The Adventures of Wiggle Baby

Hi peoples! The end-of-summer activity has put a serious dent in my weblog updating. Another significant dent: the one in my lower gum, which has become the victim of calcium deposits and periodontal ligament activity. (For ye laypersons: I HAVE A SHARP TOOTH IN MY MOUTH, OW.) So, you’ll have to excuse me if I periodically interject crabbiness into our conversation.

Prior to the dental havoc, I learned to identify my mom — provided that I’m not already too distracted by something blinky or noisy. I also started babbling “mmmbbb” or “pfffftt” with some regularity, in-between my persistent tooth-based fussing, of course. And as if sleeping wasn’t enough of a challenge, eating has also turned into a game of trickery, where my mouth is the target and the most entertaining jester wins the opportunity to sneak food in while I’m giggling. This, along with the cat, is all highly entertaining.

In early August, we went on another mini-vacation to a beach with friends, and loved it (note, video now available in Super Really Impressive Definition, or something, I don’t know):

To conclude this post, here is an abbreviated record of funny things we say or sing to keep me feeling happy.

• “It’s music | A-B-C | learning time!”
• (when a toy phone is present) “hello? it’s for yeeooouuu!”
• Frog Song: n little speckled frogs sat on a speckled log, eating some most delicious bugs. [Yum yum!] One jumped into the pool, where it was nice and cool, now there are n-1 speckled frogs. (Repeat until n=0.) Note: n is an estimated integer directly proportional to my degree of fussy.
• Turtle Song (alternate version): there was a little turtle and her name was Mads, she loved her moms and she loved her dads. She had a little belly and her belly was round, and wherever she went, she made this sound: Mbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbmbbboo! I loovveee youuu.

Do not be misled by my serious demeanor. Because, in fact, THE FUN IS ON!

The past couple of weeks have been filled with exciting changes and exciting times. Let’s start with the changes.

1. I’m eating solid foods now, and I want to emphasize that I use the term “solid” quite loosely. I don’t know who thinks mushed up pasty peas constitute a solid substance, but hey, I’m the baby here, I must be missing something. Anyway, I dig pears and carrots. Sweet potatoes and peas are passable, and oatmeal is so bland that I haven’t even noticed when I’m eating it. I could be eating oatmeal right now. Who can say?
2. I’m a standing, wiggling, rolling machine. I can do anything (other than staying still for five seconds.)
3. I developed a surprisingly decent level of hand dexterity. I can grab small puzzle pieces by their tiny nubs, and then chew them. I also learned how to add and remove plastic objects from a stack, or toy chickens from a toy barn. Most impressively, I successfully and repeatedly strummed a guitar, mainly to highlight my father’s rife incompetence with said instrument, but also because I’m kind of a punkster.

Now for the fun times:

1. Visited Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, and played on the beach for the first time. The water was a balmy -400°F, but who cares? It was incredible.
2. Got a killer new car seat that could have qualified as a throne for a midget king in medieval times.
3. Spent some time with the fam on my guncle’s boat, for my first boating excursion. It went well until the end, when I became tired and subsequently really, really mad — true to my namesake. Ed: the term “guncle” is shorthand for “grand uncle,” and should be pronounced “gunk-le.” Also acceptable is “gaunt,” in reference to a “grand aunt” (not to be confused with a very thin person, or a type of Powerpoint chart.)
4. My mom brought home a fancy turtle pool, so I can quietly reminisce about the lake and boat experiences, all while sitting in a puddle of stale hose water. OK, so it’s not glorious, but it’s still loads of fun.

After six months of life, I have amassed a number of quirks and mannerisms. At the behest of my father, who has a lousy memory and who may have a limited degree of control over this web site, I will detail a handful of my Madeline-isms for posterity. [But, I will exclude any references to my posterior.]

1. The left leg tic. For whatever reason, I favor my left leg, and no matter what activity I’m engaging it, it’s wagging back and forth like a puppy’s tail. Also of note: it’s A-B-C time.

2. The chomp. Sure, it’s a stalwart of we young people — we chew on stuff. But I gnaw with purpose and determination. No time for joking around, Mr. Frog.

   

3. Insisting on standing. It’s hard to go from a laying-on-back position to a standing upright position, while keeping your knees locked at all times. But it’s what I do. I’ll sit when I have to, which is hopefully never.

   

4. The foot chew and levitation trick (not pictured.) Both of these are well-documented around these parts, but are included here for completeness.

   

5. Drinking incorrectly (and sometimes correctly.) Do you have a glass of liquid? I will drink that. I will drink that in any way possible…or not possible.

   

6. The giggles. Silly noises, people getting bonked, being tickled in the back, wacky sideways movements, looking at stuff I like — it all equals giggles.

7. Morning/naptime babbles. (video pending) When I wake up, I like to talk politics with my Winnie the Pooh mobile.

While there are many more silly things I do, I’ll have to stop here and give the Internet Tubes a chance to clear up. Stay tuned for your regularly scheduled update, including but not limited to: “Why I’m Totally Over The Whole Vaccination Thing”, and “Eating Sweet Potatoes Or Some Orange Goo, I’m Not Sure.”

I’m six months old today, and I’m going places! No longer satisfied with wiggling in location (and wearing down the hair on the back of my head in the process), I decided it’s time to switch orientations. Back to tummy, tummy to back. Constantly. Admittedly, my technique is unrefined. I can only go in one direction, and when I switch to the tummy position, I still hold my arms out in a levitating fashion, as if I am Superman. Maybe I am Superman!

Most certainly, this new mobility has complicated matters for anyone who prefers me to be stationary during such activities as sleeping, diaper changing, or laying precariously on the edge of something. But hey, you can’t keep Superman from flying. Just sayin’.

The past couple of weeks have brought other changes, too. I’m a stronger sitter-upper and stander-upper. I will gleefully lunge for objects of interest, such as whatever I dropped on the floor, a cat, some dude’s face, a cup of coffee, and other items I certainly shouldn’t have in my possession.

I picked up a new reading habit, though my fascination with the printed word pales in comparison to my fascination with attempting to eat the printed word:

hopefully, at least, I have ingested some literary knowledge.

In closing, happy half birthday to me, and happy birthday to America! It’s rainy, but still noisy…Someone please explain this whole “explosions on purpose” thing?

Now that I have a firm grasp on things, I’m trying to use them appropriately. This is difficult. For example, I can grab a glass of water and put it to my mouth, but I have not yet determined the best way to extract the beverage from said glass. For now, I’m using a tongue-based approach, in the style of our oft-maligned resident housecat. This may be the only time I will ever agree with the cat.

Although I can hold onto objects without difficulty, I am still prone to randomly flinging them to non-trivial distances. On the bright side, I’m increasingly capable of fetching the item if it’s within arm’s reach. (Usually, it isn’t.)

Worst of all, many objects seem to be off-limits for chewing/tasting, and this makes me grumble. I did manage to score — and subsequently mangle — some sweet tasty playing cards earlier this week, but this did little to rectify my frustration with being disallowed to gnaw on bottles of diaper cream or whatever plausibly unsanitary item has caught my eye.

In non-object news, I enjoyed the company of many recent visitors, and I took a long ride in the Big People vehicle to visit my new friends and grandma. I also helped my mom celebrate her birthday, got some good sleep, and generally giggled a lot.

Of all the amazing things I’ve discovered, none compare to the wonder of my own feet. I mean, when you’re laying on your back and you need something to grab onto, why not grab your foot? It’s right there. Once you’ve got it, you might as well kick it in and out — resulting in a weird, robotic, half-body horizontal dance.

When I do tire of my foot (which, let’s be honest, rarely happens) I find that sticking out my tongue for no reason is an acceptable replacement. Sometimes I like to combine this with “blahalala” sounds, but I can assure you I’m just testing things and not being sassy.

A few days ago I turned five months old, which means I’m strong and everything is funny. Specifically, I like to pretend I’m flying through the air when someone holds me up, while making airplane sound effects. I’m into peekaboo games, nose-related honking, general physical comedy, and rolling around (still with assistance.) Though I can be entertained with traditional toys and books, I am disproportionately interested in lotion bottles and cardboard boxes.

Basic tasks seem easier now. Sitting up: easy. Laying on tummy: pretty easy. Sleeping: not so bad. Playing in jumpy chair contraption: easy, and awesome!

A last item of note is that I appear to be regrowing some fuzzy hair in my upper cranial region, and it’s a quite light blonde. We’ll see how that turns out. Also up for grabs is my future eye color, which is currently some wacky mix of blue, brown and green — I’m calling it Blazel for now.

Since my last update, I’ve been feeling much better. This is partially because my involuntary virus injections have worn off, but mostly because I’ve been going outside — a lot! Along with taking long walks around the neighborhood in my new luxurious transportation cart, I’ve been able to relax leisurely in the lawn and sit on the front porch with my best pals. This is delightful. As a winter person I find everything outside to be brand new sensory information, because until now, I assumed the entire world was composed of a couple thousand square feet of mid-80′s suburban home construction.

Perhaps due to my newfound Spring energy, I have racked up a long list of accomplishments:

1. Now willing and able to lie on my tummy, and be acceptably happy about it, for a minimum of 5 minutes.
2. Can grab my toes with my hands, and even get my feet in my mouth! (Try that, all you inflexible Big People.)
3. At long last, I will fall asleep easily, and more astonishingly, without the oft-hated swaddle or foam cushion things. I’m free, baby! Indeed Madeline will fall asleep easily, but she still needs to work on staying asleep for a while. — Ed.
4. Can stand up, sort of, with lots of assistance, but sort of! Also can bounce around in my new stand-up jumpy seat.
5. Realized the following things are funny: rolling back and forth rapidly while someone makes goofy noises, getting kisses while someone makes goofy noises, and listening to the guitar while someone makes goofy noises. To the uninitiated, it may seem that the goofy noises are the main thing, but they are only truly funny when accompanied with an appropriately goofy action.
6. Still enjoy chewing on stuff, but I’m a little less obsessed about it — for now.
7. Established a new habit of nibbling on my bottom lip and making funny humming sounds. (See photo.)

Most deserving of credit for helping me with these accomplishments is my Mom. She takes me to fun activities every week, and helps me out all the time, even when I drive her a little crazy. Thanks Ma!

P.S. I have still not posted my long-promised videos, but I can assure you that they will appear as magnetic bits on your local computing device in the near future.

This whole growing up thing is hard work!

As soon as I turned four months old, I had to cut the celebrations short with another trip to see the dastardly White Coat People, and this reminded me in no uncertain terms that I quite strongly dislike the White Coat People. They stubbornly continue to jam sharp items into my legs, and viruses into my mouth, while completely disregarding my preference to remain free of sharp items and viruses. Following that, I felt unhappy and was rather bothersome for about a week, which — among other things — did not benefit my already lax weblog posting habits. As an example of my crabby disposition, one day I fell asleep willingly. Regular readers will note that this is surely a sign something is wrong. — Ed. Sure enough, I made up for it by refusing to sleep thereafter!

Since then, I recovered and moved on to new things. My once luscious head of newborn hair has given way to a bit of a balding pattern, as I progress toward a future Big People hairstyle. In the meantime, I’m feeling somewhat patchy and compensating via silly forehead adornments (see photo above) and ridiculous hats. In addition, I have put on some baby weight, which I am mostly attributing to the fact that I am a baby.

As if the piercing leg pain, vaccination side effects and hair loss weren’t enough, the Big People have me on a new workout routine designed to improve my strength and responsiveness, for what I must assume is some sort of Military/Crayola training camp. First there’s lift-em-ups, which is like sit-ups, but instead someone helps lift me to a seated position by my arms. I like that one. Next is roll-em-overs, which involves being coerced onto my side by a strategically located flashy colored object. That’s a bit less fun, but worst of all is lay-em-downs, when I have to switch onto my stomach and try not to be upset about it. I have improved at this, but when I reach my limit, we take a breather with scooch-em-backs, which means I get to go back to my preferred physical location. Make no mistake, these exercises have funny names, but they are hard work.

It’s not all hard work though: I’ve had lots of play time with friends, and I laughed out loud (LOLed?) on camera for the first time last week. I will post the recording once I learn how to emancipate it from the video recording contraption.

On a closing note, yesterday was Mother’s Day, and I want to belatedly thank my wonderful mom, grandmas, and great-grandmas for their continued love and support. You guys are the best!

Greetings electronic weblog viewers! An unusually long amount of time has passed since I last updated you with the sordid details of my daily routines, so I’ll just get right to it.

For starters, I have grown up so fast! Now staring down the barrel of my fourth month, I’ve been outgrowing clothes, diapers, chairs, swings — you name it, I probably don’t fit in it. Along with my increased size, I gained other useful skills such as holding up my own head, focusing attention on people and objects, sitting upright, and grabbing stuff with specific intentions (as opposed to my previous “coincidental intentions.”)

I haven’t slowed down my teething/chewing routines in the least, but I’m trying to round out those activities to achieve a well-balanced gamut of entertainment. The Big People have me going to yoga, and some other sort of facility where they all say funny things in funny voices. I’ve also enjoyed my new suite of toys at home, especially the blinky piano/noisy ones.

By far the most fulfilling culmination of my nascent journey into person-hood was my first experience in a Big People-level chair at the kitchen table. Finally I am no longer relegated to the bouncy seat on the ground, which was fine for a while, but now makes me feel kind of inferior. Along with the really tall chair, I have been able to explore the outdoors a bit…Grass and trees are nice, but they are rather difficult to put in my mouth, so I’m not too interested right now.

It’s official — I’ve turned over a new leaf! Underneath that leaf, I discovered a seemingly limitless sweetness, which has become my predominant disposition. These days, I’ll smile, play, act bashful, laugh at silly jokes (almost) and when all of that’s over, I’ll even take a decent (by comparison) nap. Some avid readers might find themselves befuddled by this news, but I can assure you that these Happy Days are not just a result of the Fonz Hair Goo I mentioned in my earlier posting. Although, heyy, it can’t hurt.

Consistency is the key, as I have been well entertained by a steady stream of Big People visitors and occasionally equal-sized people, which is exciting and hence makes me ever-so-sleepy. Also on the consistency front, I have been persuaded into maintaining a regimented schedule, despite my strong inner desire to protest this at any opportunity. Make no mistake, I intend to protest, but…yawn.

Not all of my stubbornness has subsided, though, as I am still adamant about keeping 1-5 fingers in my mouth during all waking hours, and preferably during most sleeping hours, if not for that pesky swaddle. Unfortunately, due to the finger obsession my eyes occasionally take a beating, since I don’t have accurate hand control at the moment and frequently whack myself unintentionally.

I’ll close the evening with some shoutouts (written, not verbal — people are sleeping!) to recent notables:

• occasional short walks outside, since Chicago weather improved from a miserable 30 to an inconsistent 60 degree average
• a fun trip downtown to see my aunt Sandy
• super fun Easter toys from my wonderful family
• an increased interest in looking at stuff and thinking about stuff
• wiggling
• playing with my new light-up piano toy, which plays musical notes and also makes animal sounds for some still-undetermined reason
• mirrors = funny
• people making fake fart noises = funny
• taking away my hands from my mouth = DUDE, SO NOT FUNNY, GIVE ME BACK MY HANDS