Teething Strikes Again

There have been days over the past week when I honestly have felt like I live with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I can leave the house with a sweet, content child and at some point within the hour, she transforms into a fire-breathing, red-eyed monster who could eat me for breakfast. Seriously.

We were at the grocery store yesterday morning and about halfway through our shopping trip, about the time that my cart was filling up and we just had to pick up a few more items and check out, Hadley completely melted down. She threw the miniature pumpkin she had been holding to the floor, almost maiming an innocent bystander, and started wailing, screaming, and thrashing like a banshee. It was brutal. People were staring, I was trying to console her to no avail, and at the same time, I had to decide what to do with all of the groceries in my cart. Do I check out with a screaming baby? Do I put them all back while she loses it in the cart? WHAT DO I DO???? Long story short, I was that woman in the check-out line with the screaming child that everyone stares at and no one will make eye contact with. It was fabulous. Then we got in the car and she was fine. She stopped crying, smiled at me, and sang the whole way home. What the ----?????

I'm blaming my sweet baby's violent mood swings of the past week on teething. Hadley has about a gazillion teeth coming in all at the same time, and I think the pain is messing with her coping mechanisms. She's just never like this. She's always happy and content, but lately, she can be okay one minute and crazy the next. It's a learning experience for sure. For instance, I now know not to let her hold produce at the grocery store as she can be extremely dangerous when angered. And, when the meltdown occurs, RUN! Hopefully, those pesky teeth will break through soon and we can all return to our normal lives. I'll keep you updated.

On happier notes, I have almost taught Hadley to say "BOO" for Halloween. When you ask her what a ghost says, she replies with, "bahhhh." She's so close. And despite her teething pain, Hadley entertains us every night after dinner with music and dancing. She plays the same song on her activity table over and over again while dancing madly to it. You should see her shake her little booty and flap her arms. She really gets down. It's the cutest thing ever!

She's Walking!!

Hadley is officially a walker, a toddler, a (slightly) ambulatory human being. There's no stopping her now! Although Hadley took her first steps at the beginning of August, she has seemed ambivalent about walking until the last few days. I guess when you crawl at the speed of light, there's really no incentive to try to walk where you need to go. But, for some reason, she has been practicing walking constantly for the last two days.

Yesterday, Hadley was standing by a chair in our living room and decided to walk across the room to me. She bravely took four wobbly, jerky steps to get to me before plopping down on her bottom. I excitedly called Sean at work to tell him this exciting news, and his response was, "You were supposed to knock her down if she walked while I was at work!" As if! Hadley and I spent the rest of the afternoon praciticing. And, just for fun, when Daddy got home from work, Hadley walked for him, too. That's my girl!

I am trying to get Hadley's new skill on video, but this is proving to be quite difficult. As soon as we turn the camera on, Hadley goes right to it, turns the little viewing monitor so she can see it, and then proceeds to kiss the baby on the screen. It's adorable, but it really makes getting movies of her very difficult. I'll see what I can do, though.

Look Mom: No Hands!

Holding on to furniture is highly over-rated.

Especially when you need both hands to hold (and taste) a fun, new toy. Will you look at the booty sticking out? I just wanna smack it.

I can resist, though. What I can't resist?? Kissing those chubby cheeks.

Gotcha!

I finally got a picture of Hadley's two litte bottom teeth! Aren't they adorable?? Now, we just need a couple of teeth on the top and she'll be ready for her first cheeseburger.

Let's Go Krogering

Whoa, Nelly! Does this thing have brakes??!!

Don't worry-- Hadley loved her first ride in the grocery cart today. She even squealed and laughed a little. Especially when we happened to see my mom at the store. Hadley couldn't believe that Maggie goes to Kroger, too. Who knew???

A Tooth, A Tooth, A Tooth!!!!

A lot of excitement for one little tooth, huh? Let's just say that we've been waiting a while for this tooth. I was just commenting to another blogger yesterday morning that Hadley still, at almost 9 months, had no teeth. I had even started calling Hadley my "toothless wonder" since she is learning to eat all kinds of solid foods with no teeth whatsoever. We had thought that she was teething on occasion over the past few months, but since we never saw a tooth, we started to second guess that and thought maybe we were just attributing crankiness to teething.

Then, while out at lunch with my friend, Maria, yesterday, she commented that she thought she saw a little tooth on Hadley's bottom gum. I absently replied that nope, that must be a bit of a puff because there are no teeth in there.

I remembered Maria's comment last night while Sean and I were making dinner and out of curiosity, we went hunting to see if there might actually be a tooth. And lo and behold, there is!!! One snuck by us. The tiniest sliver of a little tooth has broken through on the bottom left. Sean and I were so excited that we were dancing around the kitchen-- Hadley thought this was incredibly funny.

Interestingly, Hadley hasn't even seemed to be teething this time. She has not been overly cranky or overly drooly and has not been eating or sleeping any differently than normal. It's like this tooth has not yet affected her one bit. I'm surprised, to say the least. Let's hope the remainder of her teething goes this smoothly. I'm positive I will live to regret that statement.

Mashed Potatoes

I thought feeding an infant strained and mashed veggies was messy, but finger foods are a whole different ball game. For the past few months, we have been feeding Hadley lots of mashed veggies, some mashed fruits, and lots of whole wheat cereal and oatmeal. About a month ago, Sean decided to throw caution to the wind and feed Hadley her first bite of "big girl food"-- a tiny, itty bitty crumb of a biscuit. You would have thought Hadley was eating acid by the look on her face. There was lots of gagging, choking, grimacing, and general drama by both Daddy and baby. Sean then declared that Hadley wasn't allowed to eat "big girl food" again until she was at least five years old. He just couldn't stand to watch her choke and gag on tiny bites of food.

So, I waited a couple of days and let Hadley try Puffs (little snacks that dissolve in baby's mouth-- they remind me of Cheerios) a few times while Sean was at work. At first, Hadley just played with the Puffs. She picked them up, clutched them in her little paws, and kept them there until I cleaned them out at the end of the meal. She tried to swipe her little hand into her mouth to eat the Puffs, but the Puffs rarely made it past her lips. After a few days, though, she managed to successfully transfer the Puffs to her mouth. And then, the fun began. There was more gagging and drama, but within a day or so, Hadley had learned to gum and swallow the Puffs. Now, she is a Puff-eating machine.

And, we are having so much fun experimenting with new and inventive table foods and finger foods that she can gum. Have I mentioned that my little star has no teeth whatsoever? Nope, not a one. That's made eating so much more interesting. In addition to vegetables, Hadley has tasted and approved cottage cheese, pancakes, dry wheat toast, plain oatmeal, cheddar cheese, mashed bananas, brown rice, refried beans, and her all-time favorite, mashed potatoes.

We went out to dinner last night with some of Sean's co-workers and since it was also Hadley's dinner time, we ordered her some mashed potatoes to accompany her veggies. The restaurant's mashed potatoes were very chunky, almost dry even, with a little bit of garlic thrown in. I wasn't sure Hadley would go for them. Until then, she had never had white potatoes and she certainly had not had anything with garlic. She loved them, though, and ate almost the entire plate. No one could believe she ate that many potatoes.

My first "real" food was mashed potatoes fed to me by my grandmother at about Hadley's age. I ate my grandmother's entire serving of potatoes and wanted more. Since Hadley is essentially Sean's little twin, I'm always happy when I find something Hadley inherited from me. I guess our love for potatoes starts early.