Lemon Eating Girl

Madeleine has developed an interesting new eating habit. She likes to eat LEMONS. Makes Mommy and Daddy wince and pucker up to just think about it, but she will eat a lemon slice like it's a slice of orange. We discovered this habit at a restauant when we let her hold a lemon from one of our beverages in order to ward off a meltdown.

Now she considers it to be an essential ingredient in the dining out experience - as Mommy says, it's her "appetizer delicacy."






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Late Walking, Relatively Early Talking

To answer a question that we've been getting a lot from interested parties (grandparents), no, Madeleine is not walking yet and yes, she's a little behind the walking curve. Our pediatrician wants to have an orthopedist take a look at her feet to see if they are structurally sound and able to give her enough support - unfortunately, due to what could generously be described as a bureaucratic snafu between the doctor and the insurance company, the referral was delayed and we won't get in to see the ortho for 3 more weeks. Welcome to California.

Meanwhile, she's doing plenty of standing and walking while holding onto things - just not "freestyle" walking. Daddy thinks the B family foot genes may be part of the problem but also that, just like crawling, she may start "late" but once she starts she will be like lightning. He also thinks it's as much a motivational thing as anything - she just hasn't decided she's ready yet. The parenting message boards are replete with stories of kids not walking until 18, 19, even 24 months and turning out fine. But what do I know?

Her legs are certainly up to the task of supporting her.








She's doing a lot more talking these days and even took a stab at "strawberry" this morning. Grandpa Tom sent her a fun little toy that teaches kids how to sound out different letters of the alphabet - so that's how she's spending ALL morning today.





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Mommy and Madeleine Go to Disneyland

Daddy is finally letting Mommy post on the blog!

It took us a month, but Madeleine and I made our first trip to Disneyland today along with our next door neighbor Paola and her son Connor. Madeleine loved riding in the back seat with Connor and stealing his food as much as she enjoyed the rides at Disneyland. She liked the Snow White and Dumbo rides but got scared on small world - of course, her favorite part of the park was lunch!




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Looking for Cats and Staying Busy

Madeleine has found a word that she likes even more than Mama or Dada. Specifically, it is the word....."Cat!!!!!!!"

It's the first word she says in the morning and the last word she uses at night. Conservatively we hear "cat" 150 times a day.

There is a very friendly neighborhood cat named Bernie who always stops by to visit when we are out on the porch and will invite himself in when you leave the door open for a split second too long. One of Madeleine's favorite things to do in the morning or just before bedtime at night is to look for the cat.



As you can see in this shot, she's been brushing her hair before bedtime.


Time for bed! No more cats!!!!


Madeleine is also staying very busy. Already she's joined a playgroup, a swim class, a kids museum, two baby gyms, storytime at the library and she will join Mommy for a parenting class in the fall. Plus she gets to a park just about every day and goes running with Mommy at the Rose Bowl several times a week. She especially loves the children's garden at the Huntington Library (below) - oh yeah, she joined that too!


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Front Porch Social

What do you do on a nice and sunny afternoon when you're new to the neighborhood? You hang out on the front porch and get to know your neighbors. Madeleine has already made a number of baby friends in our new 'hood and even organized a short-lived baby jailbreak.






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Our First Earthquake

Had our first earthquake tonight about an hour ago. I was sitting out on the front porch and Hannah was in the living room and we both felt the ground shake and I heard one of the neighbors say "Earthquake." It was a mild shudder like you can sometimes feel when a bus drives by. Lasted about 3 seconds. Apparently it was a decent sized one at 5.0 and not terribly far from where we live. Hopefully that's the biggest one we get to experience!

Baby Kitchen

Madeleine loves playing with grownup things - pots and pans, mommy's shoes, our keys, etc. But she also likes doing the baby sized versions of grownup things, like the baby gym.

So now, we proudly introduce you to - Baby Kitchen, complete with miniature pots and pans and faux dishwasher, sink and oven.


Even though it just arrived today, her skills in the kitchen are threatening to surpass those of mommy.


Of course, sometimes only grownup sized things will do - as we discovered when she quickly spurned the overstuffed baby chair we got her in favor of Daddy's man chair, which she now climbs into and sits in (book in hand, of course)

Meanwhile, Mommy and Daddy are quickly learning how to speak SoCal-ease. Instead of fog, we have a phenomenon called "marine layer" - which looks, acts, and smells like fog.

And instead of referring to freeways as "I-95" or just "95" there is apparently a state law that forces you to say "the" in front of the number ("the 134" or "the 405"). Of course, I have no room to complain as I am a graduate of THE Ohio State University....


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