7 month old Maddy

Oh my, I am not doing too well with the Maddy updates am I? Two weeks late for this one as well, but I promise, I have an excuse!!!

You may have read in my last post that our adorable boy was under the weather. We thought he was getting better, but then he got worse again and was falling asleep on the couch, and lucky Andrew got a rare afternoon with him snuggled up on his lap at the computer for a few hours while Austy lay there sleeping as he used to do as a baby. It turned out the poor kid had developed a chest infection, and I had too, having caught his bug off him and having "severe asthma" while I am breastfeeding (something to do with the hormones) it quickly developed into an infection. Just as we were both at our worst and awaiting the doctors appointment (it seems so hard to get in to see a GP these days, and especially with it being winter ad all manner of colds and flus going around), I was feeling rather exhausted one night when Maddy awoke quite upset and burning up. We thought perhaps she had the same bug that gave Austy and I our chest infections as that's how ours started, but when I managed to squeeze her into our appointment with the doctor the next day (after we had several failed attempts to keep panadol in her which we promised her we would never do to her again!) we discovered she had quite a nasty ear infection. It took two weeks to clear up, with some antibiotics, an just as I ditched the bottle, the temp came back this weekend. She was liek a glow worm, you know those cuddly toys that you squeeze and their head lights up? Yep, that was her, poor chicken. Not even teh dymadon that had worked miracles withher fever before, could bring the temp down so off to the GP again. We were told it is just viral and tehy took a wee sample to test to make sure as she was also starting to break out in a horrid rash, that is now blothcy all over her very puffy eyes and nose and can be seen under her fine blonde hair. She can't keep food down so has gone back to just breastmilk for a couple of days and is super clingy and not sleeping well at all. It's not nice to have a sick baby, she never cries normally, so to see her this upset is heartbreaking and Ireally don't quite know what to do with her twhen not even an offering of her favourite boobie juice will calm her down. It took ages to get her to sleep tonight despite her rubbing her eyes all afternoon. I just want her to get better again quickly and I think we've had our fair share of lurgies!

So that's why there hasn't been a 7 month update until now.

Weight: 9.3kg
Length ??
Teeth: 4 - two bootom ones and two "vampire fangs" (no top middle ones yet!)
Mobillity: Launching to tummy from a sitting position to reach things

Dear Madelyn, at 7 months you sit up sooooo well, you have a beautiful posture and love to be on your bottom 99% of your wake time. You are starting to want to move as you have discovered that not everything will automatically be handed to you by your big brother, and quite often he will play with his toys just out of reach and if you do manage to launch yourself forward from sitting to your tummy and grab something of his, he quickly removes it from your grasp. This results in you pushing up on your hands and kicking your legs, as if you are about to crawl, but alas just kicking those legs does nothingto propell you forwards. Sorry darling, that only works in the pool as you have perfected so well as you paddle and kick frantically in your swim ring or in my arms and zoom forwards.

You really enjoy solids and have taken to them much better than your brother did, and Daddy and I are secretly hoping some of your good eating habits will rub off on him someday. So far, we have had no luck with the "Look Austy, Maddy likes [insert vegetable here]" comments. One of your new favourites is parsnip, peas and potato puree. And we are so glad we havefound something vegetable that you will eat happily that doesn't contain any apple or pair. I am steering clear of commercial baby foods just as I did withAusty, mainly because it's cheaper and I know exactly what's in the food I make, but also because so many of them have fruit in everything and I am afraid if we don't ween you off fruit sweeteners you will take after Austy with the eating habits. (Austy has only JUST started eating cereal for breakfast, starting with the milo cereal I wasn't too keen on but bought because he picked it, it was a cereal, and he promised he would eat it, and now moving onto miniwheats that I am MUCH happier with!)

Blocks, stacking cups/boxes and shakers and things that you can have an obvious effect on (especially things that you can crash down when I stack them for you!) are the toys of the moment and you are really taking notice of toys that you can make noises with by yourself. I caught you picking up different rattles and shaking them by your ear just the other day.

You still don't say anything but "Dadadad", much to your Daddy's delight although with all this illness, you have made some cross faces and some unique sounds as if you are trying to tell us something in yur frustration for being tired and sick. Don't worry sweetheart, we're tired too and doing everything we can to get you better. Your sleeping has been attrocious - a real shock as Austy didn't warm us up to bad sleeping patterns and it s a completely new thing to us. We understand though- that ear has been bothering you and you need lots of cuddles when you feel this rotten. The worst night was this past Saturday night when you had us taking turns in the rocking chair as you'd only sleep in our arms.... yawn!

You're still very cute though and when we are shopping and I am carrying you in your homemade sling, you always fall asleep and we get so many comments about how precious you are (we know!). You have started to imitate kissing sounds in addition to your little sniffy trick where you scrunch up your face and breathe quickly in and out through your nose just for a laugh. As you were copying my kissing sounds I thought it was time to teach you how to give kisses. You give me and Austy kisses (normal open mouth baby ones - the kissy lips are reserved for showing off) and even Grandpa scored one the otehr day but poor Daddy has been missing out (well I guess we're even since you still won't say Mum!). You had us in fits of laughter the first few times he asked fro a kiss and you leaned for his face with open mouth, got within about 2cm then flicked your head away and giggled your cute little chuckle. Funny girl. We have a feeling you are going to be a cheeky one like your big brother!

Love Mummy

Now what is Austy up to? He is so glad that school holidays are over as kindermusik, playgroup and storytime/crafting have all resumed to keep hi busy during the weekdays. We have had a lot of rain here lately, so activities like these break up the housebound boredom that sets in when you have a tired Mummy who doesn't want to take the baby out in the rain. He has taken to the new music songs quickly and tonight sat there with his guitar for about an hour singing them as he strumed away. Then he asked me to sing them too and told me off every time I got the words wrong - looks like I have some homework to do to learn them all myself! He's been asking me to teach him to read as he'll often pick up a book and tell a story with it's pictures. That works fine when he's heard teh story a thousand times (he doesn't skimp on detail either!) but I think he knows he's just making it up when the book is one he's never seen before like one he's just plucked from a libray shelf. So I made up some letter cue cards and then some simple word cards for words that are in his everyday life or appeal to him in some way (like "monkey" since his best friend is a stuffed monkey named Montgomery who has to do everything with him lately, including have his own bowl of cereal for breakfast). after just a few days Austy was getting about 90% of the letters correct when shown in random order, and quite often can tell me what sound they make and a few words that start with that letter. He loves it and always reminds me to cuddle and kiss him if e gets it right and I just move onto the next one. When I show him the words, he looks at the first letter and if he remembers the words on the cards that start with that lettter he will take a guess. Otherwise he looks at the other letters on the card, so he seems to be getting that letters make up words, and when we read books he seems to understand that the words are what make up the story, so I think he's more than ready for kindy now. He likes to trac the letters with his fingers and sometimes will attemt to draw a letter by copying, but I am just happy when he tries to copy a shape or scribble that I draw as it is the start to learning to write. Prekindy starts next term, and I think he is looking forward to it.

No pics tonight - too tired, but I may come back and pop some in later.