sometimes I’d see her sleeping on her side or tummy, and sometimes she’d wake up having turned 180 degrees so that her head was at the foot of her crib, but most days she’d wake up in exactly the spot we’d laid her — or so I thought.

One night last week, I laid her down, feet facing north, as I do every night. A few hours later as I made my way to my own cozy bed, I peeked in on Maddi and noted that her feet were now facing south. The next morning, I awoke to find Maddi “in exactly the spot I’d laid her,” only I knew that she had been flipping around like a little fish all night and that — while it looked as if she hadn’t stirred — she had rotated a full 360 degrees over the course of the night. Maybe even 720 degrees. Nobody knows for sure, not even our slumbering spinner.

But her somnambulance got so out of hand that, after a second night in a row of somehow wriggling over to her mobile and frolicking amongst the dangling zoo animals, we finally were forced to lower her mattress this week.

For awhile, Maddi’s gymnastics were limited to her crib and her change-table, where she enjoyed playing lively games of Twist Away from the Diaper. But yesterday, she did something I never expected.

We spent the afternoon at the home of one of Chris’ business associates, who has a 20-month-old. Maddi was so enthralled with watching her new friend play with big-girl toys that she suddenly decided that now was a good time to use the skills she’s had for months and roll all around the living room.

Our little one — who just weeks ago was so reluctant to leave her back that she would stare woefully at toys placed just out of reach rather than roll onto her tummy — flipped onto her side, wiggled around until she was in a favorable position to begin her assault on a sofa leg and then flopped onto her tummy, onto her back, and then onto her side again, where she was perfectly positioned to gnaw on aforementioned furniture.

Why she chose to do this at someone else’s house rather than in her own territory will forever remain a mystery. She also decided to finally do some proper babbling in the car with Daddy (but without Mommy!) earlier in the day, regaling him with a peal of “Ga-ga-ga-ga”s rather than her usual rather odd “Moomoomoo”s and “Boobooboo”s. All in all, it was quite a day for our little girl.

Perhaps soon she will begin crawling — and not just in the bathtub, which is the only place she’s tried to do that so far (another strange baby mystery).

One thing is certain: from now on, when I’m starting the bathwater, Maddi will be in her playpen where she can’t roll around in search of things to gnaw.

Coming soon: pictures of our newly mobile 29-week-old.

Since the day she was born, we’ve known Maddi liked to eat. At the hospital, our legendary luncher astonished the nurses by eating twice as much as other babies in a given sitting and by being ready for her next meal in half the time. And by ready, I mean screaming as though we’d been starving her.

Her first month was spent eating for two hours, breaking for 30 minutes, and then eating for two more hours. She could be sleeping or she could be pooping — it didn’t matter. Maddi could do anything and eat. Even as she got older and grew more interested in her surroundings, her meals continued to last a good 45 minutes to an hour.

But, apparently, it was all practice for the big event. Now that Maddi has finally been permitted to sample solid food, she eats, sleeps and breathes solids. When she wakes up, she eats about three-quarters as long as she used to, as if she’s saving a bit of room for that first solid meal. A few hours (and a second very short feeding) later, once she’s in her high chair, the baby who was only vaguely interested in her old-fashioned breakfast squeals and smiles as I prepare her food. Like an anaconda, our voracious daughter unhinges her jaw and swallows tremendous amounts of food, and before I can dip the spoon into the bowl for more, she’s got her mouth open again and is squawking like a starving baby bird, flapping her legs wildly against the high chair.

Only twice has she ever had “enough” — once was the infamous Granny Smith meal (she ate only half a cup) and once was when she had green beans (she lost interest before the time she normally squawks for thirds).

Let us say that Chris and I, a half-hour after Maddi has eaten a full cup and a half of sweet potatoes (and finally been “cut off” forcibly), are enjoying a fine meal of chicken burgers and fries in front of our little piglet. Now, one would think that after having eaten an amount that — for a person my size — would approximate four good-size yams, the wee one would be satisfied. But no. As we savored our french fries yesterday, Chris and I felt a pair of little eyes burning through our skulls and glanced over to see our wide-eyed baby staring at our food with an expression of covetous reproach.

In a scene reminiscent of the sci-fi thriller “Alien,” her salivary glands kicked in big-time, and drool cascaded down her chin as her little jaw clenched in predatory anticipation of any food that might possibly come her way (it didn’t). I’m sure that, had she been endowed with a tiny telescopic set of choppers that could shoot out from her gaping maw and annihilate things that were just out of reach, my fries would have disappeared in a violent, ketchupy mist, much like the crew of an alien-infested space vessel.

Sadly, there is no going back. Instead of filling up with milk before a high chair feeding, Maddi fasts all day in hopes that she will be given solids. I’m lucky if a regular feeding lasts 10 minutes these days. Meanwhile, no matter when she’s last eaten, she can make two bowls of solid food disappear as quickly as I can spoon it out for her.

Despite all this eating — and her recent gain of a half-pound — she seems to be thinning out. One of the rolls in her thighs has mysteriously disappeared, and her cheeks seem a little less fluffy. It could be height, or it could be that her breastfed-baby fat is disappearing. Since her clothes are all tight — even the ones that are still too long in the leg — it’s not as though she’s starving.

But you’d never know that, to look at her in the high chair.

And here’s a picture of our little piggie at 28 weeks, tummy full and fast asleep in a brand-new position.

As of exactly 27 weeks and one day after her birth, our darling wee princess has finally rolled from back to front and stayed there for more than 15 seconds — just a month or two behind “schedule.”

As regular perusers of Maddi’s baby blog well know, Maddi is no slouch at hitting milestones — just so long as they’re the milestones she has some sort of incentive to meet. She bestowed smiles early, gurgled out her very first “ah-goo” months ahead of when we were expecting to hear it, and surprised all of us by sitting unsupported before she was five months old. Apparently, her attempt to utter the word “cat” was not a fluke, as she has continued to bounce up and down and exclaim “kkk… hakkt!” whenever a feline enters the room (and yet, never has anything remotely resembling “mama” or “dada” escaped from her lips!).

But much to my frustration, ever since I incorporated “tummy time” when our dear little girl was but a month old, she has had absolutely no interest in being on her tummy — let alone rolling onto it! At the weekly “Baby Talk” sessions we attend at the nearby public health unit, other babies far younger than Maddi frolic about on their bellies, scooting laboriously in pursuit of toys or gleefully making like wee airplanes. Some have crawled, others are content to play with toys, but Maddi is the only “old-timer” who immediately flips onto her back when I set her down for some tummy time. Even the infant-development expert, who has quite the bag of tricks, was hard-pressed to coax our daughter to spend any time whatsoever on her front.

In a bid to at least get her to attempt crawling, I’ve tried that tested-and-true mom trick of placing all her toys out of reach so she will have to lunge for one (and, the theory goes, possibly discover that crawling makes life so much easier), but she will have none of it. She well knows that I am a sucker for an outstretched hand and that particular look that says “Darling mother, I would dearly love my shape sorter, but it seems to have wandered beyond my reach. Would you be a doll and fetch it for me so that my entire life will not be ruined?” (What can I say, she has very eloquent facial expressions!)

Paranoia queen that I am, I began harboring visions of Maddi scooting everywhere on her bottom rather than face the indignity of wriggling about on her belly like, well, like a baby. Of late, since she enjoys sitting so much and can do it for hours, tummy time sessions have gone from daily to weekly, so convinced was I that my sweet little bunny was determined to hop straight from sitting to walking (although Maddi has found pointing and “eh-eh-eh”ing to be so effective that I sometimes had my doubts she would bother with the latter, either).

Thankfully, Maddi did finally roll onto her tummy; however, as seems to be her wont, it was very much on her own terms.

As I do most nights, I peeked in on her in the wee hours of Saturday to see my little Maddi, hater of all things tummy-related, sleeping peacefully in her crib. But something was wrong. As usual, she had rotated 180 degrees so that her head was at the foot of the crib and her feet were within convenient pressing distance of the controls for her mobile. But where her little face should have been was a little bald occiput. Instead of little knees bending upward, I saw little knees bending downward. Instead of a tubby tummy facing skyward, a chubby bottom greeted my wondering eyes.

And she looked very comfortable indeed, sleeping like a tiny cherub with one arm curled beneath her chest.

Of her own volition, our little six-month-old finally decided (whether consciously or not) to roll onto her tummy and stay there happily. She was on her tummy at 1:30, and at 3, and when she woke me up at 5:30, she was still in the same position, only with her arms and chest off the mattress.

Of course, she still rebels with great enthusiasm when tummy time rolls around. But today, while I had her sitting on our bed, she lunged for the remote control and face-planted in the mattress, picked herself up, and, with the tiniest bit of pre-commando-crawling-type movement, managed to retrieve that shiny, button-y brass ring of Other People’s Toys (which, she has discovered, are the best kind).

This, of course, means that she probably will learn to crawl, after all, and my nightmares of a daughter who never learns to walk are probably completely unfounded. (Surprise!)

Now, if only she would start saying “mama” or “dada” — even indiscriminately! We don’t care!

And here are the long-awaited pictures of our wee one in her voluntary on-tummy photo debut! (Don’t worry, no babies watched any television in the making of this photo essay.)

Also, for your viewing pleasure, a short film titled “Hungry Little Sparrow,” in which Maddi tells us how much she loves her rice and apples.

Playing with the remote — hope it doesn’t escape!

Nooooooo, come back!

As our wee daughter lies sleeping in her crib, with a peaceful expression on her sweet baby face, my mind goes back to the days when nobody in the house got any sleep.

Sunday marked six months from the day Maddi entered the world as a purple, wrinkled conehead who only slept while eating or being held. It is hard to believe it’s been six whole months, but at the same time, some days it feels so much longer.

A half-year ago, Maddi was swimming in tiny sleepers that now would be hard-pressed to accommodate even one of her chubby legs. She has gained 4 and a half inches in height and weighs nine pounds, three-and-a-half ounces more than she did on her first day here. No slouch in the eating department, Maddi quickly graduated from her first 2-ounce meal and now takes in at least 9 ounces at a sitting and started solids last week. In a mere two seasons, our darling daughter has outgrown all of her newborn clothes, all of her 0 to 3-month clothes, and 90 percent of her 3- to 6-month clothing — and can remove her own socks and shoes in a flash.

When we brought her home, Maddi could hold her head steady for a few seconds and make good eye contact. We thought this was marvelous. But now, her talents are seemingly infinite. She smiles, laughs, coos, squeals, shrieks, babbles and blows raspberries. She sits unsupported, spins on her tummy, rolls over, points, reaches, inserts her own pacifier (although only at bedtime and naptime now!), bangs toys on her high chair, and passes a ball from one hand to the other. A few days ago, while I was feeding her, Maddi even had the dexterity to snatch the spoon from my too-tenuous grip and hungrily shovel her applesauce into her own mouth. (Did I mention it’s impossible to feed the child quickly enough for her liking? And that she routinely eats thrice what one would expect of a normal baby despite having been fed prior? This is what pie-eating championships are made of!)

Not only has Maddi grown physiologically, her little intellect is blossoming as well. As a newborn, she gazed out at the world and had NO idea what was going on. But no longer!

Our young Galileo has discovered the joy of dropping things over the side of her high chair. If I happen to be in the way, she will simply move around me to conduct her experiments with gravity. She has not, as yet, figured out how to grab her slippery rubber duck, and spends countless minutes chasing it about the bathtub. Ditto for the Fisher-Price Roll-Arounds that are constantly gliding out of her chubby hands.

In addition to all her little noises, Maddi has discovered that she can communicate by reaching, pointing, and making sad little baby faces. Not a day goes by when she doesn’t see her beloved pacifier sitting on the ottoman, waiting for her bedtime story. Her eyes grow wide and she points frantically to her sucky, and then looks piteously into my eyes when I give her a toy instead.

But even more than she enjoys communicating with people, Maddi wants to be friends with the housecats. “Kittycat Theatre” in her playpen can entertain the baby for a good 20 minutes, and Maddi loves nothing better than, with extremely careful supervision, to run a hand over the soft fur of our long-haired domestics. Several times, we’ve been playing on the floor in her room when suddenly, the little one’s face lights up. Invariably, I will turn to see a cat lurking in the doorway, eyes fixed on Maddi as the baby smiles and quivers with delight. Of course, the subsequent flapping, banging and shrieking usually result in the alacritous departure of said cat, but I suppose it will be awhile before Maddux completely understands the concept of “cause and effect”.

However, the cats’ reluctance to come snuggle with our flapping, fur-grabbing fiend has not dissuaded her from trying to snuggle up to them. In addition to stretching out her arms for a furry embrace (needless to say, the cats don’t return the sentiment), Maddi has recently started making a “Kkkk” sound when a cat walks by. Earlier today, she spied Deva, then stared over at me wide-eyed, smiling from ear to ear, and jabbered “Kkk … kkk….” and then gleefuly shouted, “Hakkt!” Ridiculous as it may sound, I am thoroughly convinced that she was trying to say “cat.” Need I remind you, she doesn’t yet say “Mama” or “Dada” — even in a nonsensical, babbling context.

Yes, she’s definitely a much older, wiser baby than the one we brought home six months ago. With each day, she improves her skills in so many ways — eats a little more efficiently, sits more steadily, holds onto that troublesome bath duckie a second or two longer.

I saw a little three-month old in the mall last week, and I realized that it really hasn’t been so long at all since little Maddi was that young. And yet, just 13 weeks or so later, she’s a completely different baby.

“They” say to treasure your babies, because the time you are given with them is so short. I’ve been treasuring as hard as I can (quite possibly to an unhealthy degree!), and I still wonder where the time has gone. At night, I’m keenly aware that my sleeping baby is growing right under my nose, and often Chris and I will tiptoe into her room and watch our little one dream away.

There’s never enough time to cram in enough loving and cuddling and playing to last me through the teen-age years when she will doubtless be too cool for her mother to smother in kisses. Even though at times it feels it’s been a year or two or ten — rather than six months — since I had a minute in the day to breathe, it’s clear when I look at our growing girl that the weeks and months are all too fleeting.

In a scant six months — which will probably feel more like three — I will be writing Maddi’s one-year entry, an entry I can’t even imagine today since, as it is, I find it so difficult even to comprehend that she has somehow arrived halfway there.

Sweet dreams, little Maddi. Despite my fervent wishes, you won’t stay little for long!

And here’s our little six-month old:

Having a baby who eats solids has its benefits. Maddi has ceased her recently-developed habit of waking five times a night, and she now sits patiently in her high chair even without toys because she knows something good is coming.

Unfortunately, there is one pitfall I did not foresee. Since we are introducing one food a week, and this is Maddi’s first week as an eater of solid food, it is necessary to have that food on hand.

Maddi’s first food was apples, and boy does she love ’em. She greets each spoonful with flailing arms and grasping hands. So what’s a mom to do when, hungry baby in the high chair, she discovers that there are no Red Delicious anywhere in the house?

Well, a nice mom would have made sure there were enough Red Delicious for a week of baby food. A nice dad would have raced to the store and bought a sweet apple for his daughter while the neglectful mommy entertained the wee one in the high chair. Unfortunately, the nice daddy is in California this weekend and was unavailable for emergency baby errands.

Thus, circumstances forced me to either poke around the refrigerator for a suitable substitute or make an unscheduled rice-cereal introduction.

Fortunately for Maddi, we were not entirely out of apples. Unfortunately for Maddi, the apples remaining in the crisper were Granny Smiths.

I felt rather guilty as I prepared a nice big bowl of horrifically sour applesauce for our sweet, unsuspecting baby’s sixth meal ever, but at the same time, I didn’t think either of us could take another night of waking up every hour followed by a day of no napping. Maddi would have a full stomach even if it turned her off apples forever.

As the spoonful of freshly-made applesauce approached her mouth, Maddi flapped and gaped in drooling anticipation. She savored the food, rolling it around on her tongue. Our wee one’s eyes winked shut, her lips pursed and her tongue shot out of her grimacing face.

Then she opened her mouth for more.

Amazingly, while she had eaten just 90 minutes before and clearly thought the new applesauce tasted pretty funny, Maddi downed a good couple of ounces before turning her head aside. Either she’s a bit of a masochist, or she’s an incredible optimist. Perhaps she just really loves eating solids. After all, babies eat houseplants, drain cleaner and blood-pressure medication if given the opportunity, so why not sour apples?

As I write this, Maddi is sleeping peacefully with a tummy full of food. Better Granny Smith than nothing at all, and certainly better than introducing a new food before a week is up. My only regret is that Chris wasn’t here, since I know how difficult it was for him to accept that she is too young for lemons!

And here are some shots of our 26-week-old daughter enjoying (or not!) her Granny Smith applesauce:

She’s been aching for it. Yearning for it. Grabbing for it whenever it’s within reach. And finally, after more than a month of pursuit, Maddi has finally gotten her heart’s desire — a big bowl of real food!

Technically, of course, her first meal was half of the price tag on a fuzzy new plaything, which she devoured in the span of about 30 seconds as we were strolling through Toys ‘R’ Us about three weeks ago with that new toy foolishly placed in her grasp. She of course ate only the UPC number, rendering her Tiny Love peach unscannable.

And we must confess there have been moments of weakness when Chris and I have offered her “tastes” of table food in response to her agitation over not being fed like the rest of us, but nothing actually got in her mouth.

But tonight, new spoon in the diaper bag, we headed over to Nana’s for a delicious turkey dinner. Maddi, seated in her high chair, seemed oblivious to the fact that today was the day when, rather than being taunted by people noisily eating tantalizing treats (followed by loud expressions of “Mmmmm!” by us and frantic lip-licking by our hilarious daughter), she would finally be eating along with everyone else. And it’s about time, as she recently quit sleeping through the night in favor of eating every two hours.

Big sister Kaija got to do the honors first. She dipped the spoon into Maddi’s little dessert cup of homemade applesauce and brought it toward Maddi’s mouth. Our little girl, even though many spoons have been brought experimentally toward her mouth only to be snatched away when folks realize she’s actually going to go for the ice cream (what can we say, we’re mean!), optimistically opened her eager little jaws — and this time, she was rewarded with delicious REAL FOOD! The novelty wore off quickly. Instead of tasting it and ruminating over the flavor, she gulped her food down and quickly opened wide for seconds. And thirds. And fourths. And twenty-fifths.

All told, we dispensed about a half-cup of applesauce, and by my estimates, at least two-thirds of it ended up in the baby. Quite the first meal!

As we suspected based on Maddi’s feelings about food since the day she arrived on this Earth, she was quite taken with the new gastronomic experience. Maddi’s not a picky baby. She doesn’t care whether she gets Mommy or the bottle, a sippy cup or a sip from a big cup — as long as she’s fed, she’s fine. Still, it was quite amusing and a little surprising to see how excited she was about the food.

As if to say “More, more! Faster, faster!” our wee one squealed, panted and gesticulated wildly, flapping her outstretched arms toward the applesauce with her mouth open like a starving baby bird. At one point, people were paying too much attention to their own food and not enough to hers, and Maddi somehow got a hand on her bowl and came within a half-inch of burying her face in the dish like a little doggie.

As her meal drew to a close, her tummy no doubt full to bursting after ingesting that unholy amount of food, Maddi’s mood waned. The excitement of FINALLY getting that long-awaited first meal had stimulated our wee baby beyond her breaking point, and she was done for the day.

But tomorrow is a new day — a day with more applesauce and more flapping. I hope it will also be a day preceded by a night spent sleeping soundly with a full tummy, although, as I type this, Maddi has been talking to herself in bed for half an hour (probably practicing the words “More applesauce, please”).

It’s sad to think that our sweet little daughter, whose birth seems as if it happened just yesterday, is starting solid food. Pretty soon, she’ll be crawling and next thing we know, she’ll be getting on the bus to go to kindergarten.

For now, though, she’s still our little baby, just 25 weeks old and still a messy eater.

And here’s our little flapper all dolled up for Halloween:

Not so very long ago, little Maddux’ hands existed only for the purpose of scratching her eyes out in a reckless and uncoordinated manner. It seemed like forever before she held them at arm’s length, gazed at them in her trademark wide-eyed intensity, and finally reached for that first toy.

After that, of course, things snowballed. First she was reaching for the animals on her mobile, and then for toys and familiar faces. Pretty soon, she started trying to swipe food and drink from unsuspecting family members. They say that the postpartum estrogen plunge causes hair loss, but I have a theory of my own on how all that hair ends up on the floor, and it has a lot more to do with grabby little hands than it does with telogen effluvium.

This week, after weeks of clutching at hair, fingers, toys and food, Maddi has moved on to bigger and better things: namely, pointing.

Now, I am not trying to claim that our daughter curls her last three fingers inward and extends the index finger. Her method of pointing currently resembles a gimpy starfish, in that her index finger is usually out the furthest, but the others are outstretched too.

Now you would think that Maddi would point at something that she knew and loved, such as foodstuffs or a cat. But no, the first thing she signalled at was her grandparents’ bird, Billy, who is fond of screeching over any noise in the house and has been known to fly into the occasional homicidal frenzy.

I thought it was a fluke, but then tonight we were playing on the floor and she started fussing. I picked her up, but she continued fussing and then pointed to her pacifier, which I’d removed for tummy time.

Of course, if she can actually reach something on her own, she’s definitely a do-it-yourselfer. Tonight, as I was giving her a bath, she expertly snatched her rubber duckie from the bubbles and gleefully indulged in a big mouthful of foam. Let me tell you, it’s hard to tell a baby “We don’t eat bubbles” with a straight face at the best of times, but forget about it when she has a slick mohawk and a full Santa beard and is biting the head off a bird with unparalleled gusto.

Our daughter still scratches herself now and again, but for the most part her hands are always busy with baby work. She’s been practicing handling a ball (usually losing the slippery toy when she tries to hug and bite it at once) and holding a sippy cup (same problem).

She pets the housecats now, although we are ever vigilant in our efforts to thwart the inevitable fur-pulling attempts. There is the ever-pressing initiative to rid all adults of hair before 2006, and let’s not forget the equally-important task of exploring the inside of Mommy’s nose (I guess her rationale is that I pick hers, so she should return the favor). I suspect that within the week, she will point at more objects and probably find new things to suddenly snatch and insert in her mouth.

This week was another bittersweet milestone for us, as pointing is one of her very first ways of communicating like an adult (although I am almost positive she cried “Moomoo” specifically AT ME when I put her down for her nap today, and Nana swears that Maddi says “Hi”!). Pretty soon, she will be saying words that everyone can hear — not just the delusional mommy and grandmas — and maybe, if she ever decides to use those hands for more than pointing and snatching, she’ll even use some of the sign language I’ve been trying to teach her.

And here is the latest picture of our grabby little 24-week-old:

In the past two weeks, our wee daughter has gone from a bored baby to an inquisitive infant. Now that little Maddux has figured out this sitting thing, a new world has opened up in front of her.

It used to be that, in order to play with toys, Maddi had to coax someone to dangle something interesting overhead. To survey her surroundings, she needed to be held upright by some kind adult. Not anymore! With her new found independence, Maddi has become — if it’s possible — an even happier, more fun-loving baby than she was before.

Within two or three days of that first wobbly sit, Maddi began perching like a pro. She quickly began sitting for 15 and 20 minutes at a stretch, happily playing in her playpen with exciting new toys that only big girls who sit up by themselves can enjoy — pop beads, stacking rings and chime balls.

Her stroller now glides about with her facing forward in an upright position, which allows her to grin out gummily at random people at the mall who we don’t necessarily want to meet, but do anyway.

Now that she’s not concentrating so much on keeping her balance in the tub, Maddi has also discovered the transcendent joy of splashing busily with both arms, looking very much like a tiny maestro at the piano. She also devotes great concentration to chasing her rubber duckie around the tub, gnawing on it with gusto for the brief seconds before it shoots from her arms and the hunt begins anew.

Perhaps the most exciting offshoot of Maddi’s new skill is her ability to enjoy the theatre. No, not the cinema, silly! That’s way too loud for her baby ears. But there’s nothing wrong with a bit of live performance.

Maddi has the one and only season ticket to the Playpen Theatre, Peachland’s finest animal show. The tiny audience is seated within the safety of a Graco Pack ‘N Play while an intrepid animal trainer shakes a bag of Whiskas Sensations. Within seconds, fascinating creatures known as house cats are crunching and munching their treats within mere inches of Maddi’s little “theatre box.” Sometimes they meow. Other times, they gaze back curiously at the wide-eyed, smiling baby. Either way, it makes for good entertainment.

Of course, sitting is not so entertaining when the poor baby eventually topples over, especially when it is the first pain she’s experienced not related to gas bubbles, vaccinations or teething. And especially when her neglectful mommy is not there to cushion her fall and feels compelled to check her constantly for the next 24 hours to make sure she isn’t concussed. (The nurses on the medical hot line apparently had never been called regarding an infant falling over from a sitting position and bumping its head; I’m not sure whether that means I’m the first mom whose little one hit the carpet, or just the first mom whose imagination conjured up the horrors of closed head injuries and consulted three different medical professionals. Incidentally, after a call to the hot line, a rebuffed attempt to visit the ER, and a quick visit to the doctor, Maddux didn’t even have a bruise.)

The dreadful combination of negligent AND neurotic mothering aside, Maddi has been having an absolute ball as an upright baby. She sits on beds, on couches, on floors and in her playpen. She plays with toys, sucks her hands, watches cats and smiles up at her parents. She doesn’t want to lie down, she doesn’t want to sit in her Bumbo, and she doesn’t want us to hold her. She wants to do it herself! If ever there was a happy baby, it’s our wee one in her favorite position.

To celebrate Maddi’s 24-week anniversary, here’s a publicity still from the hit show, “Look! Kitties!”

And here she is working on her next skill — standing!

As Maddi moves ever closer to that six-month mark, she is more and more excited about eating food. She’s gone from watching me drink juice to trying to grab it from me. (Not only that; if I pour myself a glass far enough away to keep my beverage safe, our hungry daughter can be heard emitting a series of frantic “eh-eh-eh”s and waving her hands angrily in the direction of my cup.) And once, when I was eating ice cream at Nana’s with Maddi in my lap, I jokingly brought the spoon toward Maddi’s face. With at least eight inches to go, Maddi opened wide in anticipation. Despite the fact that she has never eaten anything, let alone junk food, she looked so disappointed when she figured out she wasn’t getting any of my treat.

For now, however, she seems to be doing just fine on Mommy’s milk. A few days back, I was writing down her five-month statistics in her baby book. As I reminisced on months past, I noticed a trend. While Maddi’s height has varied from the 50th percentile to the 90th, each month, her weight remains in the 90th percentile or higher (usually higher). Clearly, this is not a starving baby.

Be that as it may, we are beginning to work on transitioning her into the dining room. For the last week, we have taken our meals in the breakfast nook, accompanied by Maddi in her high chair. Today, we brought out her big sister Kaija’s old sippy cups and put them through the dishwasher. In the coming days, we will give her a small cup of pumped milk so she can participate in “dinner” at the table with Mommy and Daddy rather than sitting in the high chair growing increasingly frustrated at the fact that everyone is eating except for her. And in a few short weeks, our not-so-tiny-anymore daughter will eat her very first spoonful of rice cereal.

But for now, even though she’s incredibly curious, she doesn’t really know what she’s missing. Otherwise, we could not have eaten Chris’ amazing turkey dinner tonight, on Canadian Thanksgiving, while Maddi was content to nurse just 18 inches away from the tastiest stuffing, sweet potatoes and most juicy turkey imaginable. It’s Maddi’s first and last “food holiday” during which she won’t be sampling the delights of the season.

Just because she didn’t enjoy the bountiful Thanksgiving feast doesn’t mean she didn’t play an important part in the festivities, though. Not only did she help provide the entertainment, she also served as our only Thanksgiving decoration.

Here’s our little turkey showing her true colors.

It seems like just yesterday I was anxiously awaiting the go-ahead to start pushing. In reality, it has been five whole months. For me, it’s flown by as I scramble to stay on top of my to-do lists, maintain our battery supply lest Maddi’s swing be stilled, and keep the house from descending into such chaos that Chris will be forced to take a week off to unearth me from the floor-to-ceiling laundry in our room (OK, it only took him an afternoon!). There’s never enough time in a day, and it doesn’t seem there have been many days in the last five months. But for Maddi, these five months have been, quite literally, a lifetime.

Maddi has accomplished many things in her short life. Lately, our little darling has been working on her gross motor skills. (I contend that smearing spitup on people, at which she’s quite proficient, qualifies as a “gross” motor skill, but my baby books say it’s a fine motor skill. Well, it’s not so fine with me, but whatever!)

No sooner did she figure out how to sit up with assistance than Maddi began working on removing Mommy and Daddy from the equation. For a few weeks, she’s been pulling herself up to a sitting position when I try to lay her in her baby swing. Instead of cuddling back against my abdomen and chest while reading her bedtime story, she’s been eagerly pulling forward so she can use her gross fine motor skills to wipe curdy gobs of slobber on the pages of her favorite books.

So it shouldn’t have surprised me yesterday when I noticed that, while I was technically holding her as she sat and played with her toys, she was actually sitting on her own.

Sure enough, when I folded up a big crocheted blanket until it was nice and soft and plopped the wee one in the middle, she managed to hold her balance for about 15 or 20 seconds. I tested and retested. It was not a fluke.

Without a toy, Maddi can sit on her own for quite some time. With a toy, it’s a bit shorter because she gets excited, but she still holds her own. Of course, when I brought Chris in to see what his little girl could do, her new skills vanished. She can barely contain herself when he is in the room, and his presence proved far too exciting for our wee princess to be able to concentrate on her balance.

Less exciting for most people, but very thrilling to me, is Maddi’s final accomplishment of the back-to-front roll. She did it once on accident, many weeks back, and was shell-shocked by the unexpected tummy time. She never rolled onto her tummy again.

I tried everything I could think of to get Maddi on her front and keep her there. Mirrors were used to no avail. The flaps on her Gymini’s floor? Worthless! Getting face-to-face with our wayward wee one was an exercise in futility. The second she had the opportunity to roll onto her back, she did it in a flash.

As you might have guessed based on my conviction while pregnant that my failure to complete a French memo board for her room would result in our daughter’s becoming homeless and drug-addicted as an adult, I was convinced that the worst would happen: Poor Maddi, so traumatized by her hatred of tummy time, would never learn to roll over. She would then fail to learn to crawl, which of course would lead to her never learning to walk. I envisioned her at two years old being rejected from nursery school because she’d still be getting around by pushing off against things with her feet. I pictured her scooting up the halls of her university on her bottom. The scenario seemed pretty bleak in terms of Chris and me being able to enjoy our golden years.

But — lucky me! — we live in Canada, where the public health unit has weekly sessions in which experts answer questions from parents about these puzzling young creatures in charge of whom we have found ourselves. On Tuesday, I was fortunate enough to talk to the infant-development expert, who gave me some tips on getting Maddi to roll over.

Tonight, I lured her onto her side using her beloved banana toy. Then I moved it just out of reach so that she would have to roll onto her tummy. And what do you know? Apparently, that silly toy was all the incentive she needed. Not only did she roll onto her tummy, our little one actually stayed there for a few minutes while I praised her to the skies.

So, all of you who were worried about her grim future, you can rest easy now! (OK, so maybe it was just me.)

So some things took a little longer than I had thought they would, and others have sneaked up on me way too quickly.

Not least of which is the fact that my tiny baby is now fast approaching her half-birthday. And yet, somehow, the laundry is never done and my to-do list has only gotten longer. And there are always more batteries to buy.

And here it is: A picture of our proud 5-month-old sitting all by herself.