Hmm. What’s that? That flame-y thing looks interesting.

Maybe I’ll just touch that.

Huh?

Whaaah.

After we calmed her down and cleaned her up, we tried to give her the cupcake again. She demurred. She requested we never serve her anything with sugar again.

Sadie’s starting to learn the meanings of some of our words and responding to them. Sometimes, if we ask real nicely, she’ll dance for us.

Then, of course, she’ll promptly do something forbidden.

We finally got a chance to go to the zoo last weekend. We went out to the Mendon zoo to see the animals and do a little petting in the petting zoo.

It was a little cold for Sadie.

But she liked it when I pointed out the goats to her.

Another month, many more changes.

Sadie has developed preferences, and much more of a personality. She is starting to test her limits, which is entertaining if sometimes a little annoying.

She loves the landing at the bottom of the stairs. She knows I hate when she goes there. She goes there anyway.

She knows which parts of the family room are forbidden. She’ll sometimes touch things with one finger to see if we’ll react. Then, she’ll put her whole palm on it. If we still don’t react, then she’ll go all out on it. It’s fun to watch her little schemes play themselves out.

She took a trip down to Nashville, visiting with friends old and new. It was her first time on a plane, and she was a little trooper. The Cheerios helped.

She took her first trip down the Cape, and we were able to bring her down to the bay shore. Unfortunately, it was about 60 degrees and really windy. She liked being near the water, though.

She still likes the kitties.

The kitties still dislike her.

We’ve had a rough couple of weeks. She caught conjunctivitis and gave us quite the view of her devil eyes.

She layered a fever on top of the conjunctivitis, leading to her first prescription for Amoxicillin, better known around our house as the pink stuff. We’re four days into the ten day run. No one in our house can wait for it to be over.

She loves her books. She has her own bookcase in our living room, and each evening we go over to it and she pulls all the books down and flips through them.

She’s a fan of the Pat-a-Cake book, exploring the subtle interactions between the baker and the customer, and memorizing the way one can pat the cake, roll it, and mark it with a “B.”

And put it in the oven for Sadie and me

Sadie has hit double-digits. She has officially been out of her mother longer than she was in. Everyone’s happy about that.

I can often get good pictures when she’s gazing adoringly up at her mother.

She’s enjoying her newfound mobility, going from zero to trouble in just a couple of seconds. The first floor holds many forbidden delights — the cat food, the pots and pans, the cord for the lamp, and especially the stairs.

I put her down in the kitchen while I sort the mail, and ….. she’s off!

Her balance has improved markedly, though she still often goes boom. She’s now strong enough to pull herself up to standing.

Once she’s up, she’ll see what she can find. Sadly for her, not a lot happens on the second step to upstairs.

So, it’s time to come back to Daddy.

Sadie’s not easily deterred. Sometimes it’s more fun to plow through obstacles that go around them.

Sadie’s christening our new furniture. Jordan’s Furniture micro-fibered, scotchgarded and saran-wrapped our new family-room set. We’ll see how well it holds up to a determined baby.

She’s cruising along. She’ll get herself up on one side of the couch and walk all the way to the other side, holding on to the couch along the way. She’s not ready to walk on her own yet, but she’s probably only a month or two away.

We’re trying to teach Sadie the joy of reading. I read her a book each night before bed (with Goodnight Moon and the Very Hungry Caterpillar among her favorites). To foster her reading habit, we give her books she can flip through, or, you know, eat.

She also likes to emulate us, mimicking what we’re doing. For some reason, she seems to like holding the remote control. So, we gave her the Comcast remote to play with, or, you know, eat.

I can only imagine how happy Comcast will be to get their remote back.

This is Sadie’s first real football season, so we’re teaching her the Patriots rules. When we’re watching the game, we’re watching the game; we’re not crying, we’re not talking about our feelings, we’re watching the game. She’s still working on it.

To help her feel more involved with the action, we’ve taught her how to get in the four-point stance and knock Elmo off the block.

Little Miss 97th Percentile can crush all the other little babies. As you can imagine, she’s making lots of friends at daycare. She’s growing so fast, we’ve had to retire some of our gear earlier than we were planning. For instance, she has gotten a little tall for her pack and play.

She’s eating some real food — applesauce, grapes — and using the sippy cup. Two months from now, she retires the bottle. That should be fun. She’s a little sad that she hasn’t gotten teeth yet. She’s been teething for months, but we have nothing to show for it but massive Orajel bills.

She’s starting to know the boundaries. I’ve said “No” more in the past month than in all my previous 34 years combined. She recognizes the “No” but still tests us every once in a while. She thinks she’s all stealthy. She’s not.

Along with that, she’s starting to have preferences. When she’s not precisely where she wants to be, she’ll fuss. From what I hear, this battle will only last for the next twenty-two years or so.

Alas. She grows fast. Still pretty cute, though.

Few things can focus Sadie quite like eating her cup. This baby is on task.

Sadie has just turned nine-months old, and she’s changing every day.

She’s crawling like a madwoman. If I walk out into the kitchen, three seconds later I’ll hear the tell-tale “slap slap slap” of her hands on the floor as she follows me. She’s speedy; Mario Andretti would be proud of the way she runs laps around the downstairs. She also manages to go from zero to trouble in under four seconds, not understanding why I prefer she not play with the cat food, or explore the stairs to the basement, or even just see what happens if she pulls the pretty black cord.

She’s pulling herself up now. The couch, the stools and Daddy’s legs all provide leverage. I think she’s still a ways away from walking, but she’s laying the groundwork.

She also enjoys the maddening little music thing we got her, standing up to play with the gizmos.

She knows how to make it sing the alphabet. She likes when it sings the alphabet. The cursed alphabet.

She enjoys playing with her blocks. They make a satisfying sound when she pounds them together.

She’s getting better at chasing the cats. She’ll spot them, let out her war cry, and then “slap slap slap.” Libby and Patch have never been hunted before; they’re not quite sure how to handle it. They live in fear, cowering at her approach, leaping for higher ground.

But how can anyone fear this face?

Happy nine-month birthday, sweetie.

Today also marks A.’s and my second anniversary. I guess a lot can happen in two years.

I wish I had some Cheerios…

Hey, it sticks to my hands…

Ok, now what to I do with this?

Maybe into the mouth?

Yummy! I’m so happy.

Remember when we were all excited that Sadie had learned to crawl?

She’s now hell-bent on investigating her world. She used to sit playing in one spot for a few minutes; now we’re lucky to get 15 seconds before she moves on. She has slimed the DVD player. She has found our cleverly-hidden ant traps. She tries to tug the cords hanging from the TV and computer.

There’s nothing we have that she cannot destroy.

We’ve been pretty good about not spending too much on toys for Sadie. Still, it hurts a little when she ignores all we’ve gotten her in favor of a dot.bomb trinket — a squishy brain.

We took Sadie to Fenway Park for a corporate event yesterday afternoon. She seemed to enjoy the views from the sky boxes, but she really enjoyed the little baseballs they gave away.

Well, after months of threatening, Sadie has finally begun crawling. Click the video to watch.

Our lives will never be the same again…

Sadie enjoys these summer weekends. They often start with some yummy baby food in the high chair.

After the baby’s done eating, it’s time for her parents to be able to get some breakfast. We know what that means for Sadie: baby jail!

She’ll often check the walls to see if she can escape.

She’s very happy when I come over to pick her up and parole her.

We then moved into the family room, where we get a chance to check out Sadie’s profile.

She likes to play with her Fascination Station.

She’ll often get all excited at what’s going on.

She’s *so* close to being able to crawl, but she’s not quite there yet.

Sadie had a happy day. And, for some reason, she’s decided to celebrate by rolling her tongue in a really really weird way.

Ok, seven months and sixteen days. Did I mention this has been a busy month at work?

She’s still not crawling, though she’s ever-so-close. She’s good at getting herself up, into position:

But that often just leads to the faceplant:

Sadie has decided she really likes to talk, or at least babble. And now she’s babbling continuously. I’m told that won’t change until she reaches sullen teenhood.

I put some foam on the floor in the living room to ease the pain of the random faceplants. Sadie likes ripping up the fringe around the floor, and putting in her mouth to ease the teething pain. Or, what I assume is teething pain. Sadie’s been the little girl who cried “teething” for several months. Yet, no teeth.

She’s good at spinning around, doing 360s on the foam floor. She can do it sitting; she can do it crawling.

She’s still far more social than I will ever be. She’s the hit of her daycare at the gym. All the ladies in the babysitting room at Gold’s Gym coo “Sadie” when she comes in.

We’re getting better at interpreting her gestures as tokens of love. When she raspberries us, she gives us droplets of love. Her spastic arm clobberings are smackings of love. Her random lunges while trying to eat my leg — lunges that leave ample remnants of goo — are her coveted slimings of love.

She goes absolutely bananas when I pull up Cute Overload on the screen. She loves looking at the pictures of the animals.

She can clap. We’ve gone from waving arms randomly to actually clapping. Whee.

She can play peek-a-boo. For weeks, after I would pull off her pants I would brush them over her face. Now, she’s playing peek-a-boo with them herself. She’ll pull the pants over her face, then she’ll pull them off, laugh, and put them back. It’s very cute. Here’s the stop-action photography (thanks to burst mode on my camera.)

Pull the pants over my eyes:

Sit there for a second:

Start waving my arms…”Where’s Sadie?”:

There she is!

Ok, that’s a lot this month. I can’t wait to see what next month brings.

When I was at Amazon.com in 1999, I worked on the launch of the toys and electronics stores, and part of my responsibility was checking out the sample toys manufacturers sent us. I fell in love with the huggy buggies. They were fun, and huggable, and when you are alone, 3,000 miles from home, working 90+ hours a week, you grow attached to the oddest talismans.

“Green” — as I named the green one — was the first item ordered off the Amazon.toys beta site, and it has followed me around for years, from Amazon to Abuzz to China to BostonWorks to LTV. I’ve gotten quite attached to this little ball of felt and rubber.

I gave it to Sadie last weekend. She seems to like it so far.

Sadie had a big moment today. Sitting in her exersaucer, she swung her arms, spun around, looked interested in some things, bored at others. In short, she behaved far more like a little kid than a baby.

I don’t know whether to be happy or sad.

Sadie got to go outside today, meaning she got to wear her fun pink hat.

At some point I’ll learn the art of holding the baby and taking a picture at the same time. She got a little chopped off in this one, but the eyes were too pretty to toss.

She’s getting much better at eating her food, and, as her bib says, she is far too cute.

Finally, she’s branching out from eating her teddy bear. Now, she’s started eating the stuffed lamb.

Sadie is all better after her two weeks of illness. She was in such a good mood that I couldn’t resist taking some pictures once I got home.

Sadie looking in her mirror:

Sadie in her bath:

Sadie after her bath:

And again:

I really like the last couple of pictures. I had both of us in front of the bathroom mirror, and I held the camera in front of me and off to the side. I then turned off the flash to get the super-soft lighting. I think she’s beautiful in any light, but this golden light is especially pretty.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, including the fabulous A. Today is a special Mother’s Day, because our little girl is six-months old!

A lot has happened in the past month. One thing that hasn’t changed is how cute she looks when sleeping in her car seat, especially when she’s wearing her little cardigan.

Sadie is growing incredibly fast — as she likes to put it, “I’m a good eater.” Sadly for us, her growth forces us to keep retiring our old-faithfuls, first the swing, then the bouncy seat, and this morning, the bumbo.

She would squirm in the bumbo trying to see what was going around her. This morning, she squirmed right out of her seat; thank goodness I was there to catch her before she slammed into the counter-top (or the floor).

Sadie has graduated from taking her baths in the kitchen sink to taking them in the bathtub, and she no longer screams and screams. She’s found out that she can play with toys in the bath, and that makes her ever so much happier.

The biggest change this month was her graduation to day care. She has been a rock star, but she’s gotten two viruses (at least) so far in her first two weeks. So, most of the past couple of weeks have had us in an “I’m trying, Daddy, but I just don’t feel so good” kind of mood.

Two icicles of mucus have run down her face nonstop for the last two days. I have a fun picture of this, but I’ll spare the web from it. As she kept telling us, “Nothing makes me happy. Everything makes me cranky.”

But she’s getting better. We’ll see what she gets this week. By the time she starts school, she’ll have an immune system of steel.

She’s really starting to master her motor skills. Sitting in her exersaucer, she’s no longer just dropping her toys, she’s willfully tossing them aside.

She’s sitting up very well on her own now, and we’ve minimized the thud factor by laying down a foam floor in the family room.

She’s *this close* to crawling. She can sit. She can roll over and roll back. Next step is crawling, a step for which we’re hopelessly unprepared. Child-proofing? Egads.

Regardless of her mode of locomotion, the goal is always the same: stick something in my mouth!

She’s also getting wicked smaht. She turns the pages in Goodnight Moon at the right time. She looks at the cat when we say “kitty-cat.” She amazes us every day.

Happy half-birthday, sweetie!

Sadie usually feels pretty safe in her exersaucer, but she needs to make sure she watches out for the big mean kitty…

Sadie had an exciting day yesterday. Not only did she get to wear a proper spring dress instead of the sleeper I usually put her in, but she also got to play with her favorite bear:

By play with, of course, I mean eat.

It’s a little early for Sadie to be choosing colleges, but if mascot cuteness becomes a deciding factor, Syracuse may have the advantage.

Little Sadie is five-months old today, and very different than a month ago.

For the past couple of weeks, Sadie has been eating only out of the bottle, having gotten over her previous reluctance and allowing us to actually open the blinds in our living room. Of course, it’s not only the bottle, but she seems to like putting anything she can find straight into her mouth.

Things like her teether.

Or her arm.

Or my thumb.

These feeding cues led us to think that Sadie may be ready to start eating some food from a spoon. So, today we decided to break out the cereal. She wasn’t quite sure about it in the beginning…

She did very much enjoy the inherent messiness of the process.

And after the first few spoonfuls, she got into it. We were expecting a huge battle, but she actually seemed to enjoy her gruel.

So, our sweetie is eating food. All her dark hair from the womb is gone, leaving only the blonde and the red. She’s learned new noises, mastering the raspberry and the annoying whine. (From what I hear, that never goes away). She’s left behind her swing, her 6pm witching hour and her clothes meant to cover a 9-month-old. Did I mention that she’s a good eater?

And sometimes she gives me little hints that she’s ready for me to be done taking pictures.

Ok, sweetie, I’ll stop. I hope you’ll someday enjoy your Sadie archives. Happy 5-month birthday!

Now that Sadie is a little bigger, she can stand in the exersaucer while we’re making dinner. She’s getting much better at it; a couple of weeks ago, she would just scream.

She likes her teether, though she doesn’t like to admit it. I’ll catch her going for it, and she’ll give me a look saying “I wasn’t going for the teether. Not me. Must have been some other baby.”

But, it’s mostly fun for me watching her figuring stuff out. I think she’s a smart little baby.

Our little Sadie-kins is four months old today. She’s very sweet.

She whips her head around trying to figure out what’s going on. She gets a little frustrated when she can’t move where she wants.

She laughs when you tickle her.

She loves her little Thelonious Monk record, its plonky piano playing in the background as she goes to sleep each night.

She screams and screams when she sees the bath paraphernalia. And screams.

She likes trying to play with the cats. I’m not sure the cats feel the same way.

She loves her bumbo, the best invention ever.

She’s by far the best baby in her “mommy and me” class.

She goes to the gym and hangs out in the daycare without causing a scene.

She enjoys a rousing game of “You’re fine.”

She’s a good eater. She’s a good sleeper. She’s all we could ask for and more. And today, she’s four months old.

It’s almost been four months now, and the little baby is still photogenic. Here she is sitting on her bumbo.

I, on the other hand, look like hell. The baby’s still pretty cute, though.

More pictures coming soon!

Because it’s her three-month birthday! Yes, little Sadie Butler joined us on November 14th, 2005.

It’s been a fun three months.

Sadie recently discovered her thumb, and over the past couple of weeks, she’s found that she doesn’t really need us — all she needs is the thumb. And sometimes the whole hand.

I worry a little bit, though. She loves to have her fingers in “the claw,” and she’ll often thrash her fingers around. I’d prefer not to have to go to Holliston Pediatrics to have her eyeballs reattached.

… but when I’m very tired, I go to sleep. The little baby thinks it’s smarter to just scream and scream and scream.

Seems counterproductive.

Update 1: … and scream.

Update 2: This is from Thanksgiving, but seems to fit her current mood:

Ask and ye shall receive! Here are some new pictures of our two-month-old daughter Sadie…

“I’m 97% percentile in height and weight”:

“No one knows what it’s like to be the baby behind blue eyes”:

“Daddy always told me not to take a rattle to a knife fight”:

“Sometimes I’m all contemplative”:

Sadie and I often spend some quality time up in my office reading the news. I’m not sure how much longer Little-Miss-97th-percentile will be able to fit comfortably in my crossed legs, though:

If you want prints of any of the digital images, let me know and I’ll Ofoto them to you.

A. and I left Sadie alone with Grandma for the first time today. Everyone seems to have survived.

We’d been holding off on dropping her with anyone (despite many offers) because of her unwillingness to drink happily from the bottle. But, I think over the past week we’ve been able to nail it; we changed the bottle we were using, and we heated the milk to a warmer temperature than before. Magical.

So now, the baby is transferable. We can start taking little trips out to dinner, to a movie or a show, maybe even to a Red Sox game — only six weeks until spring training!

Sadie has improved her neck control this week — head goes left, head goes right, head goes left — it’s a fun game! We’ve started putting her in the boppy so that she can look around at her world.

Plus, good excuse for me to put up some more pictures. (As always, I have hi-res versions of all the pictures if you want to print one out — just email me.)

Here she is sitting in the boppy:

Here she is doing her fun new “I smile with my tongue sticking out” face:

After I took quite a few pictures, Sadie gave me her patented “Daddy, What the heck” look (previously featured after the stupidest thing I’ve said the baby (so far):

Sadie sleeping:

Thinking ’bout waking up:

Sadie with her friendly giraffe:

Sadie (like many 4-week-olds) enjoys milk. So far, she’s only drank milk from one source, and that seems to work for her. She’s got a system.

So, last night, I’m trying to get her to drink the exact same milk, only from a bottle. She’s a touch resistant to the idea. So I come out with, “Come on sweetie, it’s all the same milk. You need to be platform-agnostic.”

The little WTF look on her face was priceless.

I may be reading too much marketing copy during the day.

Wrapped up in one of those cute towel/sleeper combinations.

The cats knew something was coming.

Patch and Libby have been the light of their Mommy’s eyes for well over a decade. They are set in their ways. They barely tolerate me. Barely.

Their little lives have been upset a few times in the past couple years, with my arrival, two moves and all sort of other disruptions.

Over the past few months, Mommy’s lap has disappeared and all sorts of new stuff made its way into the home. Then, Mommy disappeared for five days.

I (and I still resist calling myself “Daddy” in relation to the cats) still came home every night, but it wasn’t the same. They started acting weird, hiding in closets, crying continuously. You can see Patch here, sitting inside the nightstand, looking mighty unhappy.

On the morning of the third day, I rolled out of bed and found both of them sitting in front of the bedroom door staring at me. I shudder to think how long they had been waiting.

Four days in, I brought Sadie’s little hat home for them to smell. I then left it on the couch so they would know that this smell was part of the family. This worked really well. They know that she’s an “approved” smell, and they don’t attack her.

After two weeks, they tolerate the baby, mostly by ignoring her. They don’t like some of the high-pitched sounds coming from the screamy baby, though.

I’ve gotten a couple of notes asking for more pictures of our little girl. Happy to oblige

I’ve been speculating on Sadie’s future career choices. Will she be President? An English Teacher? A Peace Corps Volunteer?

Maybe she’ll grow up to be a boxer. If she does, I bet they’ll call her “Baby Girl Butler.”

We brought our three-day-old daughter home this morning. I was pretty nervous navigating Route 126, but Sadie was totally calm, conked out in her pretty little outfit.

Our little girl finally decided to join us this morning.

Sadie Thayer Butler
11/14/2005
8lbs, 7oz, 19″

We are all happy and healthy. And sleepy.