this week

 
 

Madeline has been busy locomoting this week.
She can push along while holding on to things and walk around,
is climbing anything she can, can go up stairs and is more or less bored
with crawling.
sheesh.

So...she bumped her head pretty hard and has a bruise now.
it bothered me a lot more than her, i assure you.
I put on a dvd and gave her a banana while i iced her head and
she was all better in seconds.

But she is happy as can be these days now that she can get around on her own.

Her favorites this week are books- she can sit and entertain herself by opening
and shutting the same page over and over again, stacking blocks- mmmm they are
so tasty, and rolling a ball back and forth.
I mean, she really loves sucking on the screen door and eating random bits
of anything off the floor but thats nothing to brag about!.

Here she is reading her books to "Uncle John". Our good friend John Lehnert from Don's old office.




She is making all sorts of sounds and noises and "words" these days. I am working on a video where she says Mama since thats her main word for everything right now.

xoxo

ZOO!

Madeline and I went to the San Francisco zoo today! What a big, clean, fun
place to see animals. They let you get so close and have a few petting areas
too. What a great place for kids. And the zoo is right on the ocean so we
could see the breakers and hangliders while we were there on Rt 1.
Madeline loved the giraffes, monkeys, flamingos and even people watching!
We got to pet an armadillo, snake, alligator, goat and llama and a mouse. (well, i pet them and she squealed when the moved).We had a blast
and can't wait to bring daddy back to see them ...so he can take pictures
of us- we could only get the animals on film today.
Here are a few shots from today's adventure:

special request

gramma asked for a crawling video. here is a quick one but there will be more.
of course she spends less and less time crawling every day since she prefers to climb up on things and try to walk, cruise or island hop from object to object so i fear crawling may be short lived as its so much slower for her!

Standing a ton

She never wants to sit and is all about pulling herself to stand
on everything! She has been taking one hand off and trying
to let go entirely but still needs some balance practice.
..might be a while till we see her walk but she is certainly
ready to practice.

quick video and an update

Madeline is "cruising" now. She can hold on to furniture and get from one place to another. She ably pulls herself up on the couch, cabinets, chair, boxes, toys, her play table- whatever is about 2-3 feet off the ground!
She generally opts for plopping down on her backside and crawling to the next place once she has enjoyed herself licking and chewing and gumming down every surface she can reach,but she certainly can cruise when necessary. And she walks very very quickly holding two hands as if she is running (particularly if there is an animal in sight). She can even walk holding one hand for a few steps. She is really learning balance. She pefers to walk over crawl but can also meander her way into corners and behind things. She loves thos outlets and anything she can find on the floor to fit in her mouth- yum mommy's hair that is still falling out in clumps! (i know...ewe).

She has her third tooth now and is a drool machine so i imagine that number
4 is right behind this one. what fun!
She is generally happy and healthy and doing great. We have her 9mo appointment
on the 26th- can you believe it?!Anyway
Time to anchor down the house! Here is a video with her and daddy from Sunday.

Father's Day

We got a jump on Father's Day and celebrated with our friends
on Saturday afternoon at Sara's house.
Here is Charu and Sachin with Don and Madeline. I believe they
were discussing the finer points of VMware or something
equally as tech-geek ish... poor Madeline


















Then we roped the dads into a craft project and had them create shirts and onesies with the babies. I secretly think they had a great time!


















Don was pooped and madeline got to explore Claire's cool playmat.






















Claire and her dad Garreth, having a father's day toast!

Hanging with daddy!

Madeline and dad wore their new father's day creations:

Daddy's little helper (with madeline's handprint inside don's)

and the I "heart" dad with her footprint inside.

They were very happy spending some QT together today. see:

fashion show

Uncle Deedge and Auntie Kiara

Madeline had several visitors at Club Fidotta. Unfortunately we did not
take pics with the Zygos (but i think they have one or two for us).


She went to visit Aunt Suzie but Gabrielle was at her dad's so we didnt get to see


her and unfortunately she had dinner and bathtime that night when Ellie was free-:(


But Ellie sure shared her clothes with Madeline (AGAIN) so we have a summer


wardrobe now too. Thank you so much Ellie!



Here is Dennis (aka uncle deedge), learning about how his
expressions can influence Madeline's mood!





She likes him!!


































Okay- so the real question is, who is more beautiful-
I won't tell!
Kiara brought us a cool gift from the Long Island Children's museum where she teaches theatre and dance to lots of kids. Madeline cannot wait to attend her class in a few summers- though since she is going to do Dreamgirls with Jennifer Holliday, she may never come back to LI!


xoxo

Hanging with Aunt Veronica

Madeline took a little bit to warm up to her relatives. At first she was clingy to me but it was a matter of time till she was laughing and squealing with them.

She crawled forward for the first time with her Godfather, Shawn and did not stop after that. He also fed her almost every meal while we were there- he is so good with her.













She learned how to chase the dogs around and now she is pulling herself up on everything consistently.









She even stood on her own last night and balanced for almost 10 seconds. We think (fear) walking is imminent.

She had a fun stay at Club Fidotta.

More pics from NY

Hanging with the fam

Madeline got a lesson in how to scratch the boys' hair to make
it stand up straight- Here is Ryan with the sock monkey Alissa made him.













And here she is learning about Uncle Michael's (her namesake..lolo) cell phone...hmmm new technology to tell daddy about!





















Alissa and Casey- YAY they are engaged- wedding next year!!












Even Christopher got in a little baby time. And I'm sure he is as madly in love with her as the others now. He played ball with her and even let he chew on his hockey equiptment.

New York New York

We surprised Grandma Mary on our first day in NY

and headed out to the park for a picnic

where we bumped into an old friend and her 2 year old, Alex. He is such a sweetheart. Very verbal and active and even let Madeline share (which means suck on) his toys!

Madeline was very tired and grumpy from her trip so she wasn't in her

best form (nor was mommy for that matter- I ended up with a migraine) but-

She loved seeing grandma and was such a good girl- she even let mommy

rest at grandma's house later that day. She loved the kitty cat too!

More pics with Grandma Mary

Grandma Mary took Madeline to the mall and showed her how Long Island girls like to shop.
Madeline was overwhelmed!






















Hugs!



















































Madeline took Grandma Mary to the Children's Place
and picked out some nice shades...

Grandma loves her Rockhoppers and fortunately the Build a Bear shop has some

for the new movie thats coming out about penguins!