Bathtime

We get a kick out of Madison in her monkey towel.  She always looks so cuddly cute and relaxed after bathtime.  We thought we should share them with you:

Random Pictures

Thanks, Jason, for the little tee.  We tried to take a good picture, but slump-monster is looking a little like she needs saving :)

 On Saturday, we were lucky enough to see that it was the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.  In honor of this great event, there was a Star Wars marathon on Spike TV.  Madison could not take her eyes off this riveting cinematic feature.

On Sunday, I told Jeremy we just haven't taken many pictures of us with Madison.  So, we took one outside after church.  (Thanks, Grandma Yoh for the little dress.)

Monday, Monday

Today is the last Monday of the school year.  I have my students working on a project that will be their final exam presentation.  Surprisingly, with the exception of 3rd period, my students were diligently working today.  I was very impressed with them.  It is good because I don't really have to plan and have things prepared this week, but it is also exhausting because their computer skills are not exactly stellar, so there is a lot of running around.  It keeps me moving. 

Madison made it til 4am before wanting to eat - yea!  It was surprising because I felt like she hadn't even eaten as much as normal.  Maybe it was a little growth spurt that was happening or something.  She even nursed - sometimes, she just refuses and needs a bottle - so that made it a half hour wake up call before heading back to bed.  My favorite thing with her right now is going in after a nap or in the morning to get her.  She is usually waking up happy.  She turns over from her side sleeping position, opens her eyes slowly, and looks at you, then a great big smile comes, followed by a few toots, stretches, and kicks.  It is the blessing of my day! 

Have a great week!

Still....

Jeremy went on a bike ride down near Lancaster with his friend Mike on Saturday.  They had a great time, even with some rain/drizzle.  This was a test of the route for next week's Revenge ride organized by Mike (and Jeremy).   If you are interested in biking 40-ish miles next Saturday, let us know and we will hook you up with the Revenge details.  There is also a photo scavenger hunt tied into it for those more interested in rides with "fun" attached - besides the pure fun of biking, of course!

Madison and I had a day (or most of it) to ourselves.  She, of course, was not predictable.  Her normally predictable 2 hour nap was a little over an hour.  This was extremely disappointing to me since I have not been feeling well and went back to bed to get some extra sleep, only to be awakened by crying!  She made up for the missed time in the afternoon sleeping from 11:30 - 2:15.  She took a very short evening nap tonight too.  Unfortunately, she is becoming a nighttime eater!  I feel like we have tried a number of things to get her tanked up before bed - feeding a bottle right before bed (usually about 4 oz), giving her more at each feeding (7 oz instead of 6 oz), introducing rice cereal in the evening (doing better, kinda opening her mouth) - none of these things to have any effect in regards to night eating..  Last night she ate at 1am.  We gave her 4 oz, and she cried like she wanted more, but had soothed herself to sleep in a few minutes, so we left it at that.  At 4:45am she woke up AGAIN.  We gave her 4 oz and she wanted more - no effort to soothe this time!  In the end, she had a total of 6 oz.  We are open to any suggestions.  We would like our sleep back.  Otherwise she is great - she plays fairly well, learning to eat, goes to sleep without much complaint, enjoys the outdoors when it is nice enough, likes to sit at the table and watch us eat, etc.

In other news, my brother and his wife had their baby on Friday.  He was 18 inches long, 8 lbs, 13 oz.  (Same length as Madison, 2 lbs more - he looks like a chunk!).  His name is Landen Silas.  I have posted a pic (I hope this is okay with them).  He looks like a cutie.  We'll get to meet him next weekend when we head home.

Tired

Suddenly, Madison is consistently not sleeping through the night - up once (12am or 1 am or 2am) for some eating.  Do they have growth spurts at 19 weeks?  That's always the reason - growing.  As my friend, Sandy, and I were discussing, that's really what they do for 18 years - grow.  So, yeah, of course she is growing.  I wish she could grow without waking up to let me know about it.  I am getting tiiiiiirrrreeedd. 

Yesterday at school a student asked if it was going to be a lame class today.  I said yes.  I am past the point of defending my class to him.  Obviously, it is the end of the year....  Thankfully, others added to the class today by discussing their encounters with invertebrates - clams, oysters, lobsters, spiders, tapeworms, leeches, etc.  (9 days of class, 3 days of exams, 1/2 teacher work day)

Rice Cereal

We had a first tonight - rice cereal.  We thought we would try it out since she is seeming extra hungry in the evenings before bed.  The directions call for the cereal to be super soupy, which looks to me like milk and not cereal.  We put her in her high chair (sans tray) in the recline mode.  She tried it, let most of it ooze out of her mouth, swallowed some on accident, and gave some pretty funny faces.  All in all, I would not call it a success, but we'll try a few more nights and see how it goes.  Have a great Sunday!

This week

This week has been pretty hectic around here.  Jeremy has been cooking supper - really anything we can find in the house because we haven't made it to the store.  I have had some rough days at school - the kids are ready to be done, and I think the teachers are just as ready!  Today, we were released from school at noon because of a power outage; I did NOT complain :)  Jeremy has been feeding Madison her evening bottle, and they usually end up looking something like this:

We attached her high chair to the dining room chair today.  Thinking about starting the whole eating thing.  I am at least getting the rice cereal at the store this week, and we'll see how motivated we get this week.  I put her in the chair.  I think she thinks she is in her car seat and going to get to go somewhere.  She is not, but it still helped calm her down a bit.  I put the tray on and it just looked ridiculous... we are obviously not ready for the tray :)

 Hope everyone has a great Friday and weekend.

Mother's Day

This weekend was great, but more for my mom than for me.  I mean it was special having a first mother's day, but not the same as if she were older and we were celebrating.  Jeremy did get me a card and Madison gave me one too, so that was a first.  My home church held the annual mother-daughter banquet and had a love roast for my mom.  My dad's last Sunday at Salem is on May 30th, and the church has shown their appreciation to him over the years, but this was a tribute to my mom and her contributions as well.  They invited my mom's sister and dad in to surprise her.  And it was a great surprise! On Saturday evening, my whole family came to my parents' for a celebration.  It, as always, was crazy loud.  It is a good loud though.  All the little ones play together pretty well right now - they are just kids, and they are inside, so it is loud.  Madison was a trooper, although you can see here what effect it has on her.  We took a picture of our guests.  The first is with my grandpa - a four generation pic.  I like this one best because my mom and I are both smiling away at the camera, but Madison and Great-Grandpa are focused on each other.  The other picture is my aunt Sherry and Madison.  Sherry is a baby lover just like my mom.  All her little grandbabies are grown past the baby stage, so she was able to enjoy the stage again after a break. 

We spent the weekend mostly at my parents' house since there were out of town guests, but we did go have lunch on Sunday with Jeremy's mom (dad, grandpa, aunt, and 2 cousins, as well).  It was, as someone remarked there, the quietest Bricker gathering in history.  There was plenty of conversation, but because there were so few less people than normal, it was a quieter level of conversation.  We had an enjoyable time together.

4 month check up

I only have a few minutes before heading out to volleyball, but I wanted to post how Madison has grown....

Starting Weight: 6 lbs, 12 oz                            Starting Length: 18 in  
Weight at one month: 8 lbs, 0 oz                      Length at one month: 20 in
Weight at two months: 9 lbs, 9 oz                    Length at two months: 22 in
Weight at four months: 12 lbs, 2-1/2 oz           Length at four months: 24 in
                                         
Starting Head size: 13-1/2 in                           
Head size at one month: 15 in
Head size at two months: 15-1/2 in
Head size at four months: 16 in 
These are head shot comparisons, just to remind you what she looked like when she was born:

Catch up and picture

I'm going to get this blog in quick before I go wake her up from the NIGHT!  Yes, she went to bed at 8pm last night and is still sleeping at 7:30am.  I am contributing this to the fact I tiptoed in at 9:45pm and she sucked down 4 oz of milk.  I may do this every night!  A few updates:

• My parents came last weekend (haven't blogged since then - yikes!).  It was good to have them.  They entertained Madison and we had a few minutes sans child to chat as well.  We went out to Scrambler Marie's on Sunday after church.  Madison was getting fussy, so we laid her on a blanket on the table.  The waiter told us this was a first in his 2 years of working there.  She was completely happy for the entire time we were there; so, whatever works, right?
• Jeremy's parents stopped in on Saturday of this weekend for a few hours.  They got her at the end of her awake time (fussy) and then for awhile after her nap (happy).  It was good to have them as well, and we got adult time then too.
• Madison is up to 6 oz bottles about every 3-1/2 or 4 hours.  She has her 4 month check up today; I'll post info on her later today.  Also, I wanted to post a picture.  It has been a long time coming  I just took these last night.  Until later...