Madelyn is 9 Months Old!

There is no mistaking that Madelyn is Toby's daughter. Lately she's been revealing more of her personality and with that we have discovered her love of climbing, computers and chatting. She tries to climb everything and is surprisingly agile for such a small, chubby chickadee. We keep a laptop in the family room and if it's open and Maddy is anywhere near, she squeals and crawls as fast as she can to get to it then starts pounding away at the keys. She even tries to use the trackpad.

She's starting to be quite the chatterbox as well. Her first attempt at a word, besides Mama and Dada, was birdie. She's been staring at her bird mobile in the crib for months and finally is tall enough to touch them...and eventually grab and pull them down, cracking the mobile in half. She was so proud of herself for reaching her goal. She now carries those birds around in her mouth while she crawls around the house and anytime she sees them tries to make a 'b' and a 'd' sound.

Madelyn also woofs when you ask her what sound a dog makes. The woof sounds like "woos" but it's still pretty cute. If you ask her what sound a car makes she'll blow a raspberry, food in her mouth, or not, as you can see from the video:

Maddy can also stand on her own for a few seconds before she gets distracted and starts waving her arms or dancing and then plops down on her bumper.

At her 9 month appointment last week she was 26 3/4 inches long and 17.14 pounds. She is turning out to be a social little butterfly albeit a shy one.  Madelyn smiles at everyone she sees but then quickly buries her head in our shoulder. Our greatest joy continues to be watching as Patrick and Madelyn's relationship grows as siblings and as playmates.