One month

Today marks one month since Madeline ventured out into the world. Unlike the Monday morning that occurred one month ago, we spent a relaxing few hours lounging in bed.

When Madeline started to get rowdy, we laid out the quilts for some more tummy time.

Today has been an explosive day for Madeline. Between her outfit in the last picture (which she soiled not long after the picture was taken) and the one in the next, there was an unpictured outfit which she dispatched quite quickly.

An acquaintance of Summer's maintains a baby blog which includes a picture of said baby in the same chair on the same day of each passing month. This not only provides context for baby's size, but also allows for easy month-to-month comparison. It's a good idea, so we've stolen it. Unfortunately, none of the many pictures turned out superbly, but here's one of the better:

But the day wasn't all blowouts and begrudging photo shoots. We've both seen baby laugh in her sleep now, and she's pretty ready with a smile these days.

Smiles aside, we did undergo one last self-imposed trial. Since we never got prints of Madeline's hands and feet early on, we decided to try at one month. This experience turned out to be quite taxing.

We did get one -- and only one -- decent print to show for our efforts ...

... but we also got a very unhappy, thrashing, ink-covered baby. Summer had to work hard to feed Madeline back into any semblance of good temper. Meanwhile, I tried to capture her inky foot.

After the foot- and hand-print trial, we were even more nervous about attempting Madeline's first proper bath. Up to now, it's all been spot-cleaning and sponge baths. But we deemed it time to try the real thing. Thankfully, it proved true that babies become calm when bathed.

Madeline seemed mesmerized by the bathing experience. Summer got her spick and span while I tried to document Madeline's look of intense concentration.

Immediately after the bath, Madeline remained entranced. As Summer dried and dressed her, she seemed to be trying to figure out what had just happened.

Unfortunately, the calm didn't last long. Madeline still had her evening crazies, pushing back our prosecco toast in honor of one month of (hopefully) successful parenthood. Now she's asleep, and shortly it will be our turn.