Diapers and Divas

So….. it’s Thursday night. I remember back in college Thursday night was the “new” Friday. No responsibility and better drink specials. We were always so excited to make the trip down to 6th street in Austin for Thursday nights. Fast forward 7 years and I feel the same excitement that I was able to get my 5 week old down long enough to get this blog post in… oh.. and that we are taking a family trip to babies r us tonight to look for a swimsuit for Maddie. Not just any swim suit…. Her very first swim suit… this is a big deal! Since I’m back tracking a little, I have desperately wanted to find time to get this post in to document her development…. She’s going to be a teenager before I know it and I’m not sure how popular I will be with her if I’m blogging her weekly developments.

Her First 2 Weeks

Madison Sophia Perkins is a born cheerleader my friends. Her small, yet toned physique makes her ideal flyer material and she has tried her best to show us that. Her favorite thing to do in the first two weeks of her life was to straighten her legs and lift them in the air as far as she could. In cheerleading we call this a pike… and Maddie is preparing for her pike jumps and tumbling passes. During these first two weeks, Maddie was also given the nickname “one eyed Willie.” The only swaddle that this child likes is a human one – that means make sure your arms are wrapped around her at all times or she aint sleepin! If you try to put her down, she opens one eye to see what’s going on and assure you that she in fact will not be dozing off like you are expecting her too! For this same reason, I have also referred to her as a chucky doll. For those of you who remember the chucky movies, Maddie is a great imitator. When you have all the lights out and are just about to put her down in her bed….. bam! Her eyes will be wide open staring you down... I just know if she could speak she would be saying, “you better not be putting me in that bed.”

Maddie is a piglet and this was shown in her first two weeks of life. She absolutely loves to eat and is extremely dramatic when she is hungry – which she shows by attempting to eat her hands and shaking her head like an animal. In fact, we even had to call the Doctor because she was choking on her milk… turns out… there was no problem other than she is simply a piglet and likes to drink faster than her body can take down. Luckily we have been able to teach her a more lady like way to eat.

As I have already mentioned, sleeping isn’t really Maddie’s thing. During this phase of her life, she hated her swing, bassinet, crib… you name it! However… her favorite place was her changing table. Her changing table has a picture above it that says “couture” in crystals. She loved (and still does!) this picture. There were many nights when we tried everything to console her and the only thing that would work is laying her on her changing table to stare at her picture. It’s not just that picture Maddie loves… we have noticed that she is infatuated with almost any picture in sight.

Maddie hates Hiccups. If you read about babies getting hiccups, you will read that it doesn’t really bother them… I promise you it bothers this child! She finds them annoying… do you blame her?!? Just when we get her to sleep and a hiccup comes on… Mike and I look at each other and say… “Oh great.” Sure enough she’s crying three seconds later…………. I hate you hiccups!!

Last but not least, Maddie loves holding both of her hands way over her head. We have never been able to put her arms in a swaddle without her throwing a fit… she wants them over her head and by god this girl better gets what she wants!!

3 Weeks

Maddie’s first trip to the zoo! We live right next to the zoo so we figured it was a perfect place to go walking to get us all out of the house. Maddie slept through the first hour and then decided that she no longer wanted to be in her stroller… which meant one of us had to tote her around the entire zoo for the remainder of the day… without a carrier! Whew… neither of us had realized what a workout this day would be!

Her favorites this week…. To keep her fists clinched and smile randomly (they say this means she is passing gas but I refuse to believe it’s not just because she loves mom and dad). One big thing we noticed this week was that she loved sitting up like a big girl. We would prop her up against the couch and we begin discussions of going and getting the bumbo chair. We also noticed that she had very ticklish feet! She would actually pull them back when you tickled them.

Last but not least… we had our first “accident” on the changing table where quite frankly… one diaper could not hold what this child needed to let go of…. Boy was this an experience!        I can’t wait to insert this picture in her wedding slide show. This was also the first time she didn’t cry in the bath tub…. Hey… at least this girl knows what it takes to be beautiful.

4 Weeks

Maddie has decided at 4 weeks that she now loves her swing… we are finally able to use this to console her!.. Not all the time of course… just when SHE decides she will allow us to have a small break. She has also definitely noticed who we are and can follow us with her eyes. This was so amazing! She has such big eyes and is extremely alert at this stage. I was feeding her in the Nordstrom’s lounge and there was another mom in there with a 3 year old girl… the little girl asked her mom really loud…” why does that baby have such big eyes?” Her eyes seem to get bluer each and every day.

She is also making new sounds every day that sound more like a language. We call her a kitty cat because sometimes she almost sounds as if she is meowing as her crying becomes more controlled.

Her month old doctor’s appointment showed she was almost 9 pounds and 20 ½ inches.

5 Weeks

I’m amazed at her development! I put her in the bumbo chair and she holds her head up! I took her into Walgreens and the pharmacists were amazed at how alert she was and how much she was observing the place… they say she is going to be a scientist! My only question is… are scientists stylish?