1 week Vs. 3 months

She is ginormous. This comparison photo took a good 20 minutes to get one where she did not have her hands in her mouth, did not move at the last minute, or was not staring at the football game on TV. A lot has changed in three months, like added arm rolls.

Out Takes

Here are some of the pictures I took before I was finally able to capture one that would work. She is not even mobile yet, I can not imagine how hard it is going to be to take these pictures when she starts crawling.

Three Months

Madison has officially graduated from the "fourth trimester." In the baby books I read, they refer to the first three months as the fourth trimester because they are still so helpless. She is still pretty helpless, but much less of a blob, ha.

* Madison has perfected her grin. I swear I can see her sense of humor developing. Her best smiles are in the morning when we cuddle in bed.

* Her hair really has a red tint to it now. Her eyelashes and eyebrows seem to be coming in red, Her eyes are a beautiful blue, they glow when we go outside.

* Like I mentioned earlier, she is a hand eater. She has not discovered her thumb because it is always tucked underneath her other fingers. Will is worried she will never have use of her thumbs because she never stretches them out. I think it is just a development thing, but right now her hand sucking is hilarious, with or with out a thumb.

* Everything I have read about establishing healthy sleep habits says to make sure there is a set bedtime routine, one that usually involves bath time. So determined to get her to sleep more, I had been trying to give her a bath as part of the routine. Until, I discovered that instead of calming my daughter at the end of the day, it gets her going. She is so pumped up after bath time that there is no way she can fall asleep. Bath time is now in the morning or afternoon to kill time until Will gets home. Another reminder that every baby is different.

* I have been trying to make the most of the time with her when she is awake, so I tried reading books to her. She is not a fan of books. I felt sad that my daughter would grow up to hate books, but then I realized it was because there was not any eye contact with her when I would read. She thrives off of my undivided attention and right now books take that attention away from her. She is much more content to just stare into my eyes.

* She is excellent at spitting up as soon as I get her dressed in the morning. As soon as I lift her up from the changing table, she lets it spew everywhere. I think its a ploy to stay on the changing table longer, she still loves being up there.

* She has been lifting her head up when I feed her to stare at me. It seems as if she is just checking if I am still there. This is hilarious to me because, of course, I am still here Madison, who do you think you are attached to. I think it is just because she is very curious about her surroundings and staring at one thing for ten minutes is much too boring.

We are so thankful we have been given this gift of Madison. I know she is the best baby for us. She is a wonderful mixture of being an "easy" baby and then being pretty demanding. Just to make sure we do not get too arrogant about how great our baby is, she will throw things at us, like, waking up every two hours at night again.

More Madison Faces

1. This is Madison's signature "milk drunk" face. I love how the milk drips from her chin when she finishes eating and the dumbfounded look, like, "hey, I was really enjoying that."

2. A failed attempt at capturing that gorgeous grin. Instead its just an adorable smirk.

3. Failed attempt #2. I think that her face is so full of expression, especially her eyes.

4. This is Madison's new thing, eating her hands. Delicious.

My New Accessory

Little miss Madison is much more expensive than any piece of jewelry I own, but I tend to accessorize with her a lot more. She likes that close human contact at all times. This is great for snuggle time, but not so great for vacuuming or doing anything else. So my solution is to "wear" her. I just bought the sling featured above and she seems to be very fond of it. We get lots of looks whenever we walk Aspen. I do not mind because they just wish they could accessorize like me, ha.

Today, I wore Madison on a two mile hike with a mom's group called, Colorado Mountain Mammas. It was so nice to get out of the house and talk with other moms for a few hours. They have hikes several times a week, so I will have some adult interaction to look forward to. We have noticed that most of the people we meet with children are a good ten years older than us. It seems to be difficult to find people who are as young, but that is ok, I still enjoy talking to them about mom things. It is just strange because they have all had careers before becoming pregnant and I am still waiting to hopefully, maybe, someday actually use my degree. It seems to be a bit backwards than others.

Is this Baby Cruelty??

During Madison's "witching" hour, we try to use the pacifier to put off her fussiness until bedtime. However, Madison has not perfected the skill of keeping the darn thing in her mouth. Instead, she has perfected the skill of shooting it across the room. I mean this is quite the talent, but does not soothe her fussiness. So we have found an alternative use for her bows and a temporary fix for the pacifier spitting. The only issue is whether or not this is wrong? It looks as if we have kidnapped her, taped her mouth shut, and are holding her for ransom. But, I mean, looks can be deceiving...