It’s been a busy couple of weeks in PhamsterWorld. I think the girls would sum them up as funfunfun, and Dave and I would sum them up as simply exhausting. Before getting into our recap, let’s pause for a moment to celebrate Hayden’s latest milestone. Yes, the little bubba is now a movin’ and groovin’ 8-month-old who says “dadada,” but not much else yet.

With all her locomoting, she hasn’t been gaining as much weight as we’d like – she’s now at just over 15 lbs, which keeps her in the 5th percentile for her age. She’s crawling/ trying to climb all over the place and gets very antsy if we leave her in the exersaucer or high chair for too long. Her favorite places to crawl to are under our coffee table and behind the recliner.

In other news, Maddy had her first real experience in the snow 2 weeks ago when we met up with my old college roommates (Amy and Joanne) and their families at Lake Tahoe. Pictures here. She loved building a snowman with Dave, and gave sledding a try but got tired of that after 2 runs down the hill in our backyard. Most of all, she loved making friends with Amy’s boys Nathan and Chase.

After that, my dad came for a brief visit and Maddy and Hayden got some good grandpa time in. Last weekend, we also had one of our super-fun playdates with Syd and Sierra and Lily at Burton Park in San Carlos.

This weekend Maddy and I have already had some fun playing around the house with Hayden and at our little neighborhood park.

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

Maddy’s becoming very expressive of her emotions. Some common statements from her these days include:

- I don’t like you!
- I need attention.
- I’m lonely.
- Carry me!
- I need to be alone.
- Go upstairs and work so I can play with Boi (our nanny).

She also says many happier and endearing things, like “Mommy, let’s eat together!” or “Mommy, let’s sit on the couch with Hayden.”

She also loves to play doctor ever since she saw her big cousin Sage playing doctor over Skype. The other night when we were Skyping with my mom, she explained in detail that she was a doctor helping take care of Hayden because Hayden was sick because she fell off the chair and bumped her head. Not at all true, by the way.

She still loves to read books and has started “reading” them alone more often, which I love. Her favorite this week is a book about going to the aquarium, which her Auntie Leigh gave her after we all went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium together. The book lists the names of many many kinds of fish, and I noticed last night that Maddy had memorized a bunch of them – like the Lookdown fish, Parrotfish and Jawfish. Every time we read it, she is sure to inform me that she doesn’t like the crab, but her favorite is the seahorse.

Still not much progress on the potty, but she tries often and has success occasionally.

No one can believe it, but yes I’m 6 months old already! When mom said “Happy half-birthday” to me this morning, Maddy insisted that we put on these hats and have cake (”one cake for mommy, one cake for daddy, one cake for Maddy and one cake for Hayden”).

We got a negatory on the cake, but luckily mom had never put away the stuff from Maddy’s birthday party in September, so we got to wear birthday hats.

For my half-birthday present, my mom finally gave me an A on my sleep-training report card It was a long 3.5 weeks, but I’m finally learning to appreciate the joy of 11 straight hours of sleep. I kind of alternate between 2-nap days and 3-nap days depending on my mood, but either way I really love my naps now and always take pretty long ones.

Oh, and here’s some completely unrelated documentation of how much I love my bathtimes (this video is actually me being the most still ever in a bath):

- Hayden

P.S. While we’re celebrating, I have to say a happy actual BIRTH day to my brand new cousin, Ezra Noble Carman, who was born this morning. We’re going to be best friends, I can’t wait to meet him.

P.P.S. When I went to the doctor’s office, I weighed in at 13 lbs 9 oz (10th percentile), at 24.75 inches long (10-25th percentile), with a head circumference of 40 cm (we think they measured wrong, b/c that puts my head below the 5th percentile).

I also very much enjoyed trying to eat everything in sight – especially the crinkly wrapping paper and bows. But I actually did get to eat one of my presents – my first rice cereal! I wasn’t so sure I liked it at first, but I’m starting to love it now.

I also got some great teething toys, which was a relief because my gums are hurting lots lately. Mom and dad say there are teeth under there, but they’re no where in sight yet.

At least Maddy makes sure that I have a toy to play with (a.k.a. shove in my mouth) all the time. As soon as I wake up from a nap, the first thing Maddy does (even if mommy’s in the middle of feeding me or changing me) is run to the toy box and find a rattle or toy to bring me. She’s the best.

Maddy is also great at interpreting all of my noises, cries and facial expressions, so I always know that she’ll communicate my pain (or whatever) for me. She’s always telling mommy things like “Hayden’s hungry!” or “Hayden’s happy!” or “Hayden’s laughing at me!” or “Hayden’s tired” or “Hayden’s teeth hurt,” so I never have to worry that mommy won’t notice what’s going on or try to ignore me.

I’m a lucky lucky girl.

- Hayden

It’s hard to believe that my third Christmas is already behind me. This one was soooooo much more fun than the last two. Not only did I get the added responsibility of helping Hayden and mom and dad open their presents, I got some really cool gifts myself!

The big one was this awesome computer that mommy and daddy gave me, so I can work hard just like them. I’ve spent almost every minute since Christmas pressing all the letter buttons, and I love the cool noises pictures it makes for each one.

I also got a neat beehive from Grandpa and Nana that has cute little bees I can practice counting with, a Snow White book and movie, TWO awesome Little Einsteins coloring books, some pretty clothes, an Annie CD, money for my piggy bank, new books, lots of candy, and more great stuff in my stocking. I was so excited that I said “Oh Boy!” every time I opened a present and I had to jump up and down with joy when I saw my laptop.

In addition to the gifts, we got to do some fun stuff around town. We went to see San Jose’s Christmas in the Park, where there were tons of pretty Christmas trees, neat displays, snow and bubbles coming down from the sky, and most importantly Santa’s train!

And mommy and I went on a date to see the Nutcracker! I got to dress up in this pretty dress Aunt Monica and Ba Noi gave me, and I wore my squeeky shoes from Susette (everyone got a kick out of that at the theater).

There were all these great dancers to watch – I liked the fairies and the Nutcracker himself most of all. The only problem was that mommy kept shushing me the whole show and didn’t seem to like it when I tried to get a good view by standing in front of other people’s seats. I just wanted to enjoy the dancing and know what was happening. It would’ve been much better if mom had played along and answered my questions, like when I asked “Where’d the Nutcracker go?” 20 times at top volume.

Oh, and I caught the boy next to us taking a nap – that is until I pointed in his face while yelling “Mamma, why is he sleeping?” and woke him up. Haha

Hope you all had as great of a holiday season as I did!

- Maddy

Well, we’re still in the midst of sleep training hell. Although Hayden’s had a few great nights, the last 4 nights have been somewhat painful. She did, however, earn extra credit this week by finally acquiescing to take her bottle consistently, so her grade is now up to a B+.

As you can see from the log below, her daytime schedule is more of an un-schedule at this point. So much for my grand plans of syncing up Maddy and Hayden’s afternoon naps to the same time frame.

The worst part is the crying that seems to happen constantly. Well, maybe I’m exaggerating, but it still feels like a miracle when she lets me put her down to sleep without a protest or stops crying in the night after only 10-15 minutes. She’s had 13 long crying spells this week that made me want to poke my eyes out. It’s hard to know how long to let her cry when it just seems endless.

Here are the deets…

- Night 8: slept over 8.5 hours, woke at 5:20am
- Day 8: 3 ok naps for a total of 4.5 hrs of daytime sleep

- Night 9: slept 11.5 hrs straight
- Day 9: 3 good naps (5 hrs)

- Night 10: slept 11 hrs straight
- Day 10: lots of crying for 1 good nap, 2 short naps (3 hrs)

- Night 11: slept almost 10 hrs, woke once briefly
- Day 11: lots of crying for 1 good nap, 1 ok nap (4 hrs)

- Night 12: slept 10 hrs but woke twice, including for almost 2 hours at 1am
- Day 12: 2 good naps (5 hrs)

- Night 13: slept 11.5 hrs, woke once at 2am
- Day 13: 2 okay naps, but gave up on 3rd nap after tons of crying (3 hrs)

- Night 14 (Christmas Eve): slept 12 hrs, woke and cried for 1 hr at 3am
- Day 14 (Christmas): 1 good nap, then more crying for a few catnaps (2 hrs)

Hayden and I just love our daddy. Even though we may be a little distracted by the Christmas festivities, we have in actuality been looking forward to his birthday for a while. I can’t wait to sing “Happy Birthday to Daddy…” and eat CAKE!

In thinking about dad’s special day, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can make sure he knows that we appreciate everything he does for us. Hopefully he’ll like the little present that mommy helped us make.

We’ve gotten lots of great bonding time in with daddy this year, especially since he started working his new job a few months ago and gets to be home most of the time. I try not to bug him too much when he’s in the office, but sometimes he lets me go in there and watch songs on YouTube while he works on his laptop.

My top 10 favorite memories with daddy this year are:

10. Apple picking in New York, when daddy lifted me super-high to reach the apples on the trees.

9. Daddy coming to my swim class, even though he thinks public swimming pools are gross.

8. Entertaining each other on lots of plane rides.

7. Getting beamed up together at the Star Trek in the San Jose Tech Museum.

6. Daddy carrying me all over the neighborhood because I was too scared to walk myself when we went trick-or-treating.

5. Watching the Yankees win the World Series.

4. Decorating our Christmas tree.

3. Going to my first Syracuse Orange game at the Carrier Dome, and meeting Otto.

2. Daddy introducing me to my little sister Hayden.

1. Daddy introducing me to the movie Annie.

Thanks for being the best daddy in the whole wide world!

- Maddy (and Hayden, if she could talk)