twister and shouter

Our little Maddie is a very different baby than she was even two weeks ago. With the babies, it feels like they hit a plateau of sorts now and then, and you think "Huh? Why aren't you (fill in the blank -- eating solid foods yet, crawling yet, sleeping better yet, etc.)" And then, all of a sudden, practically out of nowhere, they start doing something new!
Maddie is now sitting up super well by herself, and figuring out how to get places by sort of falling forward or sideways, then rolling one way or the other or stretching herself out or any non-crawling way to get whatever it is that catches her eye. I'll leave the room for a minute (usually, Lizzy's in there with her, so it's not like Maddie's alone), and I'll come back, amazed at how far she's gotten -- usually stuck in a corner of some sort, but often not unhappy about it. Again, she's not even crawling yet! Though she has started to do a backwards scootch sort of thing. I had to start making sure she was wearing a solid (snap-crotch) top as part of her outfit, because she would get a rug burn on her tummy when the backwards scootch made her top slide up. What a turkey.
She started eating solid foods all of a sudden, too. One day, I tried feeding her chicken, and that was a spectacular success. Today, she ate an entire container of baby food (applesauce/cherries), plus some of a peaches container, from me at home! Unprecedented. She's been reserving that trick for the ladies at day care. And she's been a Cheerios fiend for a couple of weeks now. She LOVES her Cheerios! I've heard it said before, and I'll repeat it: Whoever invented Cheerios, it's as if they did it with babies in mind. Those little pincher fingers learn so well on Cheerios.
All of this new movement has its downsides, of course -- Maddie's now rolling around on the bed, so the fact that we don't have her in a crib is suddenly a real problem. We got out the crib months ago, and Matt has it mostly set up, but naturally there's one piece missing, and naturally it's not something you get get online ... ugh. Lizzy practically skipped the crib stage in favor of a high-sided bed from Ikea. I'm tempted to try the same with Maddie, but this probably breaks all kinds of vital baby-survival rules, so I imagine we'll have to fix or get a crib that actually functions. Drat.
Also -- Maddie has gotten stellar, pretty much as of this weekend, at twisting herself onto her tummy almost immediately upon being placed on the changing table. I have yet to master changing a diaper when the kid is face-down, so I'm at a disadvantage. I think it's suddenly a two-person job, this diaper-changing -- one person to distract one end, and the other to take care of business at the other end.
One last Maddie note. I've decided that if Maddie were a superhero (bear with me on this one), her super power would be a supersonic screech. I believe those of you acquainted with my daughter in person have probably heard what I'm talking about. The difference these days is that she's hitting that high note (or frequency?) FOR FUN. She'll be sitting on the floor, playing, and shrieking her head off. The screech has never bothered me overly, but it makes Matt's head just about explode. I've not seen a baby as screechy as ours. Good thing she's mostly good-natured. But when she shrieks (with happiness) these days, I picture superbabies all over the area (and perhaps dolphins and dogs, as well), pricking up their ears and preparing to lend a super-hand. She's got the communique part down, plus, she can pierce the eardrums of any bad guys! Pretty sweet.
I'd post a photo of the increasingly chubby child, but my computer has decided that it doesn't want to be terribly user-friendly about downloading photos from my camera. Which is a real shame, since that's much of the reason I purchased the piece of crud. I'm still pretty unhappy with the computer situation, but I don't have enough free time these days to mess with it to have it occupy much of my mental capacity for outrage.