6 months

at this point six months ago we were at the birth center just starting to have contractions. it's really weird to think back to that time. it feels like a lifetime ago and at the same time not. maizie has changed so much and is able to do so much it's crazy!! i miss how she was, but love who she is becoming. every day she makes me laugh, and every day she learns something new. this last month has been a crazy month for her. here are a few of the things she is doing now:

maizie was army crawling around labor day and by the end of that week was really crawling. still a little wobbly but she was getting it and now has it down.

along with the crawling she started pulling and pushing herself up on things. she has had a few bumps on the head so far, but nothing too terrible.

she is tough. when she gets hurt she sort of fusses for a minute and then wants to get back to whatever she was doing.

maizie is finally sitting on her own on the floor. for a while she would lay on her side and play with toys but yesterday she pushed herself up and sat playing with her toys. now thats all she wants to do.

she is teething like crazy. she has been teething since she was like 2 months old, but now there is some hope on the horizon. there are a few minuscule points breaking through her gums so i sincerely hope her teeth come in now.

maizie is getting used to sleeping in her own bed...sort of. we got her a crib because she was too big for the cradle and i didnt like leaving her in our bed by herself. she likes the crib but still wont sleep through the night in it.

she pulls this funny face a lot where she tucks her bottom lip in her mouth and just sucks on it:



maizie is a talker! she loves to join in conversations or just have someone listen to her. she has been saying "dada"...i'm not gonna lie it makes me jealous and we have had many coaching sessions trying to get her to say "mama" but she just looks at me like i am crazy. someday she will get it.



when she eats she almost always points her index finger, jams it into the tabletop, and wobbles her hand back and forth. it's almost like she is demanding something be put "right here".

5 months

a sad confession: i keep forgetting to post this. part 2 of the confession...i even wrote this a week early so i wouldn't forget. that didnt work too well. so better late than never here is maizie's 5 month up date...a week late.

today maizie is 5 months old! i know i have said this before but the time is going by way too fast!!

maizie has found her feet. it doesnt matter where she is; she is almost always holding onto her toes, especially if i put socks on her. i am tempted to paint her toenails to see what she does. she has also become more interested in her hands. it's really sweet. one night after she was done feeding, she was laying on my lap, holding her hands up and turning them over and over, staring at them.

she likes to play peek-a-boo. she really likes it when you play with a blanket and kind of drag it over her.

maizie is becoming mobile. if you lay her on a blanket for some tummy time she will be off of it in five minutes or less. i consider this really good for a kid that doesnt realize that rolling more than once in the same direction would be faster than dragging herself inch by inch...if you dont tell her, i wont.

maizie loves the color orange. it's really awesome to see that she has a favorite color already. any toy with orange on it is bound to get a spit bath when she is around.

she likes to sit at the table with us in her very own chair. adams parents have a chair that hooks onto the table so she is right at our level. we give her toys and she will sit there for a long time scattering them and yelling at them. it makes me think of a little dictator and their army pieces planning strategies and then losing their temper and shoving them all to the floor.

maizie is getting pretty good at sitting up. she still tips but is going for longer amounts of time without help.

well that was as far as i got and planned to add more from the week leading up to her 5 months mark, so in that week she realized she could go more places with rolling. she also discovered pushing on her hands and knees...no not crawling, it's more belly flopping as she doesnt move her hands at the same time that she pushes with her knees. it wont be too long and she will get it down.

maizie also loves to eat peaches. every mouthful she has a big "mmmm...mmmm...mmm" to go with it.

maizie makes us laugh and brightens our lives, we are so grateful to be her parents!

4 months

maizie turned 4 months old on last tuesday. just one day after her tumble off of my lap. she had a follow up/4 month checkup on wednesday. she has successfully beaten everybody her age at being tall and weighs in at 18.3 pounds. she is officially off the charts in both categories. the doctor kept saying that if she was shorter and weighed the same then he would worry but that she is perfectly proportioned. this makes me happy, as we dont want any disproportioned kids in our house ;)

maizie might be one of the happiest kids i have ever met! she always has a huge smile on her face that makes everyone she meets light up.

she has recently taken to pulling my earrings out of my ears. not just the dangling ones; studs too. thankfully it doesnt hurt and she hasnt ripped my earlobes. along with the pulling of earrings, maizie likes to claw people, specifically their faces. i am currently sporting a red streak down my cheek from a temper tantrum in the doctor's office.

i am currently trying to teach her what "soft" means. maizie can be a rough little kid. i dont think that she is aware of how strong she actually is, especially when she is pulling you in for a kiss.

maizie is starting to sleep in her bed...sort of. she will lay in there for a while and then cry to be out. we were going to have her in there all night last night but i couldnt do it. it made my heart ache to not have her with us. so this process is going to be a long one, and it will mostly be because of me.

maizie has found her toes! its awesome when we put socks on her. through out the day she pulls at the toes of the socks so they are barely staying on her feet.

she is starting to last a little longer at church. its nice to be able to stay and hear most of what is being said.

gravity

this morning was interesting. at some point during the night, maizie woke up wanting to eat. seeing that she cant manage to eat while laying down, i have to get into the rocking chair to feed her. i dont really remember getting up or getting to the chair, but i did. then somewhere along the line, i fell to sleep and maizie continued eating and then fell to sleep. the next thing i know, i feel her sliding over the side of my lap and onto the floor headfirst! on the way down, she managed to flip a little, so her forehead hit the ground. i scooped her up as fast as i could and realized that no, that is not her head that i was trying to comfort, but her bum. as soon as i had her right side up, i flipped on the lights and woke adam up. this was at about 4:15 or so. i was totally freaked out and trying to explain to my bleary-eyed husband what happened while trying to not cry, and to get maizie to not cry. my poor baby! she was sobbing, and any time we touched her head, she would cry harder. we eventually got her calmed down enough to nurse a little. while she was nursing, we were trying to decide if we should take her to the emergency room or not. by the time we finally decided to go, maizie was asleep. that kind of made me nervous because with head injuries that is not a good sign. she was also puking a bit more than what i think is normal for her...another bad sign.

we got to the hospital and they took us right back. i guess that is the benefit of a hospital in a very small town. they were very nice, and very fast. maizie was awake again and very flirty with the intake nurses. they weighed her, took her temperature (rectally; talk about adding insult to injury), and took us back into the room where we waited for the doctor. we didnt have to wait more than 10 minutes and the doctor was there. he did a quick exam looking in her eyes for both pupil dilation and tracking, and then checked her reflexes and had her stand for a little while. after that, he said that he didnt think there was anything wrong but to keep an eye on her and if she acted out of her normal attitude or if there was any swelling or bleeding from the nose or ears to bring her in right away. he also said that if we wanted a cat scan, he would order one, but that if it was his child that he wouldnt worry about it, especially since there is a really high chance to cause brain cancer on someone so young. so we opted to not get a scan and brought maizie home.

after we got home, we all slept until about 10. today maizie stayed home with adam while i went to work. she was normal and played and slept and ate, which makes me feel so much better and not so worried.

we told a few people what happened and they all told us their horror stories of when they dropped their babies. it makes me feel a little better knowing that i am not the only one, but still so bad because i feel like it could have been prevented somehow. i am just grateful that maizie is ok.

Maizie's First Fourth of July

Last week was the Fourth of July. Not just any Fourth of July, though; it was Maizie's first Fourth of July! It was a Sunday, so we went to church for the first part of the day. I'm the ward clerk, so I usually go to church three hours before it starts so that I can attend the leadership meetings. However, two of the members of the bishopric were out of town, so we didn't have those meetings on the Fourth of July. It was pretty nice to be able to sleep in!

After church, Emily put the drawer liners in Maizie's dresser while Maizie and I slept. I slept for quite a long time, as I usually do on Sundays. Eventually I woke up and Emily and I did a little cleaning. Before too long, Emily's parents arrived. We talked for a little while and then went to the cemetery in Mount Angel to have dinner and watch the fireworks. I know that sounds like a super weird thing to do at a cemetery, but it has a big open field that's away from the gravesites, so it's not weird. Before we got everything all set up for dinner, I took some pictures of Maizie in her stroller. I really like these two:





For dinner we had chicken, potato salad, coleslaw, rolls, pickles, cheese, grapes, cherries, and probably other stuff I'm not thinking of. For dessert we had apple pie! After that, we talked for a while. Eventually Scott and Cody joined us. Scott and I played catch while we were waiting for the fireworks to start. As the time drew nearer, more and more people started to show up in the field. Emily and I think that there were probably about 20 little clusters of people scattered throughout the field, which was more than last year.

At around 10:00, the fireworks started. We had a great view of them, just like last year. They were beautiful, too. Emily and I were wondering how Maizie would respond to them. She actually did extremely well. For the first part, she just sat there, mesmerized. It was really cool to see. I got a video of it, but it's really dark, so I won't post it. After a while, Maizie started fussing, but it was just because she was tired; the fireworks didn't bother her at all.

The fireworks lasted for probably 20 minutes or so. After that, we went home and went to bed. So there you have it, Maizie's first Fourth of July. It went quite well!

maizie's dresser, and things that maizie is doing

we had been looking for a dresser for maizie for a long time. we finally found one on craigslist a couple of months ago. and i finally got around to painting it a couple of weeks ago. i decided that i wanted the body of it to be a dark purple, and the drawers to be hot pink. i also bought some new hardware for the drawers. on the 26th of june i finally got tired of it just sitting around waiting to be painted. i had adam drag the dresser out to the garage and we got started. it was pretty hot that day so it made it feel like it was taking forever. the purple only took 2 coats of paint but the drawers took 5!! yes, 5 coats. which i believe is lame, but worth the effort so i will stop complaining. here are the before and after pictures:







maizie has learned to roll over! i have to admit that i was getting a little worried because before this week she would roll just to either of her sides, sometimes going all the way over, most of the time not. i began to think that she didnt spend enough time on the floor and that she would never learn because maizie would rather have you hold her and cart her from place to place than have to learn to do it on her own. but this week she has surprised me. i had almost all of the week off from work so we could go camping with adam's family, and even though there were plenty of hands ready and willing to hold her, she was getting a lot of tummy time and now is really good at rolling over. she still prefers to be held like 95% of the time. maizie hasnt figured out that she can "travel" by rolling, which is something i am grateful for. she will get onto her tummy and turn around in a circle on her belly and then start to whine until someone rescues her. sometimes she will start to get her knees under her and try to scoot. i think it would work but her face keeps getting in the way and ground into the floor. along with the rolling over came a "u" shaped bald spot that goes around her head from temple to temple. i think we need to get lots of headbands and flowers for her.

here is a video adam recorded of maizie rolling over today:



maizie is now in a size 3 diaper and, incredibly, 9-12 month clothes!! but i think she has reached a bit of a plateau with her weight; she has been 17 1/2 pounds for a couple of weeks now.

she has learned how to give kisses! i love them. they are some of the sweetest kisses ever! maizie will put both of her hands on my cheeks or in my hair and pull me right in for a big wet one:



when she was first learning how to kiss she gave lots and lots of them, but now she is more stingy with them. i guess thats a good thing; i dont want her to kiss just anybody. she also gives hugs. and i love when i pick her up from daycare that i always get a huge squeeze from her.

maizie likes to flirt. i think this is why strangers feel like its ok to touch her...which it's not. most of all i think she likes to flirt with her dad. she will sit and stare at him and talk and try to get his attention. she works really hard to get him to look at her sometimes and she is patient, she wont give up until he smiles at her and talks for a bit.

maizie has started reaching. it's really cute to see her do it. sometimes she lunges for people, but other times she just stretches out her arms. i LOVE it! it's the best feeling when she is going for you, and then you get a hug to go with it.

3 months 7 days

ok i know i am a little late with this, but better late than never...right? maizie is over three months old!! i cant believe how the time has flown. maizie is getting so big already, she has definitely lost her newborn look. while i am happy that she is growing and thriving, it does make me sad that she didnt stay smaller a little longer. she is now over 16 pounds, more than double her birth weight. i thought we would be hitting that closer to six months.

maizie loves, loves, loves jumping! a friend of mine gave us a jumparoo, which is just like the jumping seats you can hang in the doorway but is on its own frame. she figured it out pretty quick. it makes noise when she jumps so she jumps more when she hears the songs it plays. there are also some spinning toys on there that she has gotten good at using:



she has gotten a little more coordinated with holding toys and getting them to her mouth. this is something that i am grateful for, and i am sure she is too, because she is teething so much. speaking of which, i am pretty sure that her chest is never dry because she drools so much. along with the drool has come bubbles. maizie figured out how to make spit bubbles. its pretty funny to watch her do. sometimes she gets a fairly big one and lets it sit on her tongue for a long time.

she is a very vocal baby and likes to talk back to you when you talk to her. she will also answer yes and no questions with uh huh and uh uh. adam thinks it's a coincidence but it happens too often to be a coincidence so i am sure she understands everything and is trying very hard to talk to us.

maizie is close to rolling over. she gets on one side or the other and then gets stuck. its pretty cute. she is also trying to scoot a little. she can get her knees under her so her butt is really high and her face is being ground into the floor as she pushes, but she is able to get around quite a bit like that.

as we were sitting at the dinner table on thursday night, maizie decided that she was hungry so she started pulling the place mat with my bowl on it towards her. i thought that she was just wanting to play with it, so i gave her the mat and kept the bowl. a few minutes later she had my bowl in her hands. that night, we decided to give her her first banana. she liked it well enough but wasnt too excited, so we got some applesauce which she seems to like better. today if i let too much time in between, spoonfuls she would cry.

with a little help, maizie can pull herself into a standing position. a couple of weeks ago, after changing her diaper, i was helping her stand and she actually "walked" up onto my leg. i put the quotes because had i not been holding her under her arms, it wouldnt have happened. but she was alternating her legs on her own and very deliberately. i couldnt believe it, so i set her down and tried it again and she did it again. i think we are in for an early walker.

maizie is becoming a pro at hair-pulling. she especially likes grabbing the hair at the back of my neck. and when shes really ticked off she likes to claw my face, so we keep her nails short. i feel sorry for anybody she gets in a fight with.

maizie is an awesome little girl with lots of smiles and plenty of spunk. i am excited to see her grow more and to see more of her personality.