Balance Queen

Maddy was a balancing queen today. She did more balancing and posing today than I had seen yet. She is getting so close to walking. I'm a tad excited for her.  She also seems to love to go upstairs. If we are in the basement, she will go for the stairs and will go upstairs to the bonus room every time. She loves playing up there.

Standing up

Maddy is standing up on her own now. Sometimes she will even bounce up and down without holding on. She actually tried to take a step this morning and fell right on her face. She just looked up at me like "you didn't catch me mom". I think I was so shocked she tried that my reaction time was a tad slow. :)

Pro at the stairs

Maddy is now a pro at the stairs. She not only is good at it, she is really fast. Tonight, she crawled from our fireplace to the stairs, climbed all the way and went into the bonus room. It was if she had purpose - she was crawling right for the little piano. It was so weird.

Cruising maniac

Whenever Maddy decides to start walking, we are going to be in serious trouble. She is so mobile it just amazes me. I can not turn my head for one second and expect to see her when I look for her. She gets up and down on things quickly. Tonight, I was watching her at the coffee table and I got up to grab something off the counter and she had followed me into the kitchen area. I was amazed to see her hot on my heels. Wow kiddo!

Walking and cruising

Maddy almost refuses to be held or be confined in any way. She wants to be down on the floor to move about the house freely. It's funny to watch her go. She'll just start to lean over and try to get down. Since she's started to crawl with her belly up off the floor, she's gotten so much faster. I can't just put her down and walk away. I have to literally watch her to make sure she doesn't get into anything crazy. I wonder when she'll walk.

Object permanence and humor

Tonight, Maddy was playing with some plastic lincoln connector things - one was a stick and one was a wheel. She loved to put the stick in her mouth, which was a problem for me. Every time I'd try to take it, she'd get so mad. So instead of trying to take it, I would just pull it out of her mouth. She had pulled up onto the couch and had the stick in her mouth and I decided to just take it and put it behind her on the coffee table. Whoa! It was like I had smacked her. She let out a yell that just shocked me. Boy did I make her mad. She got down, turned around and pulled up onto the coffee table and started looking. Her gaze went left and right. When she found it, she stopped crying, picked it up and smiled. Whoa!

Pulling up and crawling

She's getting there. She's about ready to just "go". She crawls - real crawling - a bit and then drops to her tummy. Once she gets to where she wants to go, she's up really fast. She can even pull up on a wall. We caught her pulling up on the wall underneath the television in the basement. Once she realized she had nothing to hold on to, she looked behind her and dropped to her butt. It was fun watching her move and stand so much. She is so mobile it's amazing. I'm guessing she will walk before she turns one.

Squatters rights

Maddy is getting really good at squatting. She will pull herself up on the coffee table and the squat up and down. She loves it. She started doing this the other day - she'd pull up and down on me. Tonight, she did it all night. I am just waiting for her to cruise. She's so ready.

Crawling

When will she start crawling? Not sure. But tonight, we had her on her tummy and she was moving her legs in the right way.

Cruising maniac

She is off folks. She is cruising on everything that may possible look like she can grab onto it. I plopped her down in the dining room (or the doggie room) after our stroll this evening and she got up on the crates and walked around them. Then she took off into the foyer and into the hallway. When she got to the closet door (and no obvious place to grab onto) she fussed some and finally sat down.

I coaxed her into the kitchen so I could get dinner going and she was off and cruising again. She grababed onto Sydney's mane and pulled herself up and took off. I'm not really sure how Sydney felt about it, but I thought it was funny. She got to a cabinet door that wasn't as friendly as the others. It swung open and she fell down pretty quickly. It freaked her out and made her cry. But I picked her up and she was fine. It's just amazing how fast they can go!!