End of May

It's the end of Madeline's first May! She's getting to be quite big and strong. And she seems gradually to be taking to the schedule we're trying gradually to impose. Case in point: our first try at a 7 AM wakeup and 9 AM nap went off without a hitch. Well, I should say it was Summer's first attempt at the 9 AM nap: between 7 and 9 I was deposited at work.

When people ask about Madeline's rolling, I usually respond that she's plenty capable -- she does it at random, unexpected times, front-to-back and back-to-front -- but not consistent -- she'll go days or even weeks without doing it at all. Apparently today she was all about the rolling. Summer caught the action:

Despite earlier rolling success, Madeline seemed shocked!

So she had to roll again.

The noon nap didn't go so well as the 9 AM nap, so Madeline didn't go down again until mid-afternoon. When she woke up from that nap, Summer took her for a walk. Madeline approved.

And, after their walk, Summer and Madeline picked me up from work. We proceeded to the (Thee) Red Fez,* one of our very most favorite places to eat.

It was good to be back, and Madeline behaved nicely. She was energetic but not noisy. And the Red Fez is rather an artsy, noisy kind of place so even if she had exercised her lungs as well as her legs it probably wouldn't have been the end of the world.

Back at home bedtime was a mixed bag -- it didn't take Madeline long to fall asleep, but she did wake up and have trouble getting herself back to sleep. Summer restored her slumber but ended up joining her in the process. And so here I am. Tomorrow's another daddy-baby day!

* Wow, in case you don't follow the link, I have to excerpt this paragraph from the linked review:

Thee Red Fez, or “The Fez,” as we like to call it, is spoken of with a passion that can only be understood by those in the know. The Fez doesn’t have a website, and they don’t answer the phone when you call. In fact, when you try and call them it’s almost scary to hear the recorded voice on the other end. I can’t explain it….but trust me, don’t call. They are open Tuesday through Saturday and are located on an obscure side street (Peck, to be exact), with little more than a black placard with a fez painted on the marquee. It may be a little hard to find, but it’s completely worth the search.

That description makes the Red Fez sound almost parodically hipster, but it actually understates matters a bit: there's not "little more than a black placard with a fez painted on the marquee" -- there's literally just the red-fez-on-black-background. (Ok, well Projo says there's a menu in the window, so I guess there's a little more after all.) Even though I worked in the same building as this place, back in 2006 I dragged Summer around half the city looking for it only, finally, to spot the fez after we'd come full-circle.

Oh, man, and read this one, too:

The walls in the upstairs room are decorated with animal heads– which normally skeeves me out a bit, especially while eating, and because of some incidents in my past, but these animal heads get to wear little red fezzes, which I find charming in an anthropomorphic kind of way. It takes away the gruesomeness and the hunterly bragging of showing off “the kill” and allows me instead to believe that these animals feel good about their accessories and are watching down on me with all good wishes.

Happy Memorial Day

Well. After yesterday's grumpiness (and resultantly succinct post), we welcomed today's smiles and fun! Even the hard parts weren't too too hard. For example, we're trying to implement structured nap times now. It's early yet (today was the first day) but Madeline hasn't completely taken to them. Sure, nap rejection involved some yelling, but a lot of it looked like this:

And also like this (notice the costume change due to blowout and the bib due to copious amounts of drool):

When attempted nap time was over, Madeline and I played! She seemed interested in the stacker toy ...

... but perhaps a bit confused when I stacked the plastic donuts on her arm instead.

She also enjoyed grabbing at parts of my head, which I offered as a toy.

And she's been noticing that Petey is soft and furry (and Petey, to his great credit, has been obliging her in this discovery). She smiled a few times while petting him (and grabbing his fur); I couldn't catch one of her smiles but this should give you an idea:

Today was warm and sunny again so we made sure to get out for a walk.

Before we could even get past the yard, we noticed a giant patch of blooming clover. Madeline looked suspicious for some reason.

We ended up at Seven Stars bakery, where Madeline napped among the roses as we enjoyed pastries and beverages.

Madeline saved the best for last. She seemed to have more fun than she's ever had before, just bursting with giant smiles (and equally giant splashes) during her bath.

And after her bath, she calmly accepted bedtime. She even got herself back to sleep after waking up at one point. Let's hope it's the start of a trend!

Grumpy

Madeline was grumpy today.

It was clear that her gums were hurting her, and she had great trouble both getting and staying asleep for naps. We did have a nice interlude outside, though.

Summer helped Madeline to walk across the yard while I watered the plants.

Madeline's very enthusiastic about using her legs. Today's assisted walking seemed to distract her from her unhappy gums and lack of sleep.

And eventually she made it across the yard to me!

I rubbed my fingers on tomato leaves, dill, basil, and thyme so she could learn some interesting new smells. But mostly she wanted to walk or be held while she chewed her bottom lip.

Sunny Saturday

Today's pictures don't even begin until after we'd already braved the crowds of Brown-grad families for brunch at Olga's AND gone to Target for some feline necessities (and non-feline not-quite-necessities, too). In all the excitement, Madeline never really had her usual morning nap. But when we came home, she fell asleep instantly in my arms and then took a too-brief but apparently happy nap in her crib.

When she woke up we all wandered down Blackstone Boulevard to Wayland Square, Madeline comfortably nestled in her Ergo.

After picking up dinner and diapers at Whole Foods, we got cold drinks at Edge -- today was hot!

And we tried to show Madeline where she might be living now had our ceiling not fallen on us, but she was too sleepy to be interested.

At home she woke up and tried for a while to eat her hand.

When the hand lost its charm, or perhaps its flavor?, Madeline and Summer looked for interesting things out the window.

Summer says the goings-on outside weren't nearly as riveting as her and Madeline's expressions suggest, but still they seem to have had fun.

In fact, Madeline was happy into the evening despite her relatively light nap schedule.

But by bedtime the lack of naps had caught up with her, and oh how she cried. Finally, finally she was able to stay asleep, and Summer and I celebrated with strawberry ice cream.

Another good day: outdoors!

It was another daddy-daughter day here at casa Allgreene, though Madeline didn't want much to do with the casa itself. To both our satisfaction, we spent most of our time outside: in the yard, on the front porch, or walking around Providence's east side.

When I first set up a beach chair in the lawn this morning, Madeline wasn't sure about moving operations outdoors.

But a quality meal brought her around.

And soon she was climbing all over me, trying to look around not only because her surrounds were visually interesting -- and they were: flowers, bumblebees, birds swooping through the yard, cars going by -- but also in order to tie sounds to sights -- she heard the bees buzzing, the birds twittering (damn you microblogging site for connotatively ruining a perfectly good word), the cars going by, and other less obvious sounds like a plane flying over and lawnmowers rumbling in nearby yards. I don't think she quite tied everything together, but she tried.

We did spend an interlude inside. Madeline played for a little bit but then went down for a nap.

As she woke up from her nap, I made the grave mistake of coughing. Her confused squint gave way to a deep frown and then intense crying. The only thing that worked to soothe her was the wrap. And that had to be outside. And even then she didn't exactly look thrilled.

But the setup did allow me to water our plants.

As the afternoon drew on, Madeline and I got ready to hike over to campus and meet Summer. Madeline was more interested in licking her hurting gums than in the impending walk; Petey, on the other hand, wished us farewell from our office window.

Half an hour later, after dodging confused out-of-town cars and throngs of lost-looking and well-dressed pedestrians all clearly here for Brown's commencement this weekend, Summer escorted us to the safety (and air conditioning!) of lab.

But lab's a little overwhelming in its own right: there's a lot to look at.

Regardless, Madeline was a champ. She met new people and saw some she already knew, she lasted through two feedings and two diaper changes, and she even took a nap in my arms, all with no fussing. On the way home we even had a casual outdoor meal at the Butcher Shop and enjoyed the still-lovely evening. Then at home we stopped by the yard to admire our exploding sugar snap peas (and all the other veggies, too). And Madeline smiled.

Another good day.

Hot hot hot

Today was probably the hottest day of Madeline's life thus far (outside the womb anyway). Providence was in the low 80s. She was rather fussy and had a difficult time napping for very long. Given the gusto she gave to chewing on Sophie, I think her burgeoning tooth may have been giving her a hard time again.

But after lunch, I put her in the Ergo (complete with newborn insert--basically making her a baby taco) and she immediately burst into big smiles. We took a walk to Edge (a coffee shop in Wayland Square). I got an iced chai (and a blister) while baby got a nice nap and some vitamin D (don't worry, she wore a sunhat!).

We did some tummy time. I tried to get videos, but she was crying in all of them (mean, mean mom) so I'll spare you those.

Tonight at dinner, Madeline tried to grab my [Max: homemade, broccoli-topped] pizza! Sneaky baby.

Max: and then she had trouble getting to sleep, and looked up forlornly at her mama for help. Happily, sleep followed not long afterward.

Engagement with the world

We had a slow start to the day, enjoying manifestations of Madeline's increasing engagement with the world: for example, she was very impressed by her dinosaur night light (which once upon a time guided me to the nursery for middle-of-the-night diaper changes).

And she wrestled with her beloved music-box dog.

But eventually Summer removed her for what was supposed to be a moms' group but turned out instead to be a one-on-one pow-wow with a fellow Carleton alum -- well, two-on-two, really, as each alum had a baby in tow. Apparently not only was there much hailing of the maize and blue, but also Madeline seemed interested in her somewhat younger counterpart: more evidence of increasing engagement.

A brief out-of-sequence digression: the other day, Summer and I were fretting to one another about the prospect of Madeline's learning to crawl on our rather uneven wood floors. We recalled that we'd carted a rather large rug over here when we moved, only to deposit it somewhere in the basement; we resolved to restore it to its rightful place on our floor.

So, returning to today, while the female folk were out discussing the relative merits of Goodhue and Watson, I found the rug in an odd corner of an infrequently visited basement room, aired it out on the front porch, beat the dust and cat hair out of it in the yard, and set it on the living room floor.

Madeline seemed unusually willing to engage in unmodified tummy time: a good sign for future crawling.

Today's other major development was the arrival of Madeline's Ergo Baby Carrier, which works better for Summer than my still-beloved Moby wrap. Early polling was very positive.

Indeed, Madeline seemed to enjoy being able to snuggle face-first against her mother.

On a side note: check out those sugar snap peas in the right-most container!

Anyway, we took a walk up to Rochambeau, pausing for a picture near an 18th-century house (more history here) ...

... continuing over to Hope Street, stopping by the East Side Prescription Center for a bottle of chilled white after two near-80 degree days -- thank goodness for grandfathered liquor sales licenses! -- and then headed home.

A day full of fun

Madeline woke up this morning ready for a day full of fun!

Unfortunately, I woke up this morning feeling cruddier than I did yesterday. I wasn't at all sure fun would be on the menu.

Modified tummy time, though, is always on the menu these days.

And when I was bad company due to my hacking and wheezing, Madeline turned to cheetah friend for companionship.

I did manage to get Madeline outside for a short walk -- just past her future day care center and then back home -- to enjoy the sun before the forecast storm that never quite seemed to materialize.

Back at home Madeline just devoured the book she's reading.

But most momentously, importantly, and excitingly, not to overstate matters, Madeline consistently, without reservation, and with evident pleasure accepted the bottle today, taking in a whopping 12+ ounces. That might not seem like much, but when you consider that 12 fluid ounces is roughly equivalent to three quarter-pound burgers, it's a bit more impressive.

So: notwithstanding my under-the-weather-ness, today was quite a good one.