We've Been Skunked. Twice.

In the past week or two Stella has had some interactions with skunks. The first time it was bad, but I rubbed her down with some anti skunk stuff and called it good. I think she got farther away before she got sprayed.

This time she got nailed. She was dripping wet all through her chest. Of course this happens in the middle of the night. Last night, I had these weird dreams about burnt food and garbage.

Last time I got this skunk smell remover and used a wash cloth and did the best that I could. She still stunk, but not as bad as she had before. I assumed it would wear off over time.

This time, it was so bad. I did what the bottle said to do. I got her super saturated with that stuff, let it dry (sort of) and then rinsed her off. She was not happy about that at all. I don't think I've ever seen her wet, this wet, in the 9 years that I've had her. She was crying and screaming. It sounded like we were torturing her. And to her, we probably were.

I wish she was smart enough to realize that if she tangos with skunks, she might get a bath. But I'm guessing it was too far after her getting sprayed to make that bath association.

Check out how small she is all wet. She's like a completely different cat.

Grow Grow Grow

Maddie is growing up so fast!
She can roll over with some prompting. She can strongly stand on her feet. And in the past week or so she's gotten so that she can hold on to things (us, her locked stroller) and keep herself standing up. It's pretty amazing.

Her chicken wing has come back, this time she does it with her arm straight. So she ends up beating on whatever is in front of her with her flopping left arm. Usually she does this when she's drinking from her bottle. I haven't seen her do it with her left arm yet.

She still has a single night feeding, which we will begin weaning her from when we get back from our CO trip next week. Assuming that goes ok, we're going to start the process of moving her out of our bed and into her own crib in our room. I'm hoping that these changes go well and aren't too traumatic for her and/or us.

We started solid foods last week. So far she's eaten sweet potato, pear, avocado and rice cereal. She seems to be enjoying it.

She's such a happy baby. I would hate to spoil that. She smiles often and goes to sleep and takes naps relatively painlessly. She's getting so much smarter and she seems to understand so much more. And it takes quite a bit more effort to entertain her than it used to.

She babbles so much. I think she's really taken it up a notch in the past week or so. She's always been kind of vocal. I suppose some of that has to do with all of us talking to her all the time.

I think we really have done a good job with her, and that we got very lucky with our Nanny. I think that it's the combination of our good care that has gotten her to where she is now. Thank you Clelia!

Very Surprised

I'm one of those parents that think that babies understand a lot more than we give them credit for. This is why I try to keep a near constant chatter going of what we're doing where we're going, etc.

One piece of evidence that confirms my thoughts is the "legs down" of diaper changing. Pretty much from the start of doing diaper changes I would say "legs down, please" a number of times to attempt to get Maddie to straighten her legs while I finish fastening her diaper and diaper cover. I would say it while I would gently push her legs down if she didn't do it on her own. It didn't take long, maybe under a week, before she would straighten her legs and hold them like that for a minute or so when I would say "legs down, please." She might have been a month old or less when this started. I remeber being impressed at how small she was when she started doing that. What is language besides associations between sounds and meanings?

I sing the bus song with Maddie a couple times a day and move her arms with the song. ("The wheels on the bus go round and round...) She loves it! I love it! It's fun times and it makes her so excited and happy when we do it. Maddie (and probably all babies) don't have the longest attention spans. They gaze all around and turn their heads and check out their worlds. Well, yesterday I came home from work and Maddie was in her rocker. She was checking out the world, turning her head, not really paying attention to me directly and I sang and held the first note of this song. I've never seen her move so fast. Her head turned to face me and she got this huge smile; she knew exactly what was happening. It really caught me by surprise how quickly she focused on me and became so excited.

This is why I'm really loving having Maddie in my life. It's so amazing to watch her learn and be herself.

Sleep

It seems that our little munchkin has been working on sleeping through the night.

Four days ago she slept 11 hours straight, and then the past couple of nights she slept 7 or 8 hours straight. Last night was an exception; she was back to waking up twice. Once at 1:30 AM and the second time around 5 AM. But you have to take a step back to keep going forward.

I can handle waking up once. I just make sure I also go to sleep early so I can be sleeping during that longer block of time.

Also, a couple weeks ago she started really having a predictable bedtime. She goes down for the night around 7 or 8PM.

I'm looking forward to the days when she dependably will sleep through the night. Though I'm told this will disappear when she starts teething.

I also feel really fortunate that she can go to sleep pretty easily. Sometimes she'll have her "suck" on; when her sucking reflex is really strong and it's clear through attempts at feeding that she's not hungry. We'll give her a pacifier at these times in an attempt to prevent her from getting in the habit of sucking on her hands. But frequently I can put her down for the night without anything and she'll fall asleep without sucking on anything. It's pretty cool. We only put her down to sleep if she's showing signs of being tired.

Smiles and Hands

Madelyn has been finding her hands recently. She actually found them a couple weeks ago now, but has been getting really good at using them. We have this rattle that I can hold in front of her and she'll actually grab it. She's also become pretty proficient at getting her fist in her mouth.

She's also so extremely smiley. I love the huge grins she gives me, pretty much anytime I see her. She makes me smile really large too. Who could help themselves? I also love the power of suggesting that I have where I can smile large at her and she'll smile back, even if she's not in the best of moods. Though she's such a happy baby most of the time.

This picture isn't even her smiling big. This is just a casual smile. If her eyes were squinted shut, then you'd know she's smiling big.

I'm going to try harder

Using this blog, I've really wanted to write down my thoughts and experiences with Madelyn (12 weeks old yesterday!) as they were happening. But somehow I haven't found the time. It still amazes me how fast and yet also so slow time passes with a small baby. Will it be like this for the rest of my time watching her grow up?

I feel so fortunate to have Madelyn as our baby. She has the best temperament. She's mellow, smiley and sleeps well enough. I really can't imagine what I would do with a baby that cried a lot and was in general pretty fussy often. It just tears me up when she's unhappy.

I've had fussy moments with Madelyn, but I've figured out that mostly those were due to either her being way over tired, the huge amount of gas she was getting from most of the formulas that I was using, or a combination of the two. So I finally figured out a formula (a mix, really) that seems to do the trick and I'm much more aware of how much stimulation she gets.

I've also figured out that she's a "cat napper", and if I don't get her to a good nap space in the window before she shows strong signs of being tired, she won't sleep at all. So with that first yawn I give her a chance to catch one of her "cat naps." I've only seen her nap longer than about 20 minutes at a time once or twice.

I used to think it would be nice if she had longer naps during the day, but I've come to realize how fortunate I am that she sleeps well enough at night and has good sleeping skills. She's recently shown the pattern of going to sleep around 8pm and being awake for the day around 6am. And during that time she only feeds twice or once. She's able to put herself back to sleep by herself also, which is a huge skill to have. It means that when she's ready, she'll probably sleep through the night with little fuss.

We currently have family bed, which I think will become more important to me as I return to work and will no longer be with her during the day. It also makes the nighttime feedings really easy. I can't imagine having to actually drag myself out of bed for each night feeding.

Here's Madelyn taking a nap. We've decided to let her use the pacifier so that we would be able to take it away, as opposed to her getting into the habit of sucking on her hands.

5 weeks and 2 days ago you were born

I can't believe 5 weeks have passed already and I can't believe that it's only been 5 weeks!

I feel like in the past couple weeks I've finally mostly gotten the hang of this Mom thing. I feel like most of the time I can fix whatever is making Madelyn unhappy. Most of the time. And during those times when I can't, it tears me up inside.

Madelyn is usually a pretty mellow baby. She's usually happy and when she has unhappy times, they can be solved. Usually. For the past couple days she's been having a really large amount of gas. She gets really unhappy about that, to the point of scream crying. Sometimes doing bicycle movements with her legs, or massage with help. But sometimes nothing seems to help. When that's the case it's really hard to deal with. Even though I know there's nothing I can do, it still tears me up inside. It makes me crazy, really. The hormonal reaction in me when Madelyn is crying is so intense. Wow, is all I can say. I can see why some women go nuts. I've gotten pretty close myself, but only a couple times. Luckily I do have the presence of mind to walk away and calm down.

I'm completely against leaving a crying infant alone. I think that at the very least they should have human contact and comfort especially if you can't solve their problem. I also believe that it's in everybody's interest for me to walk away for a couple minutes when I get so worked up. It's the dichotomy of parenting, I suppose.