Quatre mois. January 24, 2007

That’s right, Madeline Anne Smith is already at four months. It seems like just yesterday that we were writing her three month blog.

She’s doing great these days, ever-changing. On Saturday she ‘officially’ turned four months. No major parties or anything… just a quiet day at home with her parents.

Yesterday she had her four month pediatrician’s appointment. This was a big one because she had a round of vaccinations. Though she had four different immunizations, she only had two shots since three are combined. Poor babies! They get their shots right in the thigh, not the behind. Maddie was in a LOT of pain when the needles were going in, but by the time she started crying, they were out! The look of terror on her face was unforgettable. But the nurse was very fast and efficient. As a parent you always worry about how a young baby will react to immunizations – I know the chances of an adverse reaction are statistically minute – but she seems so fragile still, and the shots are so unnatural and invasive, that it makes me worry. However, after the shots she was all smiles, her normal self, and had a great night sleep. Not even any redness or swelling on the thighs. What a big girl! And her various skin ailments (rashes and fungi) seem to be all gone, finally. The lotion that Dr Moreira recommended last time worked like a charm.

Yesterday’s measurements: 6.4 kg (14.1 pounds), 63 cm (24 inches) long. I expected a heavier girl this time around… I swear she’s getting much heavier… or maybe my arms are getting weaker every day. Like last time, her dimensions are statistically average.

We are currently trying to get through our massive supply of #2 diapers before she outgrows them altogether. We have only a limited supply of #3’s, and even our nappies are getting to be too small for her. Looks like we’ll have to place another order of fuzzy bunz soon.

Hair. January 15, 2007

What a lot of hair we have! Madeline had loads of hair when she was born, then lost much of it; now it is coming back with a vengeance. The funny thing, however, is the manner in which it is growing back. Lots of bald patches, especially on the back of her head (since that’s how she lays most of the time, on her back.) But it’s finally starting to fill in a bit and is even looking feminine sometimes. Except when we give her the ‘comb-over’ to cover the bald spots! Then she looks like an insecure, grumpy old man.

We had another good weekend being parents. On Friday afternoon we played a softball game with Maddie as our youngest fan. Then on Saturday we had another game and there she was again, cheering us on from the clubhouse. During softball Saturdays we always bring Maddie (mom and dad both play on the same team), and there is always someone around eager to take care of her while we are fielding. Plenty of free help when you have such a cute and agreeable baby! And she loves being outdoors and around lots of activity. Saturday night we had our nanny come to the apartment to babysit while we went out on the town. This was the first time that we had really gone out just the two of us since Maddie was born. Laye is more than happy to babysit on the weekends or anytime, since it means extra money for her.

On Sunday we visited another baby friend of Maddie’s, this time a 2 week-old Senegalese baby. So many of our friends seem to be having babies these days. I can’t decide if there really are so many other babies around right now, or there always have been, and I just haven’t noticed them since I never had one of my own until Madeline. Anyway, she responds very well to other babies and is always cheery around them and fascinated by them.

The weather has been surprisingly warm the last several days – hard to get used to when we’ve had the delightfully cool Dakar winter temperatures since November. And lots of mosquitos, flies, and dust. Sounds great? We tend to keep Maddie indoors more when it’s like this. Hopefully tomorrow it will be nice and crisp again and we can take her for her long late afternoon walk, which she always loves.

I’ve fallen and I can’t get up. January 8, 2007

Well, Maddie hasn’t really fallen… she just can’t get up, period. But she tries! Sometimes when I am playing with this kid, I get the eerie feeling that hers is a frustrated, mature mind stuck inside a baby’s immature body. Clearly she has a rich personality that is becoming more and more defined every day.

Over the holidays, she learned (very well) to roll over completely. At first she was really scared to do this because she got stuck on her stomach and didn’t quite know how to get out of it… or she quickly would roll backwards on her back when she was almost on the front, and suddenly seeing the ceiling again would make her cry. But now, this rolling over business is old hat with her, and when on her stomach, she is happy and wants to ’show off’ the fact. Imagine, already a show-off! Two days after Christmas she smacked her head into her first piece of furniture. She surely knows when a camera is pointed at her and is good at ‘hamming it up’.

As you can see in the below picture, she is also quite happy when sitting up, even though she can’t do it by herself. She is very strong and pretty good at sitting up. And she wants to keep trying and trying over and over…. I read that babies quickly lose interest with activities at this age, but this is not the case with Maddie when she tries things. Can she be hard-headed and determined at 3.5 months?

Sleep trials and tribulations continue. She naps very little during the day, as if she doesn’t want to miss anything exciting that might happen. It’s almost as if this baby is buzzed or something – so wide awake all day, and ready to play, laugh, read a book. Like an Energizer bunny (and poor Laye – today we got home from work and we could immediately tell what kind of day she had with our baby…. another long one.) At night, Madddie still won’t go to sleep by herself. She needs to be fed in our bed, and only then will she allow herself to be transferred to her own bed. The past couple of nights we couldn’t even get her down in her own bed, and she slept with us the entire night. This is definitely a habit we are trying to get rid of ASAP. I think overall we are lucky parents with respect to baby sleep, because when Maddie sleeps with us, she gets a good 10-12 hours of sleep. I know new parents whose babies never sleep through the night… so at least we have an option that works.

Tonight we had a little victory: for the first time ever, she took a pacifier and fell asleep on her own, in her buzzy chair. Too bad it was before her bath and dinner, and not an hour later!

Happy (dusty) New Year. January 3, 2007

Well, Madeline survived her first New Year’s Eve extravaganza and is happily experiencing 2007. Luckily for us, she didn’t get too crazy. We spent the evening in a small gathering at a friend’s house nearby with drinks, food, and fireworks. As usual, Maddie was too excited by all of the people around her and refused to go to sleep at her normal bedtime… but finally fell asleep on her dad’s chest around 10:30 or so. Here is a kid who can’t get to sleep when it’s perfectly quiet, yet when asleep, doesn’t flinch when fireworks explode right above her head! Go figure. There were other kids and babies at the party, and our friends’ nanny watched all of them for the evening. She was the only one successful in getting Madeline to sleep on her own just before midnight. We all made a champagne toast to 2007, then played a peculiar game called ‘windball’ that leaves one out of breath and unhealthy-feeling, especially after a few drinks.

We are into our second and final week of our Christmas holidays with little to show for in terms of our Maddie goals. The big project for these two weeks was to get this baby into a regular, consistent sleeping routine both at night and during the day. We have failed. She clearly has a mind of her own about such matters, and has obviously decided that she is not ready for a routine of any kind just yet. She still won’t sleep during the day unless she is on someone’s shoulder. And at night she is still all over the place; sometimes she will sleep for 8 hours uninterrupted in her own bed, other times only half the night in her own bed, and during the really long nights, wakes up every two hours. The only consistent thing about her night time sleeping habits is that she goes to sleep in her own bed, and wakes up in ours!

We’ve not had very much ‘baby-friendly’ weather here in Dakar lately. We’ve been wanting to spend an afternoon playing golf at the Meridien this week but it has been so dusty and breezy, we decided it’s much better for Madddie if we stay indoors. This is common weather for this time of year here – very cool, windy, and extremely dusty with poor visibility. Even too dusty for decent sunsets, because the sun ’sets’ way before it touches the horizon.

Tomorrow we head out of Fenetre Mermoz and into our own apartment again. I am looking forward to moving back into our own space, into a place that is just the right size for our little family of three. Sometimes we feel like there’s too much room here!