Stick that thermometer where?

There have been few times in Maddie's life when I thought that she was running a high temperature. I have read that the most accurate way to take a baby's temp is rectally, but that you can use the underarm method first as a gauge to see if you really need to do that. Luckily for me, Maddie's underarm temp has always read normal, up until now. The past few days Maddie has been running a low grade fever but I havent been too worried. She has been acting normal and has had a good appetite so I figured it was teething. But last night when my "clean everything off my plate, everytime" Maddie turned down a chance to have summer squash, strained peas and rice(yum, right?) I knew what had to be done. Her underarm temp. was reading 100 degrees so to put my mind at ease and make sure my poor baby wasnt running a 103 degree temp, off came the diaper for a more accurate read. It wasnt even that bad and it proved to actually be easier than trying to get a reading from her mouth or her underarm. The digital thermometer seemed to take the reading faster, as if even it knew that an unpleasant job had to be done in a timely fashion. Well, her temp. was still low grade at 101.5 so we gave her some baby Tylenol and put her to bed. Now today she seems to be fine. No fever and as feisty as ever. I really think she is teething and we will see some pearly whites soon.

Not the Sippie Cup!

Oh no its the dreaded sippie cup! Now that its summer time I figured my baby needs to start drinking some water and juice to keep her nice and hydrated. Everything that I have read says to give it to them in a cup. My question is how do you get them to drink from the cup? Its funny cuz this girl can pick up everything else that I dont want her to pick up and get it to her mouth such as the remote control and my cell phone but she cant manage to get the sippie cup to her mouth. And even when I help her and she manages to sip some of the juice in the cup, oh she gets a horrible look on her face like I am forcing medicine on her or something. Its just juice, doesnt every kid like juice? I will be persistent, perhaps I need to put the juice in a bottle until she learns to like it and then switch to a cup. One new experience at I time i suppose may be best.

Stockley Arts Festival

Last Saturday we went to my favorite art festival in Norfolk. It was a lovely sunny day and there were tons of people, kids and dogs out enjoying the art and live music. We learned quite early in the adventure that maneuvering a giant stroller through the crowd was quite difficult so we gave up and Daniel decided to strap Maddie to his chest in the Baby Bjorn, it was a good spot for her to see everything. She wasnt too interested in the artwork but she loved looking at all the people and she really perked up when the live music started, it was quite cute. The art was ok but yet again this year it seemed to lack in variation. I feel like I see the same stuff every year, I can close my eyes and see the same artists in the same booths in the same area of the park, each year, twice a year. It is so predictable, they really need to shake it up, at least move the people around so that I dont know exactly where the abstract expressionistic painter of boats is(right in front of the Ben and Jerrys booth) or where the female artist who uses glass mosiac and resin is(right in front of the stage every time). With that said, there were a few surprises, not very many though. One in particular had these cute mixed media pieces of rabbits and cats done in a very folk art/naive way. One painting in particular I thought would have been nice for Maddie's room but the artist wanted $450 for it, fairly priced in my opinion but still way out of my price range. I was also a bit disappointed that I didnt see any encaustic paintings. There usually is one or two artists every year but I didnt see any this time. I always look forward to the encaustics because it is a method that I always wanted to dabble with but never have. Maybe next time, or better yet maybe I should do some encaustics and I can be the one with the encaustics in the show.
Above are two pics of Maddie and Dad at the art show and below is a pic I liked from our trip to Skinny Dip, a frozen yogurt shop that makes you pay by the ounce, which we went to later that night.

Commuter Baby

Ready for work!

Last week I freelanced for my old boss so I got a feel of what it would be like to be a working mom. I have to say that I have a new found appreciation for all those working moms, and I can't even begin to imagine how the single working moms and dads out there do it! Whew! Just the act of getting out the door every morning with everything we needed was a feat! I do remember a couple mornings after dropping Maddie off at my parents house going "Oh my god! we forgot to pack diapers!" I am sure that once we got in the routine it would get easier and hopefully wouldnt take us three hours from the time we woke up in the morning to the time we clocked in at work. I will have to say that I kinda enjoyed going back to work for a week. It was fun working with Daniel and it was really nice seeing my old coworkers. I also liked designing again. I didnt realize how much I missed it until I got back into it. On the downside, it was sad dropping Maddie off everyday. I know she was in good hands with my mom but it seemed like I hardly saw her. Every night we would get home after 8'o clock, just in time to feed Maddie, give her a bath and put her to bed. There was never anytime for any of the fun stuff like tummy time, going for walks or dancing around the living room to '80s music. Going back to work for a week really made me appreciate all the time I can spend with Maddie and now I need to make sure I dont waste a minute of it! While I was at work I feel like Maddie grew way too much, I really saw a difference in her in just one week. She now wants to try to stand up all the time while you are holding her, I think its because my mom has a walker and she realized that her legs and feet can actually get her somewhere. She also began really reaching for things with both of her hands. She did that before but now she throws her whole body forward, now I have to watch out even more, I dont want her pitching forward out of my lap towards my coffee mug in the morning! Well, here are more pics of my little growing Monkey Monkers (one of the many silly little names I like to call her.)


Look how well she can sit on her own!

Awesome Mom Day

I don't think I could have asked for a better Mothers Day. Lets see there was family, chocolate, flowers, coffee, shopping, strawberry picking, Gosport Art Festival, a blacksmithing demonstration, hamburgers and the perfect weather to boot. Oh its great being a mom! Here are a few pics of Madeline at the strawberry field. It was just so nice to be out in the country enjoying some sunshine. Daniel and I didnt do much picking but my three nieces sure did, if my memory serves me correctly I think they picked over 20 pounds! Maybe next year Maddie will pick her fair share. Oh and I almost forgot, Maddie decided that Mothers Day would be a good day to say her first word, of course it wasnt Momma it was Dada. She must have said it a hundred times while we were picking strawberries. I dont think she has grasped exactly what the word means but she thinks she is being quite clever imitating us, and of course I think she is quite clever too.