Our latest fun

Let's see. . . what happened in this past week . . . Well, last weekend Jessi had a weekend playdate with Zeb, her half brother. He came home with me on Saturday and stayed until Monday. Jeremy and I both love Zeb. He's the greatest, sweetest dog. And as it turns out, funny too! Zeb is addicted to playing with frisbees and balls. Unfortunately for him he had his dew claws removed and so he was on restricted play which drove him nuts. He found a baseball and constantly wanted to play fetch but neither Jeremy nor I would do it very often. So he just took the ball to his next option, Maddox. He'd drop the ball by her bottom and watch it very carefully for it to go flying. And when it wouldn't he come closer and nudge the ball closer to Maddox's arm and then nudge her bottom a bit like he was reminding her to throw the ball. It was cute. But it didn't work.

Then the dogs would do their wrestling/playing rough thing and she would sit on the arm of the chair and watch very intently. But the funny thing was that she thought it was hilarious. She kept laughing at them.! The more rough they got the funnier she thought it was! Of course we didn't catch that really . . . just watching here . . .

Maddox is so lazy with sitting upright. She would prefer that position now but won't hold herself up even if she has something to balance her. She slowly leans foward until she's eventually laying on her own legs. I'll hold her fingers to the side in the hopes that she'll do a little work and she'll lean forward anyway. So we went across the street to borrow Jennifer's Bumbo (check it out before we spent our own money). She's still lazy but at least the center piece holds her up some. And she doesn't sit in it long before crying. In this picture we put her in front of the tv so she'd be forced to look way up high and lean back some. The next night I turned on 102 Jamz (hip hop) and Jeremy danced for her for about half an hour. I have video of that I'll have to post next week. Still can't decide if we're going to purchase our own Bumbo.

We gave her rice cereal for the first time a few nights ago. The first night she must have been starving because she was great at it and swallowed almost all of it and kept opening for more and I thought "she's a genius!" The next two nights she was a normal first foods baby with the whole tongue thing and eating only about half of it. But she's enjoying it anyway. We've been doing it at night because that's just one less thing to get done in the morning. Especially now that I have to pump in the morning too for milk for the cereal. Eventually we'll add breakfast too.

And here's an example of me being a bad mom . . . I just turned the tv on for Maddox. She was napping with me and I tried to put her down so I could come do this and she wouldn't have it. Mommy must hold her, now. I tried loving on her a bit on the couch to help her fall back asleep and she wouldn't do it and kept crying so I gave up and turned the tv on and she watched it a bit and fell back asleep. Hey, I got quiet didn't I? She's been really grumpy today because she woke up at 4am and thought that was a good time to stay awake and cry about it. So we were awake about an hour before I finally let her come to bed with me. But tonight, if she does it again, she's crying. I don't have to work tomorrow.

And lastly, I got out this blanket for tummy time last night. Mom said she made it for me when I was a baby. It gives her lots of bright colors to look at while on her tummy which she still doesn't love. She's a little more tolerant of it, but not great.

Oh yeah, she rolled all the way over today from back to tummy on accident and hated it. She's always really close to doing it because she drops her paci and rolls way over trying to get it back with her mouth. I guess this morning she finally flopped over to her tummy while trying to reach it but she was screaming about it because her arm was stuck under her. I think she's just like her Mom and doesn't really like to do anything physical that requires effort. Like rolling over and sitting upright. We're lazy together. But I have gone wogging and done lunges and squats all week! I remembered I have to wear a swimming suit in a couple of weeks.

Oh, I remembered I took video on my normal camera too. So it's not great quality but it's here and my video camera isn't. But by the time I did this she was sort of tired of the whole dancing thing.

Father's Day Camping

We went camping in SC last weekend at King's Mountain State Park. This is what we do annually for my birthday, it just happened to fall on Father's Day this year too. Well, I guess it did last year too (we were in Charleston camping) but J wasn't a father yet. Well, he sort of was I guess . . . So here's Miss Maddox in the tent on our bed. She slept in her basinette the second night. The first night she was too cold and in a new place and ended up sleeping with me. But she napped in the tent just fine on our bed.

There was a living history farm at the park so we headed over there. Maddox got her first experience of feeding animals. She didn't care one way or the other, she just watched.

She got her own little camping or beach chair at one of my baby showers. She liked to sit and watch the flames, or especially watch Daddy try to cook dinner over the fire. I pretty much took it easy the whole weekend since I was supposed to be "recovering" and let Jeremy do most of the work. It made for a nice weekend for me!

The next day we drove over to King's Mountain National Park where Jeremy and I tried REALLY HARD to care about history. We tried so hard that we had to sit in the car for 10 minutes trying to figure out what war we were about to learn about and why the Revolutionary War was still being fought 4 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed. There was a 1.5 mile path around this mountain (what normal people would call a hill) and we stopped to read every sign about the battle fought here. Maddox rode along in her new PINK stroller. (Had to get a pink umbrella stroller to counteract the blue one Jeremy made me buy before she was born.) Her thing to do now is to stick one or both legs straight up in the air like this. She does it when she's laying on her back too and looks like she's playing dead.

Teeny tiny J, Maddox, and Jessi by this monument for those who lost their lives in the battle.

A cute Daddy spending Father's Day with his cute little girl. She enjoyed laying on this blanket looking up at the trees. I was a little nervous about the hawks whose nest was a few yards away though. She's tiny . . . she might look like food to them . . . A not so cute mommy cuddling with her girl by the fire. She fell asleep watching it that night.

What a Birthday Week!

My birthday was this past Thursday, the 12th . . . I turned 31! But geesh, I think I got more than I asked for!

I started out the week on Monday night with some severe abdominal pain. Almost as severe as contractions but they were just different. I even called Dad in the middle of the night to ask for advice and we ended up going to the emergency room about 2 am. I won't give you all the measly details of how I was throwing up, going numb (hyperventilating as it turns out), and in and out of consciousness before they finally let me back. To make a long story short I had my appendix out Tuesday morning! To answer the most common question I breastfed Maddox up until my surgery and she was just overly sleepy due to the pain meds I was on. Jeremy fed her the frozen breastmilk we had the rest of that day while I pumped and dumped and then I went back to feeding her Wednesday. She was VERY popular at the hospital. First thing I heard when I went into surgery was "I heard you had the CUTEST baby here!" Word got around. The tummy picture is about 3 days after surgery. Yes, I still have baby fat to lose but not that much. My belly got swollen and it made me look like I was about 5 months pregnant again.

I got discharged from the hospital on Wednesday and like I said Thursday was my birthday. I got to sit around the house and play with Maddox while Jeremy worked in the yard and cleaned. We went out for dinner and then to a park where the community band was playing. It was a nice night to sit outside and listen to music. Jeremy had made a cake for when we got home. Maddox helped me blow out the candles and thought the whole thing was very strange I think. I chose this picture for the sake of Suzy . . . remember when . . .???

On FridayMaddox had her4 month check-up. All was well with her and she got a couple shots and did fine. Her head and weight are still in the 50th%. She weights 13 lbs 9 oz. Her length was 26.5 inches, in the 97th%. Length wise she can wear a 6 month dress. She has a 3 month shirt that's now a midriff shirt. The doctor gave the okay to start rice cereal and water. Here she is, graduated to her high chair, with some water she has no idea what to do with. I think I'll wait a little bit on the cereal though. A couple more weeks maybe? We'll see. I've got restock the milk supply anyway after the hospital stay.

I'll update you on our camping trip tomorrow. Maddox has had it with the computer for now and I've got to get the kids ready for VBS. Later!

New Camera

We got a new camera last weekend. It's a Sony this time. Not that the Canon wasn't good. It was . . . until I dropped it down the stairs. And even after that it was good for another year. But that's when the trouble started. The sony is cool and it's a sub-compact so it's really thin and light.

We'll start with some action shots of Jessi. She has finally caught on to catching a frisbee in mid-air. I couldn't catch that on camera this day though. There are now 4 frisbees in our back yard and 4 balls. Dad, yesterday I found the exact frisbee that you let Jessi play tug of war with and take a bite out of at Dick's sporting goods and bought her a new one. Of course, after I bought her another one that was $13 that she'll fetch but won't catch.

The camera has this smile feature that can detect a smile and automatically take up to 6 pictures. You just set it on the happy face, push the shutter button and point it at the person or group of people. It puts a square around their face or the face you want out of the group and waits for their smile to reach a certain point on the detection scale and clicks by itself! You can set it on different levels of sensitivity. It's great for Maddox because I can just hold the camera at her and then concentrate on trying to get her to smile and the camera does the rest. We have the sensitivity set on very high since she doesn't have teeth and it's harder to detect a baby's smile if they're not giving you a big one. We had lots of fun playing with this feature. Tons of pics of me, Jeremy, and Maddox. We even tried Jessi but apparently it doesn't detect a dog. These are just a few that we took on that setting. I could literally post at least 50! And of course my favorite! The camera detected THIS as a smile! I feel like you might catch a lot more opportunities that normally you might miss.

Also notice in the previous picture her left hand. She's started reaching out and holding things! Unfortunately, the only thing she's REALLY good at grabbing is the pacifier out of her mouth, which, in turn, makes her mad so I stick it back in. She pulls it back out and gets mad again. She was very tired at the mall yesterday and wouldn't nap and kept pulling her pacifier out so I tried covering her hands with a burp cloth to keep them away. That didn't work. She just pulled the cloth off, grabbed the pacy and then kept crying. After about 40 minutes of trying to shop like this I finally nursed her to sleep and kept shopping.
She spent about 20 minutes last night practicing with her hand on a plastic electronic book my cousin Beth gave her. The only page she likes is the one with Twinkle Twinkle little Star and it has a star that you can move up and down on it. It's also the easiest page for her right now. Again, with only her left hand. She uses that one about 95% of the time. I know it's a little early to tell but does this mean we have a left handed child?