Category: Maddux

Our house has never been babyproof. Oh, I’m sure that before he met me, Chris’ house was like a padded cell. Perhaps it is a man thing, an outcropping of that stereotypical (but true) fixation with gadgets, but he has a predisposition for buying more safety products than can ever be used. Furniture tethers, cabinet latches, outlet protectors, bath thermometers — he had them all. He even had tethers for bottom-heavy furniture, just in case.

However, on my arrival, the house descended into chaos. Now, glass-topped tables beckon in all their shiny, forbidden glory. Delicious-looking lipsticks lie unlocked in an easy-to-reach vanity drawer. Electrical cords have put out tentacles in every corner of the house. And, since we moved last year, the stairs have been sans gate.

We hardly dare mention the havoc of the kitchen — giant blue sacks of recyclables scattered hither and yon, filled with such exciting toys as glass bottles and plastic bags. Or the cat fur that has taken over every corner in the house owing to the fact that I rarely find time to vacuum while Maddi is awake, and for obvious reasons cannot do so while she is asleep.

For the past seven months, we have not really needed to do anything about rooms other than Maddi’s. Our baby has been happily ensconced in what Chris calls “The Pink Palace” and, until now, has sat contentedly in her room for hours busying herself with toys and games (OK, I busy her with the latter).

But all good things must come to an end. Maddi’s recent gains in the rolling department have tipped us perilously close to the brink of needing to babyproof, and she’s been practicing some new skills that have made our position all the more precarious.

Now that our little princess is an accomplished sitter of some two months, she has limitless confidence. Her balance is good enough for her to know exactly how far she can lean in any direction, and if she can’t reach far enough to get what she wants, she’s learned to fall without hurting herself (most of the time — just recently she got her very first bruises!) and roll toward her goal. But that won’t quite do. Playing in the tub, she’s made a discovery in the past several weeks. The buoyant water lifts her sizable tummy so Maddi can get up on all fours. She crawls from one end of the tub to the other, although she hasn’t the strength to travel this way on land. But her little gears have been turning, and she’s certainly trying.

On dry land, Maddi has discovered that if she tucks one leg inward and splays the other out, she can lean over the tucked leg and lurch into perfect crawling position. Unfortunately, since she still lacks the strength and coordination to get up and crawl, she ends up flat on her face every time she pushes off. So she has come up with a novel solution.

If a toy is resting two or three inches beyond Maddi’s farthest reach, she leans over her tucked-in leg as far as she can, until she is almost in position to crawl, save for that one leg. Then she will pull herself forward with her arms, but leave her leg tucked beneath her for balance. It’s not a very effective maneuver, as it only gains her a few inches at most and half the time she loses her balance and ends up lying down. But slowly and surely, our wee daughter is becoming mobile.

Which means that I will have to become more mobile as well and finally get down to babyproofing.

And here’s a pic of Maddi at 31 weeks, safely constrained in her brand-new convertible seat for the very first time!

Just when I’d gotten used to having a six-month-old, here she is, turning seven months old! Our little darling is constantly developing new skills (although I guess we’d need to worry if she wasn’t!) and is getting more and more personality by the day. I’m sure sometime in the next year or two I will have a moment in which I suddenly want to send her back from whence she came, but so far, being a mother to Maddi has been seven months of good times. (Yes, even those first few sleepless, gassy months!)

What’s new with the wee one, you ask? It’s hard to know where to begin.

In addition to all the funny noises I’ve chronicled in this blog, she also sings to herself in the car, and also when she’s falling asleep now. She also jabbers away in the cutest little voice to her bath ducky as she’s chasing him on her neverending crusades around the tub — I’m assuming this is partly because of the bathroom’s excellent acoustics.

She understands her name and a few words such as “Daddy,” “cat,” “food” and “milk” and gets very excited not only when someone is preparing a bowl or a Gerber jar, but also when she sees her bib.

She can sit all day long if she feels like it, but when she’s tired, she will dive headfirst at the nearest parent and bury her face in his or her chest. When she’s not tired, she (finally!) uses this lunging skill to go after toys or to get on the floor and practice rolling, pivoting and wiggling her fat little legs behind her.

At long last, she has finally taken to tummy time. Although this past few days, it’s tummy time ALL the time. She takes very little interest in her toys, being held, or even sleeping. It’s all about trying to crawl. She’s been making a little bit of progress every day and so far has begun to occasionally push herself a few inches, but seems to have no idea how she did it when it happens.

Speaking of sleeping, Maddi’s now sleeping in a much-lower crib, thanks to her new mobility. Seems she figured out how to scoot directly underneath her mobile and frolic among the animals. It took three people and several hours to get the crib lowered, so Chris made the executive decision to lower it ALL the way and be done with it forever. (Well, until the next baby, anyway. Either the mattress goes back up then, or someone else with really long arms lifts the floppy newborn out for me!)

Those of you who met Maddi when she was a little newborn with bright peepers that took in everything and who witnessed the scary direct-eye-contact smile she developed at two weeks know that she has always been a very sociable baby. This now extends to playing with other babies (or at least manhandling their hands and faces) and loving on her favorite adults. She does have a bit of separation anxiety when I leave the room, especially when she’s overtired, but so far she still enjoys smiling gummily at strangers everywhere we go. In fact, we’ve been at restaurants and Maddi will wiggle and strain until she has a perch sufficient to allow her to beam warmly at the nearest table full of new faces. She is fairly indiscriminate, smiling at hoboes and salespeople along with grandmothers and small children. Thus, we have mixed feelings about her friendliness.

While she is a very jolly and friendly baby, our daughter does have her serious moments. Smiles are bestowed generously while she’s eating and while we’re out and about, and during personal interaction, but when Maddi is playing with her toys, it’s all business! Her little brow furrows in concentration while she bangs her stacking rings against each other, and scowls, cross-eyed, when gnawing on the soft blocks from her shape sorter. Our wee one looks very serious indeed when she shakes the living daylights out of her little velcro banana toy.

In addition to chewy, delicious toys, Maddi’s diet has expanded to include apples, sweet potatoes, avocadoes and wheat. (Rice gave her eczema, but strangely enough, wheat has been perfectly fine thus far.) The baby who used to spend 19 hours out of 24 nursing has pared her feedings down to fewer than 150 minutes a day. We are still waiting on teeth, despite months of drool and biting.

Here’s another interesting tidbit — Maddi’s finally getting more hair. After six months of the same old bald head, about a month ago, we noticed that her head was starting to “fill in” a little. Over the past several weeks, the short down has turned into a thatch of dark blonde fuzz and is really becoming obvious.

As she enters her next month, Maddi has hit another milestone — she’s outgrown her cute little infant carseat and will be moving up to a rear-facing convertible seat. It’s a good thing she is sitting so well, because, without her carrier, she will have to use that skill in shopping carts and restaurants.

There are some days when I wake up and have to remind myself that I have a baby, and here she is becoming such a very big baby already. (Sob!) If only I could freeze time, and keep my little seven-month-old forever!

And here is a photo of our little princess at seven months, competing with the kitties for treats!

Chris and I have opened up a can of worms, it seems, and there’s no closing it. Once our reluctant roller finally took a chance and started flipping over, it has been impossible to stop her.

Not only does she roll merrily on the floor, exploring her rapidly expanding ecosystem; she also motors around her crib like never before and cannot be trusted to stay put on a bed or, heaven forbid, a sofa. Give her a few feet of space and step back, and our little daughter gleefully tumbles about until something or someone stops her. The only thing that distracts her from flipping and flopping about is her occasional obsession with lying in a loose interpretation of the plank position, with her legs wiggling busily but (thus far) uselessly behind her.

Normally, her newfound mobility is an adorable thing, but unfortunately, one of her favorite opportunities to demonstrate her budding expertise arises at diaper-changing time. No longer do we have a baby who lies pliably on the change table whilst the hazmat team (aka Mommy) does its work. No, when it comes time to sanitize our wee biohazard’s blast zone, the little one delights in squirming and flailing and doing her very best impression of a flounder on a hook. Her insistence on flipping on her tummy is directly proportional to the severity of the diaper damage. Thus, if her Pampers and cute little velour sleeper contain a “spill” of FEMA-deserving severity, you can bet that Maddi will be twisting madly about on the change table, content only when she is lying on her front and the hazmat team is covered in, well, hazardous materials.

This is what you get when you wish for your baby to roll over like other babies. Somewhere, a mom who figured out how to neatly wipe poop off a wild, flopping baby three months ago is laughing.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In other news, Maddi has learned her very first cute baby trick. You know the kind — some babies give kisses, some slap high fives, others clap. Maddi is a waver. She doesn’t have a dainty princess wave like her cousin Emily just yet — hers is more of a full-body wave, much like a dog that wags its entire body along with its tail. We started teaching her how to wave a week or so ago when Emily did her princess wave and I suddenly realized that somehow, baby tricks (which I so anticipated before there was an actual baby to do them) had gotten lost in the shuffle of daily life.

But I am pleased to announce that, after an intensive one-week seminar in waving “hi” and “bye-bye,” Maddi’s got it all figured out and she will be delighted to show you next time she sees you.

And here’s a picture of our 30-WEEK-OLD baby!! I can’t believe she is this old. I also can’t believe she’s on her tummy and smiling.

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: