Breaking out the toys

Madeline found her hands several weeks ago, and she has been intrigued with her fingers for the past couple of weeks.  Within the past week, she has started reaching for objects.  Of course, anything she reaches for goes directly to her mouth.  This includes the shoulder of your shirt if she gets ahold of it, a handful of my hair that she has grabbed, or your finger as she holds onto it.  We gave her a few small stuffed animals this week to check out...

She also loves her play mat as there are all kinds of different objects to grab and check out...

She is also starting to learn cause and effect.  When she kicks her legs at the objects above her head, they make all kinds of funny noises, which makes her smile and giggle.  Here's a short video from the other day of her having an incredibly good time on her play mat (not sure how I managed to take it upside down)...

I had no idea how great of a toy that plat mat is, but I would certainly recommend getting one!  She gets bored laying on our bed and staring at the ceiling when we're getting dressed, putting away laundry, etc., but she will play on the mat for quite a while because there are so many bright objects to check out.  She has a lot of fun kicking her legs at things and scooting across the mat so this isn't an uncommon sight after about 30 minutes of playing...

Now that she's starting to play with toys, the biggest challenge is going to be keeping the puppy dogs away from Madeline's toys.  We let Bailey in the house yesterday afternoon after Maddie had been laying on the couch playing, and Bailey had Maddie's stuffed bunny rabbit in her mouth in about two seconds.  However, she knows that isn't hers, so she dropped it as soon as I said "Bailey!"  Then, she laid down and gave me a look that said "Don't get mad at me.  I'm just a sweet labrador retriever that LOVES stuffed animals"...

And it's hard to stay mad at a big 85 pound baby like her :)  Although, I'm sure we will suffer a number of toy "casualties" as Maddie starts to play with more toys around the house.