The Lily Pad

My baby girl is growing so fast! I spent a good chunk of today looking back on her baby pictures while she stood(!) at her play table babbling and singing along with the music. Then she crawled over to me, pulled up on my knees and licked my leg as a cheerio fell out of one of her fat rolls. It's such a fun and exciting time, but it sure doesn't feel like 9 months have past. Just in the past week I feel like she has grown so much. She has 3 and a half teeth now, is pulling up on EVERYTHING because sitting is for the weak apparently...although she still doesn't crawl on her hands and knees, but prefers a commando type crawl that would put seasoned Marines to shame. She loves cheerios and graham crackers and pitches a fit when I try to feed her anything...of course she won't eat anything with any type of soft texture on her own because smooshing it in to the tray and in her hair is so much more fun. She sleeps through the night and doesn't rely on me as much to p...

Just recently Madelyn has turned into a 13 year old stuck in an 8 month old body. I know that she knows what she is doing, but I'm not sure what consequences she would understand at this age so I just look at her in disbelief. Last week she pitched a fit over me taking my water bottle away from her. It wasn't that she couldn't play with it, I just usually drink out of it, you know, that being it's purpose and all. She screamed for 10 minutes in the car until I offered it as a soothing toy. At this point I thought she was tired or didn't want to be in the car. When we reached our destination I took it from her again as we got out of the car and more crying ensued. I tried to nurse her, thinking she might want a little milk or comfort or something because she is not a fussy baby at all. She latched on and then proceeded to glare at me without drinking. We had a straight-up stare down and when it was all said and done I emerged victorious, the baby left the confrontati...

A couple months ago I did a real time blog of my feelings as I allowed my daughter to cry herself to sleep. Shortly after that post she got a really nasty cold and I went back to putting her to sleep myself. She was sleeping well enough until about 3 weeks ago when she started waking every hour or two crying and me having to put her to sleep or bring her to bed with us. 2 weeks ago I started letting her cry herself to sleep again, except this time it was so much less painful. She cried for 15 minutes and was out. Within a week she was putting herself to sleep within 30 minutes and sleeping all night. From this I have learned to listen to my daughter and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. As soon as our routine stopped working and we tried something new it worked beautifully without force, without pain, and without any tears from mommy. *Warning, I am about to have a strong opinion. Stop reading if you don't like my opinion.* I don't understand how Moms can let their ...