A day of Milestones!

Today is a day of milestones in the Dean home ~

1. Madison walked four steps from the table to Grandma's chair (In the quest of the all important CEREAL)
2. When she got there she got that 'look' and signed "potty" and my Mom said "You want to sit on the potty?" Now mind you we have been trying very hard to catch 'the look' for "number 2" and we either get her to the potty too early and she does it after we get off the potty, or we get there too late and have a full diaper when we get there.  This time was different! Grandma rushed her in there and stripped her (which isn't easier with winter layers) and she proceeded to go both #1 and #2 for the first time on the potty!  Grandma did lots of singing and was thrilled. She emailed me right away and said that Madison seemed proud of herself as well.  While this is a milestone for today and we hope it continues, we will take the joy for today even if it doesn't happen again for a while. We aren't getting our hopes up, but trying has been fun.
3. During physical therapy (yes the physical therapist is still visiting and is determined to continue seeing Madison until she walks - she admits she really enjoys her time with Madison and since "walking" was written into her plan, she justifies her fun visits.) Madison took 16 STEPS unassisted!  While I missed it, I got an excited WHO HOO email from my Mom and then when I got home Madison walked 4 steps from Rick to me. It was that adorable wobbly drunk walk and was so cute I almost cried!
4. She is signing 140 words now and the new ones include: Xylophone (there is always one in our alphabet books), Work and Money, (When she asks for Mom during the day, Grandma tells her "She is at work to make money to buy you more toys!", and Sorry, Violin and Gloves.  She is funny with "Sorry". She sometimes pinches me accidently when she is pulling herself up on me and I yell out "owie, that hurts mommy" and yesterday she signed "Sorry" unprompted.  It was adorable.  Then we were in the hall and she went to touch the night light which she knows she isn't supposed to touch. I said/signed "No touch  light please" and get this....she reached over, touched it and then IMMEDIATELY signed "Sorry"!  What a little sneak!
5. She is verbalizing more too...and saying the funniest things.  "Bird Cage" comes out "Birday", "Lasagna" comes out "ananya", "Zoe" comes out "Oowee" (long O).  It is really fun. She tried to say "Trapezoid" and LAUGHS so hard when I say it (Tupperware Shape sorter). TOO CUTE! It is so funny what makes her laugh and what she is interested in on a given day.

What a glorious day! 

1st Dental Visit!

We took Madison to her first Dentist appointment today! She has four teeth, two huge ones on top and two tiny ones on the bottom. She does have two more peeking through on the top.  It is recommended that children see the dentist for their fist visit by their first birthday and with our insurance, I needed to get her in before January to get the whole 70%/80%/90%/100% coverage ball rolling! I also felt strongly about her first visit being a positive one rather than waiting until there was a problem and her having a bad experience the first time.

She did really great! We did what the Dr. called a Knee to Knee exam. Madison was on my lap facing me and the Dr. sat in front of me with her knees up against mine.  I leaned Madison backwards and the Dr. looked in her mouth and then applied the fluoride treatment.  She cried a little but wasn't freaked out or anything.  She said this is a good way to brush her teeth too if we had trouble doing it other ways.

She got a new Crayola toothbrush and some flossers and two stickers!  We only need to floss the bottom two cause the top two are so far apart! They are huge, but the Dr. said that wasn't bad for little teeth, space is good.  (I hope) The Dr. said we were doing things great and only had one suggestion. She wants us to add toothbrushing to our nightly routine.  We do it together daily in the morning when I get ready for work, but I haven't done it at night.  Apparently the best time to brush your teeth is at night because that is when plaque forms and we don't produce saliva at night.  So we will add this to jammie/story time and should be good to go. 

(Of course I tried it tonight and when we were all done and ready for the story, she signed "milk" and I gave in and then had to brush again. Mom will figure it out eventually!)

Madison is on the Potty Train!

I contemplated whether or not to post this in fear of jinxing myself, but heck I then decided I don't believe if jinxes!

I have been putting Madison on the potty for a while now, just for fun, while waiting for a bath to fill, or while mommy went potty or just to read a short book now and then. There have been a few times when she would be playing and take off crawling to the bathroom and stop and look at me and then sign "potty". I would say "You want to sit on your potty" and she would nod "yes" and we would sit on the potty and read. Very cute.

A week ago, I got a little more serious about it which simply entailed, doing it regularly twice a day without the diaper and while reading our Baby Signs Potty Train book. (I haven't introduced the train whistle as part of our routine as she hates it). I took a potty over to Mom's so they could practice too and took the Train book so that would be familiar. It has the signs to practice: Potty, More, All Done, Wash, Good Job (her good job is so HILARIOUS).

I am so excited to say that Saturday Madison not only sat there contently "reading" her new Elmo Potty book with sound buttons and laughing but she then looked up at me, signed "potty" and I looked in and she was GOING POTTY! (#1). We celebrated and hollared for Daddy and we all did a dance. This happened twice that day. We were so excited. I have to admit that doing this in the cold months isn't going to be easy! Layers aren't the best for getting undressed in a hurry and since she isn't walking dresses are out of the question right now!

Now I am not naive enought to think that she is on her way to being potty trained, but I am just so excited that she got the signs down, sat there long enough to be successful (less than three minutes) and wasn't afraid of the toilet flushing or upset in any way and has even suggested to use the potty on her own a few times. Very cool!

Speaking of signing, we went to Sign Playgroup on Friday morning, as I had the day off and it happened to be the first Friday of the month when they meet. I was so excited to go to the park and secretly hoped Madison would perform all her 130+ signs (well not ALL of them but come on SOME would be nice so I wouldn't feel like people thought I was making this stuff up! It is hard for even me to believe sometimes!) Beth introduced Madison as her "signing superstar" and I just beamed. In true form, Madison signed ONE word...SWING...and that's it! I was bummed. We had a great time anyway and Beth reassured me that happens and she didn't doubt me for a minute! :-) She said for her to stop signing for a bit when she learned to walk, it just happens developmentally.

It made me think of when I was a little girl. My Uncle tells stories about when I was really little and I would get around people other than Mom and I would hide between her legs or sit quietly on the couch and not say ONE WORD the whole time we would visiting. Now Madison really isn't shy but that day I thought, signing is her way of 'talking' and she just didn't feel like 'saying' anything and that is okay!

One of the cute things she does is when we are shopping and people see her and say nice things to her, she signs "Thank You" and everyone always thinks she is blowing them kisses and they just think it is the cutest thing! :-) Sometimes I tell them what she is saying and sometimes I just let them enjoy the baby air kisses.