Photo by David Stoecklein<br> Madelyn O'Grady poses for professional photographer David Stoecklein.

Madelyn O’Grady scampered across the carpet and shot toward her family’s Christmas tree, startling the cat and attracting the dog like a drunken reveler to a conga line. Maddy’s parents, wise to the toddler’s inquisitive ways and love of bright paper, had left the tree skirt bare of gifts, choosing to wait until Christmas morn for the unveiling. The little girl crawled intrepidly into the space between branches and floor, the Yorkshire terrier in close pursuit.

Glowing tree lights suddenly snuffed out.

Parents Michael and Monique O’Grady, sitting on the couch, groaned in unison. Their mock frustration dissolved instantly as Maddie ran, tripped and fell headlong into the couch, triggering a flurry of giggles.

Watching her exuberance, it’s hard to imagine the little girl as a fragile preemie weighing little more than two pounds, clinging tenaciously to life in an incubator. Equally hard to conjure is the vision of this dynamo in constant motion holding still long enough to model for photographer David Stoecklein in a professional modeling shoot this fall.

Twenty-two months ago, Madelyn’s birth brought high anxiety to her parents and the doctors who attended Monique’s 13-hour labor at St. Anthony Hospital. When Madelyn emerged, she wasn’t breathing.

Michael and Monique watched, helpless and frightened, as medical personnel fought to keep their baby alive. A neonatal team loaded the infant aboard a plane bound for Legacy Emanuel Hospital in Portland.

For Michael and Monique, the next two months were a blur of monitors, tubes and wires, CPR lessons, feeding and diaper changing. Madelyn grew steadily from a doll-sized infant, so small that Michael could slip her little fist inside his wedding ring and up to her elbow, to a relatively robust six-pounder. Upon her release from the hospital, Michael fought the urge to drive 20 miles per hour as he cruised home on Interstate 84.

At home, Michael’s brother Patrick met them with a huge bottle of Germ-X in hand, aware of doctors’ admonition to guard the baby’s fragile immune system.

After staying relatively isolated, Madelyn burst onto the public stage at eight months of age when she and her mother modeled at the Boots, Buckles and the Best of Pendleton style show at the Pendleton Center for the Arts. Wearing a denim onesy, a bandana vest and soft-soled leather cowboy boots, she snuggled in Monique’s arms at they walked the runway. Their appearance drew smiles from the crowd.

“Nobody at that time had seen her,” Monique said. “That was really her first outing.”

Monique, who operates a lawn care business called Mo’s Mowing Service, models occasionally. She is one of the Pendleton Whisky Girls and appears on western calendars and on the cover of “Cowgirl in Heaven,” a coffee table book of photography by David Stoecklein.

Monique works most often with Stoecklein. Earlier this year, she traveled to Stoecklein’s Idaho ranch for a Canon shoot where he shot as she rode in the middle of a herd of wild horses. Madelyn posed with her mother in a tamer shot inside a barn.

During a trip to the Pendleton Round-Up this year, Stoecklein told Monique he again wanted to focus his lens on Madelyn. During a photo shoot at her grandparent’s ranch in Mission, the little girl posed for a variety of shots – sitting on a horse, twirling a rope and snuggling with her mother.

One of the images may end up in a future Stoecklein “Lil’ Buckaroos” calendar, said Monique.

So far, Madelyn has reacted with more nonchalance to modeling than to her first time on Santa’s lap at Pendleton’s Festival of Trees. Seeing Jolly Ol’ St. Nick brought the toddler to a standstill.

“She went into statue mode,” Michael said. “She sat on his lap, but nothing moved except her eyes.”

Though Maddy’s birth turned their lives topsy-turvy, Michael or Monique wouldn’t wish any other way.

“I like my life better with her in it,” Monique said. “I wouldn’t want to go through it again, but it was worth it.”

“She is like a ray of light,” Michael said. “I can’t get home fast enough.”