Growing Girl

Well 3 weeks and counting until Madi's sugery. Despite her heart condition Madi is doing great. She is gaining weight (as you can see from the pics) and her energy level is still pretty good. We are so excited to see how this surgery will change her. We have heard that she will be a different baby. We met with Teacher Barb (Madi's early intervention teacher) yesterday and she said Madi will just "take off" once she has recovered. Everyone that has worked with Madi is always pleasantly surprised at how well she is doing and developing...we are so proud of our little angel. When we work with her you can just see how much she enjoys learning...it's almost as if you can see her little brain firing and trying to take it all in. We are working on teaching her sign language right now. We are starting out with: mommy, daddy, change diaper, dog, milk, eat, and water. Hopefully Dave and I can remember all of that! :) We are also still focusing on teaching Madi to sit up on her own and use her arms to support herself. Our main goal now is to get Madi to sit up on her own and be able to reach for toys while she is sitting. She is definitely well on her way! We will be working with Teacher Barb once a week and will obviously have to take some time off once Madi has surgery. Here are some recent pics of Madi...she is definitely starting to fill out.

Trying to feed herself

Reading books before bed with "Coach D"

Our happy girl

6 Month Birthday

Yesterday was Madi's 6 month birthday and I figured we should celebrate with a little cupcake...a trial run for the big day! So I sat Madi in her chair and put a delicious cupcake on her tray. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first and was more interested in smiling at me but she did eventually stick her hand in it. She was looking at her hand covered in pink frosting and of course I cleaned her up before she could stick it in her mouth...I thought it may be a bad idea to introduce sugar already! If she takes after mom she will love sweets! Here are a couple of pics capturing the moment...isn't she adorable?!?!

I can't believe it has already been six months since this sweet little girl entered our lives. It truly has flown by and she has changed so much. We are so blessed to have Madi and we thank God every day for her.

Almost 6 Months Old!

Since I have not been the best about keeping the site updated I will try and sum up the last month of Madi's life the best I can:

Madi has ben eating rice cereal for about a month now and she loves it! I wasn't sure how she would do with eating from a spoon (honestly, I was expecting it to be more of a challenge for her than usual) but she did great! She is already showing me not to expect any less from her! :) She totally got it from the start. She gets so excited when she sees the spoon, opens her mouth and swallows it all. She was definitely ready! I love feeding her each night. She has recently learned to blow spit from her tongue and she does it every now and then. She recently tried it with cereal in her mouth and literally sprayed it back in my face. I couldn't help but laugh and then of course she thought it was so funny! It is fun to watch her get so excited for her cereal. We are planning on adding in some other foods in a week or so. I'll let you know how that goes.

Madi battled through her first cold/cough. She really just had a touch of something but it did start to set in to her lungs as a bronchial infection so she was put on her first dose of antibiotics. She also received an antibiotic booster shot which really helped clear out all the fluid. She is doing great now and her lungs sound clear! We are happy it cleared up and now the biggest challenge is to keep her healthy between now and her surgery (May 21st). Eventhough she was sick, Madi was still her happy self. She did get a little more clingy to mom and stopped sleeping through the night. She would wake up coughing so of course I would go in and pick her up and hold her until she fell back asleep. Well, miss Madi decided that she likes that and continued that routine even after her cough was gone. She has just recently (the last few nights) started sleeping through the night again...and boy am I loving it!

Madi is still going through a little stranger anxiety every once and a while. There are just some times when she decides that she wants mom and that is that. She has develpoed quite an opinion and will let you know what she wants. Uncle Jason was actually impressed at hearing her cry...she is usually so even-tempered.

Here are a few stats on Madi:

• weighs 13lbs 8oz
• is our little peanut (wears 3-6/6 months clothes)
• is rolling all over the place
• has a sparkle in her eye when she smiles (reminds me of Grandma Rita)
• loves to suck on/drink water out of my glass and gets mad if I take it away
• is a cat napper most days (45 mins) but sometimes takes a 2 hour nap
• talks/babbles constantly and is pretty loud (gee I wonder where she gets that from)
• loves to watch and grab at our dog Ollie
• loves it when I sing to her (yikes!)
• has us wrapped around her little finger
• loves to be outside
• is still so cuddly
• has crazy hair (she definitely has the comb-over look going for her)
• has gotten much stronger and much better head control
• is working on learning to sit up on her own
• is definitely the best thing that has happened to us!!!!

We hope all of you are well and had a very Happy Easter. I will do my best to keep the site updated more often. We will definitely keep it updated throughout her surgery and recovery...many of you have requested that. We ask that you all keep Madi in your prayers. She is our tough little cookie and we have faith that she will do great and everything will go well!!!