***I always assumed hiking was done in the mountains until we went on a "hike" (walk, really) to the highest point in Wisconsin.
I've never been exceptionally steady on my feet, so leaping from this stone to that was never my gig. Tom, however, loves it. And he's good at it. In fact, I don't know if I've ever seen him fall. The occasional stumble, sure, but that's it. Tom said it's because he's part mountain goat. Ask him which animal he'd be if he could and it's a mountain goat.
Madelyn has definitely demonstrated her two-sided heritage. The first time we brought her to this home, she mastered the stairs. It's been two weeks and today she insisted that I hold her hands so she could walk up them. Of course the stairs are nearly as high as the length of her legs, so she has to swing her straight leg all the way around to the side and then up and over, but she did the whole flight.
We've unpacked 30 or 40 boxes, but we still have several sitting around here and there. One was in the living room, probably blocking her access to the wiring behind the TV stand. It's a regular banker box. Madelyn started figuring the thing out yesterday. Today she managed to climb up and have a seat. As Corey and I were debating whether I should let her do such things (you can guess where the protective big brother stands), it looked like Mad was going to fall right off because she was trying to sit down where there was no box. But she moved and we cheered. I was pointing out that we have to let her test things out or she'll never learn. Then, for reasons we'll never know be sure of (I'm guessing "testing gravity" was in there somewhere), she very slowly leaned all the way over to the side.
Mad's got a scrape on her temple. Mama, Daddy and Brother all had their hearts in their throats. And Brother spent the next half hour or so glaring and not talking to Mama.
Madelyn will be one in exactly one week. I can't even believe it. I looked on my MySpace blog to see what I'd done on this day last year. Tom and Corey set up the crib. I organized some of my belongings well enough that Tom made files for me, and we swapped out bookcases in our room, from an extra large that might fall on the baby (we had a cinderblock wall in the bedroom, so we couldn't anchor it) to a smaller one that held all of the books we'd gotten from a shower at work.
Here was my last line of that blog: I guess that’s enough for one very pregnant day. I can’t believe we’re into the single digits now. Eight days... and really, today’s pretty much over. I really can’t wait to meet this person!
We didn't know if the baby in my womb was Madelyn Kenzie or Oliver Canyon. It was a pretty exciting time. I worked halfway through that Wednesday. I was so afraid that not having enough scheduled things to do would result in the same "I'm-off-work-and-whew!-I'm-exhausted" feelings I had with Corey. I left work three weeks in advance of his due date. The next morning I felt like I had been concreted to my bed.
This time, I even scheduled an early morning manicure for my first day off. Bev massaged my hands in hopes of helping to stimulate labor. Then I took my car in to get the oil changed. While there I walked a few blocks away in not the best part of town to get a late breakfast. That was an experience! It's an area sometimes known for prostitution, but who'd have thunk that a nine-months pregnant woman wearing jeans and a collared T-shirt would garner any attention.
That evening Tom and I were laying in bed, chatting about our days before he headed off for tennis and I went to the grocery store. Sometime around 5:30 I had my first painful contraction. About 36 hours later, she was born and we knew her name.
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