Maddy was playing by herself while I made a few phone calls this morning. I got off the phone and went over to see what she was doing. She told me “they’re sleeping.” She had taken a random sampling of her toys (a bouncy ball, a doll, a cup, and dolphin figurine, etc.) and laid them out on the bottom step of our stairway on the other side of our closed safety gate. When I tried to play along and asked if I could help them go to sleep, Maddy said “That’s okay Mommy, go work in your office, so I can work my jobs.”

Hence, I feel a need to “work” on this blog post and capture all the random Maddyisms that I’ve been posting to Facebook lately, for those of you non-Facebookers (Maren)…

This video is of Maddy hanging out in what she calls her “jail.” Seems to me she likes it too much for it to really qualify as jail time.

Maddy was sitting in the kitchen chair next to our high chair and when I put Hayden in to start feeding her, Maddy got down and said “Mommy, I get down so it can be your turn in da chair.”

Maddy watch watching Dave cook dinner and spontaneously broke out into applause. When Dave didn’t turn around, she said “Daddy, I’m clapping for you!”

Maddy wanted to share some of my yogurt with me, and I said “no, sorry because I don’t want you to get my germs and get sick.” She promptly replied with “but I’m already sick because Hayden got her germs all over me but I don’t need to go to the doctor.” (mainly funny because she wasn’t at all sick at the time)

After asking Maddy if she enjoyed her visit to Yahoo! the other day, she said “Yes! I had fun playing with Sheila! Tomorrow I go to Sydney’s house and play with Sydney, okay?”

Maddy hugged Hayden and said “sisters forever” (Dave taught her that).

When I came home from work, Maddy said “mommy I’m so glad you come home.”

Maddy loaded up my backpack one day and said: “Mommy, I’m going to my work-job now, bye!”

Maddy’s favorite word: “actually.” You’d be surprised in how many contexts she can use it.

Whenever I turned on the garbage disposal, Maddy used to run into the other room. Now, she instead runs over to Hayden and wraps her in her arms to protect her

Maddy: “I’m just going to read my pumpkin book because I love it it’s my favorite one.” (that’s the Halloween book Leigh gave her)

Maddy as I was running up the stairs to answer my phone: “Mommy, be careful!”

As a 7-month-old now, I’m feeling very mature.

I’ve grown over a pound since last month – now I’m 14 lbs 10 oz, which is still only in the 5-10 percentile for my age although mom and dad think I’m huge.

I like to “talk” a lot with my new noises, and I love to eat “solid” foods, like rice cereal, oatmeal, applesauce, pears, peas, carrots and bananas.

But my mostest favorite things these days are sitting up by myself (until I fall over) and practicing my crawling/scooting.

As you can see in these videos, I’ve made lots of progress over the past week and I love the newfound independence it gives me! I will admit that I still have more than my fair share of face plants, but hopefully I’ll figure out a less painful way of getting forward soon.

Another activity I absolutely adore is bathtime with Maddy. I sit in my bumbo chair and we play the “who can splash the other more” game. It’s super fun.

Mommy says that one reason I’m able to enjoy all this stuff is because I’m becoming a pretty good sleeper most nights and days (except when my runny nose really gets to me). I sleep 10-11 hours straight most nights, and either take two solid 2-3 hour naps or three 1-2 hour naps every day. Yay for me!

I won’t go into details about how my digestive system is also maturing, let’s just say it’s a much less enjoyable part of this growth stage.

Happy 7 months to me!

- Hayden