Summertime Maddie

The weather has been so nice lately I have been trying to get Maddie outside each and everyday. SInce I still don't have a car, its just been around the house and neighborhood. Here is a picture of Maddie in her summer hat and pajamas while we were sitting in the backyard. I decided to give the sad cactuses (cacti?) that usually reside in my kitchen some fresh air and sunshine too so I took a few pics of those too.

A Spoonful for Maddie!

This week Maddie and I adventured into the world of baby food, or at least unappetizing pasty white stuff that leaves quite a sticky mess and that Maddie absolutely loves!. I am not really certain why though, it has to be the novelty of eating off the spoon and the new sensation in her mouth because organic rice cereal is not very good, of course I had to try it and I have to say I wouldnt be very excited to eat it. As for Maddie, she can't get enough of it! After the first bite she was laughing and leaning forward anticipating each bite. Sometimes if I took too long to give her more, she would do this little whiny pout for it, it was so cute! I was a little reluctant to feed her this early, somethings I have read had discouraged feeding the baby too soon due to allergies and the effect that it might have on her metabolism, so I was trying to hold off until she was six months old. lately though, she had been taking quite an interest in watching us eat and her pediatrician seemed to think that anytime after 4 months was ok, so I decided to see if she would take to the food and she did. The weird thing is that ever since I have been feeding her the rice cereal, her appetite has been insatiable, she has been eating more formula than ever. I thought it would have an opposite effect. Perhaps she is getting her six month growth spurt early. I am a bit worried about this next growth spurt, she is already as big, if not bigger than the neighbor's seven month old, oh well, I love my little bean stalk even we have to get out a second mortgage just to feed her.

Rollover Maddie!

This weekend Maddie rolled over all by herself for the first time. Yeah! Our little girl is on the move now. I have been trying to get her to rollover for awhile now, the internet says they usually roll from their fronts to their backs first so thats what I have been trying to get her to do, but she surprised me and instead rolled from her back onto her stomach first. Her first roll was Sunday morning, while Daniel and I were still in bed. We were both surprised to look in her crib that morning and find her on her tummy. She didn't do it again all day on Sunday, but this morning she demonstrated her little move to me a few times. I feel really nervous, now we are going to have to make sure she doesnt roll off the couch or under the coffee table.

Outdoor Spring Cleaning

Daniel in the jungle that once was a garden. The neighbor's bamboo has crept under the fence and is infesting our yard. Bamboo is very persistent, once you see one, there are a hundred more you don't see about to pop up. All of it had to go.

Here are some photos from our weekend of outdoor Spring cleaning. Despite Daniel being sickly, we rented a dumpster, sent Maddie to stay the day with my sister and got cleaning! Last Fall, I was on pregnancy bed rest and poor Daniel had quite a bit on his plate so needless to say we were quite negligent when it came to the yard. I am embarrassed to admit that we still had all the leaves from last Fall on the ground waiting to be raked. We also had a small tree/shrub that Daniel had cut down and a huge limb from the last hurricane that had to go and of course the garage was in desperate need of clearing out. So here are a couple pics from that weekend. Our backyard is a complete disaster. I remember viewing the house before we bought it and thinking how sad the backyard looked, I can't believe that in the 2 years we have owned this home that we have managed to make it look worse. We have big plans for the yard on paper but all of it cost money. I would just love some green back there, even if it was just weeds but nothing seems to grow in the sandy soil in full shade. We have some really ugly, sad looking Liriope growing that I really want to dig up but I cant bare the thought of getting rid of the only thing green back there even if it is really ugly. Well I would have loved to have before and after pic but the after pics look as bad as the before.
Daniel was on his own in the garage, there were way too many spiders in there. Spiders don't bother me too much but Daniel claims there are Black Widows in there and I am afraid of anything poisonous!

A cure for the Common Cold?

Yuck, yuck, yuck, I hate being sick! Last week it was Daniel, this week its me. I just hope next week its not Maddie. I don't see how she couldnt get it, I have coughed, sneezed and snotted repeatedly on that poor girl. I tried really hard not too, but its difficult when I am holding her 90% of every day. The worst part is that every time I rock her to sleep in my arms, a sneeze always starts to fester. I have had too squash so many sneezes this week, I feel like my eyes are going to pop out. For Maddie's sake I hope its allergies and not a cold, for my sake I am hoping its a cold. I hate the idea of allergies, I mean come on, how absurd would it be to be allergic to the beautiful Spring and its wonderful bounty of pollen laiden flowers, that would just be unbearable. Well, this cold has made me dig through my cupboard in search of something soothing to drink and I found this box of green tea that I bought last year when I went to an Asian market on a desperate unfruitful hunt for Matcha, and felt obligated to buy something. I always do that, go into small independently owned stores and feel really bad walking out without buying anything. I know it sounds silly but I think it comes from working for small retail businesses and being desperate for a sale, its like I feel sorry for the poor salesperson. Anyway, I think that the Matcha trend hasnt made it to the backwoods of Hampton Roads, perhaps the next time I am on the West Coast I will try to find some. Well, I dont know what the Matcha would have tasted like but I do know that this green tea had the vague flavor of fish, which is exactly what the Asian Market that I got it from smelled like, I dont know if that is coincidence or not, but green tea is suppose to be really good for you so...Down the Hatch!

Our baby is 5 months old!

This weekend little Maddie turned 5 months old. Oh its been a big month for our little girl, she is changing so much! First off, towards the end of last month all of her hair fell out in clumps, I was quite worried she was going to be a baldy like I was as a baby but now it is starting to growing back and it sticks up quite adorably at the top of her head. Lets see, this month she also learned a few things. She learned that sitting up is much better than lying down, although she still needs us to support her or else she just teeters over. She also learned that her feet are just as cool as her hands and just as tasty. She loves to grab them and try to put them into her mouth. Once she learned to grab her feet, rolling from side to side just came naturally after that, although she mainly rolls to the right, she hasn't quite gotten down rolling to the left or rolling completely over. I am sure that is just all in good time, I am trying to slowly prepare myself for the idea that my baby will be very mobile soon, its exciting but kinda scary, there are just too many things she can get into! I have gotten quite accustomed to my baby always being where I put her last, I dont like the idea that she will be able to get up and move on her own. She has already learned that if she arches her back enough she can get out of any situation including but not limited too: my lap, my arms, her car seat, the changing station, her stroller...I know I need to get used to this one because its only going to get worse, I already call her my little escape artist.


Here she is with a Camillia bloom from our backyard in the little bit of hair that she has.


Here she is kicking her jungle gym, I have been trying to get her to touch them with her hands but she prefers to use her feet.



Here she is hanging out in the kitchen in a clothes basket eating her hands.

It was only an hour!

Once again its daylight savings time. I like that it gets darker later but for the most part, Daylight Savings Time is an event that usually goes unnoticed by me, that was until this year. This year is Maddie's first experience with DLS and I think she is having a hard time adjusting. This morning she didnt wake up at her usual 7:30, nope she didnt even make it 8:30. She decided to wake her sleepy head at 10am. Wow! It was really nice sleeping in for a change although I had to peek in on her to make sure she was ok. So our day was quite off today all the way up until her bedtime. She couldnt decide if she was sleepy at 9, 10 or 11pm. She took little 10 minute naps at each hour until finally at 11 she fell asleep. This behavior was quite out of the norm so I am blaming it on Daylight Savings Time. We will see if she "adjusts" properly tomorrow:) Daniel took the above picture of her during tummy time, she is finally starting to enjoy tummy time a bit more.

not so eggcellent

I am yet again on a low carb diet and I am dragging Daniel with me. I know, I know, fad diets are not the way to properly lose weight but for some reason low carb has always been an easy, quick way to shed a few pounds and I am desperate to at least get back down to my pre-baby weight. One of the staples of the diet is an egg for breakfast, hard boiled is the easiest to eat while you are holding a 16 pound baby in one hand. Now I have never proclaimed myself as great in the kitchen or anything but I always thought that I could execute an easy task such as hard boiling an egg without any problems. But it seems I am wrong. You would think that hard boiling eggs wouldnt be that difficult, take a pan, put some eggs in it and boil, right? Yeah thats what I thought. But the last time I cooked the eggs, I forgot about them on the stove because I was busy with Maddie and I must have cooked them so long that the shells melted to them or something. They were absolutely impossible to peel! I had no idea how frustrating it is to peel an egg one millimeter sections at a time. So this time I put the eggs on the stove and stayed in the kitchen and vigilantly watched them come to a boil, I was planning on timing them perfectly. It got pretty boring, so I went into the living room for just a minute to look up something on the internet and what do you think happened? I completely forgot the eggs again. Shoot!
Anyway I hope they came out ok, I guess I will find out in the morning. Well if they dont peel this time, at least they made for a neat photo.