home bound

we were home bound today between rain and fog (and lots of cleaning and goodwill sorting). it is amazing to see all that snow melted and our grass and deck exposed. anyway, we had quite a chatty maddie today and i wanted to note all the new words.

strong, milk, puddle, water, hug, helping, stickers, and cereal were the new words that i jotted down today and wanted to capture on the blog. love.

the day after

madelyn and i had a fun morning playing at home while daddy went to work until around 1. we played with her mr. potato head toys for a long time. she was having a lot of fun trying to get the glasses to fit on her face. she was so proud when they would stay on for even a moment. (i think that she looks a lot like me when i was her age in this picture. in fact, i called my mom because i thought that there was a picture of me with mr. potato head glasses on, but it was brad.)

she was so cute dancing to one of her toy's music today that i had to share. she was so happy jamming to it! she wasn't really playing with it, but wanted to keep it on for the dance beat. i think you can tell how big her smile is in the video.

she went strong until daddy helped her with lunch and made our first attempt at nap time. thankfully, she went down without a fight and napped for about 3 hours. she was a little bit out of sorts from the long nap when she woke up, but after some milk and rudolph, she was ready to run errands with daddy and mommy. her new thing is to say "out" when she is done riding in the car. it always makes me laugh because she just thinks of it all of the sudden like "oh, here is my stop - let me out".

other words to mention - heavy, cake, stool (as in step stool), mug, and play. love.

merry christmas!

merry christmas! i hope that everyone had a wonderful day with their families and loved ones! we had a quietly, wonderful day at home with our little family.

madelyn was so excited about each and every gift that it literally took the whole day to get her to open all of her presents. she wanted to play with each toy and read each book before we could tear her away from it to open another wrapped gift. while it took a long time, i was glad that she is always content with what she has and i hope that she has many more christmases like this one.

i have put together a little highlight video of our morning. madelyn was so neat about unwrapping her gifts. she would make piles with the torn paper and would usually have to get all the paper off before having a reaction to the gift. of course her first comment was usually "open". (we are all wearing reindeer pajamas. my family always unwrapped pjs on christmas eve and we have continued that tradition - this year's theme was reindeer.)

madelyn also got a junior doctor's kit. she has spent a lot of time playing with it. i think that it helped that she had her checkup this week and the doctor let her play with the otoscope the whole visit. she knew to put that in her ear (and ours) right away. another instrument that she knew immediately how to use was the stethoscope. she would quietly 'listen' to her heart and chest, my knees, jesus in the nativity, you get the idea. and daddy taught her how to make a heart beat noise so now she give a "thump, thump" sound when 'listening' to a heart.

she has really enjoyed a little play house set (seen in the picture). everything from her "henry" train to her stacking cups has made a trip through the front door. she is just having fun seeing what will fit in it. we didn't know that it took batteries until after we realized that we didn't have any more (the kitchen took a lot), so she hasn't even gotten to hear all the noises it makes too. that is just going to refresh her love all over again when we get some more batteries.

i thought for sure that all the excitement would make her get a long nap, no. i was very much mistaken. madelyn did not take a long nap, she didn't even take a short nap, she took no nap! we tried twice and she would lay down in bed like normal but then 15 minutes later we would hear her playing and her door opening and closing. at least she knew enough to stay in her room until we came to get her. surprisingly she was perfectly happy and cooperative all day. she didn't act like someone who had been taking 3 hour naps all week and needed to sleep.

since she was some how still awake and happy we went to a neighborhood in the area that has been doing a charity light display for the past 21 years. madelyn really enjoyed the lights (that she could see - street parking and snow piles made some of the viewing difficult) and really liked seeing "jesus" in the nativity displays. madelyn's love of jesus has been a wonderful reminder this season. he is the first thing on her mind in the morning and the last thing on her mind at night (she has taken the figure to bed with her more than once). and at dinner she asks to pray and then sing "jesus loves me" at least once before she will let go of our hands and let us eat dinner. she has been such a blessing to us and christmas has been such a wonderful time to reflect on just how blessed we are. merry christmas! love.

christmas eve

i thought that wednesday morning was like a fairy tale christmas eve. the snow was falling in big fluffy flakes and it was sticking to all the tree branches (or as maddie calls them "tree sticks"). we haven't really had a good tree sticking snow so i had to take some pictures. growing up in florida, i really was dreaming of a white christmas and now i finally get to have them! the day would have been better if matt and i didn't have to work, but thankfully we were both able to get off between 2 and 3 in the afternoon.

madelyn had a really good day and wore her santa outfit (thanks, nana) until it was time to get ready for church. she had eaten apple sauce with her breakfast (at her request) and was a mess. so she took a shower with mommy before getting into her christmas dress. she ate two cups of apple sauce and was still asking for more (and that was on top of her waffle and banana breakfast).

her words for the day were "hey" and "sunshine". she just kept saying "hey, hey" all day. sometimes it was for "hi" and sometimes in a "hey come here" kind of way. i think that she got that one from daddy, but i have noticed that i say it more than i thought i did since she started saying it. and then she was requesting that i "sing" a song about the "sun". the only one i could think of is "you are my sunshine". madelyn loved it! she would lay her head on my lap when i would start singing it and look me in the eyes. i don't know why this song makes her so cuddly, but it was enough to get me to sing it like 30 times. and then i decided that i couldn't just sing to her all day - it was nap time.


she didn't believe me that we were going to church at night. i would say "are we going to go to church tonight?" and she would say "no". while we were getting ready after maddie's nap, i let her watch "the grinch that stole christmas" (cartoon version). i wasn't sure that she would like it, but she loves her dr. seuss books so i thought that it was worth a try. she loved it! when the grinch first gets the idea to steal christmas and gets that evil grin on his face, madelyn said "uh-oh"! she was really into the songs and everything.

at church they were only doing childcare for kids 3 and under, so i thought that we would try bringing maddie in the service - at least for the singing. she was dancing and loving every minute of the songs and lights. it was cute because she would look around with this big smile on her face and then it would fade and her dancing would slow in a "why aren't any of you dancing" sort of way. but then she would look back at the stage and get right back into it! the girl loves to dance! once the actual message part of the service began, matt ran maddie to the nursery were there were a ton of kids to play with! he said that she never even looked back.

after church we picked up some chinese food and headed home. after a quick dinner maddie went straight to bed so that matt and i could get ready for "santa". it only took matt two hours to put together the play kitchen and we were in bed by 9:30. (we watched "tropic thunder" while wrapping and assembling since we figured it would have a pretty simple plot line. later we took in a little of the "a christmas story" marathon.)

and here is a picture of all our hard work ready to greet madelyn first thing on christmas morning! i love surprising people and was really looking forward to the look on maddie's face when she saw all the new additions to the gifts under the tree (most of which are from grandparents). love.

counting

madelyn requests to "count" in some of her books now. she will repeat counting through about six before loosing interest in starting over at "one" each time, but "eight" is her favorite number to say. she will always say "eight" when we get to it while counting.

there is one book she likes to "count" in particular - a bug book. it is colorfully illustrated, but the text is only the number and the insects' names. after five times through or so i start to have a difficult time bringing enthusiasm to the counting.

similarly to the repetitive counting, we also have to repeat the names for the seven dwarfs (a la snow white) when we get to that page of the story. she just keeps saying "again", "again". love.

18-month check-up

we bundled up and headed out in the falling snow for madelyn's 18-month check-up this morning. she was in an excellent mood this morning! it was a little surprising because she woke up a little before 5am - the first time. she woke up a few more times before sleeping from 7-8. i thought that she would have been grumpy today since she usually is when her sleep is interrupted like that and she has been in this difficult phase lately (more on that later).

madelyn was so friendly at the office that her doctor commented on it because she said that it is unusual in an 18-month-old to be that friendly to strangers. there was a male college student shadowing the doctor and madelyn greeted them warmly with a wave and a "hi" as she ran up to show them the puzzle pieces she had been playing with while we waited. anyway, here are her stats:

height - 35 inches (99.6 percentile)
weight - 28lbs. 6oz. (92 percentile)
head circumference - 41.9cm (97 percentile)

her height/weight combo (equivalent to a body mass index) is around 62% which made her doctor really happy since she has been at like 30%. and it is definitely not from a lack of appetite! i think that she has just finally caught up with her growth rate. the summary of the appointment - she has been amazingly healthy and is doing great developmentally.

so we had another really great day today. whatever has been bothering her seems to have passed. her doctor said that it was good that we gave her motrin which made me not feel so guilty for giving it to her in the first place. but hopefully we will have many more days of happiness to come.

speaking of happiness, madelyn is really enjoying checking out the presents under the tree. and she notices every new package and every new ornament although she does have her favorites of each. yesterday she started asking about opening them. she is eyeing some new ones in this picture and then she is tempting fate in the video. she normally does listen to me when i ask her to put packages back under the tree, but the torn paper and the glimpse of a button was just too much for her to resist.



madelyn likes to help me in the kitchen while i make dinner. she got into trouble for putting her spoon into the taco meat i was making on the stove after i told her not to, so she lost her stool privileges. after a while i gave her another chance with the stool, but she could only sit on it away from the counters. surprisingly she did not even try to sneak it closer to a counter and just sat on it for the rest of dinner prep. as part of the compromise, madelyn wanted to do her own cooking. here she is sitting on her stool (well she started to get up once i got the camera) holding a mixing bowl and stirring with a whisk. (she added "tend" for pretend to her vocabulary today while we were talking about her toy food not being for eating, but for pretend.)

the first picture of the post is of madelyn and her precious jar of cherries i mentioned a few days ago. she was starting to get frustrated because i wouldn't open it, but for the most part she just carries it around.

so much is going on right now, i have to summarize in bullet points:

- for father's day i got matt a kid's set of golf clubs for him to use with maddie for $1 at target. they have used them every day for the past week. madelyn has also added to her daddy's enjoyment by saying "golf" and "club".

- yesterday madelyn and i headed out on the only day this week that isn't supposed to snow to buy some groceries and goodies for christmas. first we went to the organic market for some of maddie's foods. they have little kid sided grocery carts and i decided that madelyn and i would give one a try. she did so great! it went even better than i could have imagined. i would point something out and madelyn would get it and put it in her cart. she even did a really great job of making sure not to run into anything in the aisles. after that we went to the "regular" grocery store for the rest of our shopping. again we tried a new cart style - this time it was a firetruck shaped one maddie could ride in. i normally don't go for these specialty types of things, but i knew that this would be one of our only trips outside the house for most of the week and wanted to make the most of it.

- for about the past week madelyn says "up, up, up" when we drive up a hill. she might have been doing it longer, but it took awhile for me to figure out that she said it when we were driving up a hill. i just thought that she was just saying "up" over and over for her own amusement. she even says it when there is a hill in a cartoon. we have gotten her to add a "down" after we reach the top of the hill.

- tonight at dinner maddie was being really happy and when daddy asked if she was good today she replied "yes" and "good" - another new word - before busting out in hysterical laughing. after several more "good"s, i asked her if she were silly and "silly" was added into the mix of "good" and laughing. dinnertime is so much fun!

love.

last one of the day

i was obviously home all day today! i think that this is my sixth post of the day (or somewhere around there). i just had to note that during our weekly skype with the grandparents, madelyn said all four of their names - "papa", "nana", "grandma" (said more like "grapa" and "grampa"), and "pop" for big pop. she has said some of them before, but this was a record to say all four in a single night.

that's it. i am going to bed. love.

christmas card pictures

even though it isn't ideal, we waited until the last possible moment to take our christmas card pictures. and as our reward for waiting, madelyn slammed her head into the coffee table the night before we were going to take them so that she would have a nice bruise in the center of her forehead. none-the-less, our plan was to take all the pictures on saturday morning before going to sam's and ordering cards. well, madelyn wasn't feeling it. and after i wrestled her into her shirt, she opened my bathroom drawer right into her mouth filling it with blood. the good news is that she didn't bleed on her white shirt! (oh, and that she was fine.) she opens this drawer almost every day while i get ready and of course she would hurt herself on picture day.

most of her "big sister" pictures were filled with tears and any that were happy were very blurry. as you may have guessed, madelyn does not like to hold still unless she is asleep. here are some of the best of the rejects.

we got some happy pictures while she was eating some banana, but we also got a lot of mouth full of banana pictures.

we got some cute ones while daddy played peek-a-boo with her, but we couldn't read the shirt in those which was key to our christmas card announcement.

trying to get her picture in front of the christmas tree in her fancy dress was really difficult because she just wanted to look at the tree and kept walking around it.

since we didn't have much success saturday morning, we decided to try and rush some family pictures before church on sunday morning. of course we only had enough battery power to get about four shots! so we had to charge the battery while we went to church and then stop back by the house for a few more shots before having to make a decision on which one was the least unflattering for the christmas card. we did have to sacrifice any hope of madelyn smiling in the picture, but she had two other opportunities to look cute on the card so it was a minor price to pay. better luck next year, maddie. love.

it is cold, very cold, outside!

last night we had some more snow (just 2-3 inches) and matt and i went out in it for his office christmas party. but here is the crazy part - we got up around 8am this morning and it was -5 outside with a windchill of -31! since we had overslept and madelyn still has a cough, we decided not to go out to church this morning. instead we have spent a lovely day at home lounging in our pjs.

madelyn and i were looking at the nativity set on our dining room table (she now says "jesus", but more about that in a minute) as we do pretty much every day. she called for daddy to come see too. so while daddy was busy i was looking outside at the snow blowing all over the place. that was when i noticed condensation on our deadbolt from the extreme cold outside and the relative warmth in our house (a toasty 68 degrees). then matt pointed out that there was some ice hanging off the knob. we took the santa off (it has bells and hangs on the doorknob) and there was frost on the door knob! frost inside the house! we then noticed it on a few of the window moldings too. the wind is just that cold outside. this was a first for us and made us that much happier that we decided to stay home and indoors today.

but poor matt will have to brave the extreme temperatures tomorrow morning as he shovels the driveway and sidewalk before work. you only have 10 - 24 hours (we have conflicting information) to clear sidewalks after a snowfall before getting fined by the city so it has to get done. i thought that the 100+ inches of snow we had last year would have broken matt down to buy a snow blower, but he is determined to shovel this year too. it just says that it is good exercise, but it is pretty miserable.

the good news is that we are guaranteed a white christmas this year! we are supposed to have some more snow on tuesday too. the problem now is where to put it...

now back to maddie. i have been such a slacker with my posts lately because of all the holiday preparations, a stomach bug i caught from matt, and just being too tired at the end of the day. on days i don't post, i at least try to write down some of the things that madelyn says and does so that i can record them later. here are some quick notes and stories:

- the nativity set is one of madelyn's favorite christmas items in the house (second only to the tree - it does have lights). at least once a day, she will go over to the table and call out "mommy coming" ("coming" means come here). once i come she says "sitting" and then points to the set saying "jesus sleeping". our set is shaped so that baby jesus can lay in mary's arms or lay in the hay. madelyn loves this! she will say "sleeping" "in bed" and after i move the figure, she will say "arm" while patting her arm for me to move it back to mary's arms. she can also say "ox" and "angel" most of the time. she loves it so much that i bought her a little set at sam's for under $5 to keep in her room. she has also started to give air kisses to every figure in the set. she directs a kissing noise at each figure and then hugs the table (because she isn't allowed to touch the figurines).

- i guess dinner is the only time madelyn notices that her diaper is dirty. we were eating dinner the other night and madelyn stood up on her chair and said "wet" a few times. she normally only says "wet" to refer to splashing us in the tub or spilling her water, so i was a little confused. then i asked if her diaper was wet - "yes". and then she said "yes" she wanted me to change it! and off we ran to her room for a dry diaper.

- madelyn enjoys spelling. her favorite is "a-e-s". of course this spells nothing, but it is her favorite combo of letters. she will often repeat them over and over to herself as she is playing or just walking around. as her vocabulary grows matt and i have been spelling more and more to talk to each other without using 'trigger' words. we were talking about what the babysitters would need to do for maddie while we went out on saturday night and i spelled "e-a-t". without missing a beat madelyn said "eat"! while i am a little doubtful that she can spell already, wow!, that is quite a coincidence!

- a jar of maraschino cherries has become her favorite thing in the pantry. she gets them out and carries them around. today she ran back to the kitchen to get them before going to her room for "books" before nap time.

- she has a lot of new words. here are a few worth noting: circle, junior (veggietales character), diaper, cat, yellow, blink (as in the lights blink), sun, light, star, empty, shower, and snack (it finally sounds like snack and not sex - hooray!).

another snowy day

thursday night into friday around noon, we had around 12 inches of snow fall. poor matt was out in it shovelling before work on friday morning (probably 8 or 10 inches at that time) and it was still coming down at a pretty good pace. the driveway was covering back up quicker than he could shovel.

madelyn and i spent the day inside. mainly because of the snow, but also because matt only shovelled his side of the driveway so i couldn't have left even if i wanted to. later in the afternoon the snow had stopped and the wind had let up so i decided to take maddie out to shovel up the couple of inches that had fallen since matt had left for work. unfortunately, matt had taken the shovel with him in his car so that he could shovel his way back in when he got home. at least i thought about helping matt out.

madelyn enjoyed playing with her shovel though. she really wanted me to make her a snowball, but the snow was just too dry and powdery to stick. she didn't understand why she couldn't have a "ball", so i tried to distract her by using her shovel to throw snow up in the air. she was really excited to see our neighbor across the street! she kept yelling "hi" even after he went back inside his house. it was so cute. in fact, when we tried to get her to go out and play in the snow on saturday she was not interested in putting on her snow pants at all until i asked her if she wanted to go say "hi" to mr. gerry. that did the trick. she screamed "yes" and ran over to me with her pants.

the snow was really too deep for madelyn's enjoyment. it was even difficult to pull her sled because the snow was so powdery and deep. plus, whenever she would try to walk in the deeper snow she would fall down without being able to get back up on her own. but even with all this she threw a fit when i stripped her down to go inside.

she did say "snow" for the first time while we were talking about how much there was on the ground. love.

a day off?

i took wednesday off from work so that i could finish up some christmas shopping, wrap gifts, get our family presents shipped out, and mail out our christmas cards. it was non-stop action all day from 7am until 12:30am and i still didn't get everything done!

madelyn was having another difficult day. so matt and i discussed giving her a little motrin to see if it was something causing her pain that was leading this this totally out of character behavior. while waiting for the motrin to kick in (or not) i launched into the battle of the shirt. for a few days madelyn has not been willing to put on a shirt and it has taken a lot of effort (and time) to get her into one. not having a lot of time before we needed to head out, i struck a deal - what about a zip up jacket instead? she loved that idea. so we quickly finished getting dressed and she would put on everything but her coat (usually her favorite item). i did convince her to bring it with us even if she didn't want to wear it because she might be cold. she even carried it all the way to the car for me. and as soon as we got out of the car at the first store she asked to put it on.

about the time we got in the car the motrin started relieving whatever pain she has been in because she was like her normal self all day! she walked without wining into and out of stores. she carried the basket for me in one of the stores. it was so nice to run errands with a happy little girl again! we had such a fun day together. we even sat down and shared a pretzel after shopping at sam's before heading home for lunch and a nap (for her, not me - i had a lot of wrapping to get done).

i had hoped to get all the wrapping and boxing done for our shipments while madelyn napped, but 2-1/2 hours later i was barely halfway there! madelyn was really helpful with the wrapping. i would wrap something and she would put it in the bag for where it was being shipped. the wrapping must have looked like fun because madelyn tried to wrap herself up in the paper. then she spent some time working very hard to carry the extra rolls of paper around the house before building towers with the ribbon spools. like i said, she was her normal, delightful, helpful self.

since we had success with the motrin we feel certain that she is dealing with pain. and when she spit up a little bit of milk twice yesterday, i feel fairly certain that it is her 2-year molars. she only spits up when she is teething so it has been a sure sign that teeth are on their way. we have her 18-month check up on tuesday, so we will definitely discuss this with her doctor. we haven't given her any more motrin - so don't worry that we are drugging our daughter for our convenience. and her temperament has been slightly improved so maybe she is getting used to it. some of it is just the normal "terrible twos" type of things, but there is very obviously more going on with her right now. love.

guess who?

madelyn is going to be a big sister next summer! she can almost tell you too. it comes out something like "big sisser". and she immediately follows that with "baby". we have been practicing for her to tell her grandparents when we skyped with them while she was wearing this shirt.



the baby is due june 27 and i am officially past the 12 week mark. we are hoping that it won't come too close to madelyn's birthday (june 22). this pregnancy has been a lot worse that my first trimester with madelyn. as expected, it is totally different and of course i don't get any chance to nap like i did when i was pregnant with madelyn. i would basically sleep all weekend long - obviously, that was not an option this time.



more details will come later. love.

new indoor play

this morning we met some neighbors at a local indoor play "gallery". it is a little expensive (today was discounted at $5/person - $10 for both of us), but it might be somewhere we go on occasion because there was a lot to do. they had instruments, a pirate ship with a slide, a playhouse, arts and crafts, play kitchen, a stage and costumes, and lots more.

i think madelyn was as excited to see the moms as she was to see the kids from our neighborhood. we hadn't seen some of them in a few months since the snow has driven us all indoors and it was nice to catch up a little while the kids played.

madelyn tried almost all of the activities except for the pirate ship slide. she just wasn't interested in it which was a little surprising since she has been scooting around on toys saying that they are a "boat" lately - maybe next time. she was really into playing with the "moon sand". it is sort of a cross between play-doh and sand. i mentioned that she has been 'spelling' a lot lately and will say "a-b-c" when we read the abc book, but she knows a lot more letters by sight than i realized. i held up an "e" and asked "what is this, maddie?" i almost fell over when she quickly responded "e"! she also found the "a" when asked. so i had fun trying to quiz her while she was trying to have fun squeezing and squishing the moon sand.

after playing, we got some lunch and went to pick up some wrapping paper and tape at target. i had also wanted to go to the grocery store, but madelyn had different plans for the day. there is definitely something going on with her right now. she just melts down for no reason and can't seem to decide what she actually wants. additionally, she has been super clingy to me since i got back from chicago. i think she is afraid that i am going to leave again. she doesn't even want to get in the car with me. and sunday at church she started crying and saying "no" when we pulled into the parking lot - we had gotten past the crying for a few weeks. i would say that she has just not been herself for the past four days. we are hoping that this will pass quickly because there is no telling when she will melt down and it is not clear how to resolve why she is upset; mainly because i don't think she knows why she is upset.

hopefully tomorrow will be better since i took the day off so that i could run errands, mail christmas cards, and ship some packages - i am going to need her cooperation. love.

warning - diapers come off

i had been warned. i know that she can take off her diaper. but for some reason i told matt that if she didn't want to put her pjs on then she didn't have to on monday night. besides no pajamas, the bedtime routine was uneventful and she never let out a peep after matt left her room. as i do every night, i stopped to check on her on my way to bed. what did i find? a naked girl and a very wet bed.

so i laid her on the floor, put her in a new diaper and pajama pants, and then surrounded her with all the animals from her bed who had been spared the dampness. she laid there looking at me totally motionless while i got her ready, striped the bed, disinfected the mattress, dried it off, and put on a clean sheet. she did say "mommy, don't leave me!" when i went to get the disinfectant (clear as a bell too), but showed no sign of movement when i came back with it.

i put her back in her now dry bed and she never gave another peep. lesson learned. love.

potty!

madelyn has started declaring "potty" during dinner. and she wants me to take her to the potty to sit for a while. she only does it during dinner and really does want to sit on the potty. i strip her down and she claps her hands while sitting on the potty.

yet another indication that i might not be able to wait until spring to start her training. love.

sitting with santa

after a total failure of getting a family picture at home this morning, we decided to skip the picture until tomorrow. madelyn was having a total crying meltdown. instead we were going to head to the mall for christmas shopping and pictures with santa. i didn't have high hopes for a very good picture with santa, but still wanted to give it a try. madelyn slept a little on the way to the mall, so i thought that improved our odds a little.


the line was a little long, but they had animated windows and christmas movies playing throughout the line and it didn't seem all that long of a wait. at least madelyn didn't seem to mind waiting. while in line madelyn noticed santa's thomas the train shirt ("choo-choo") and we talked about sitting with him and showing her teeth when she smiled. the second it was our turn madelyn took one look at santa and backed up four steps! he was a really good santa too, real hair and beard. i have never seen madelyn hold so still for so long. it was like she was in shock. zero expression, zero movement, she was just staring straight ahead. i overheard someone in line say that she looked like she was going to cry. at least she didn't cry and she did look at the camera. it could have been worse. the picture here is the one i took after they finished with the official pictures so it isn't as 'good' as the one they took for us.

after a few exhausting hours of shopping, we went home to rest before going out again. but once madelyn woke up, matt and i didn't have it in us to go out again - just more errands for tomorrow. we did decide to go visit a local light display though since madelyn was in a much better mood than she was in the morning. it is a rather large display that you drive through and then there is a few displays at the end for you to get out of our car to view indoors.

the light display is really nice and madelyn asked "what's this?" a lot. some of them were difficult to figure out, but we could usually figure something out to tell madelyn. in addition to the light displays, there are several animated window displays. here is a picture of the reindeer inside of a barn. she didn't give as many "wow"s as she does when we are just driving around neighborhoods, but she asked a lot of questions about what was all around her. the funniest part was that on the way there she kept pointing out when there was "car".

and of course, what holiday light display would be complete without dinosaurs? i mean what is christmas without a velociraptor and an erupting volcano? they actually had a lot of dinosaurs. madelyn made some growling noises when she saw the velociraptors. how is it that she knew that they were the dinosaurs that might growl? i guess they did have teeth showing. at least you can tell that there was a lot of variety to our drive through the lights.


once we parked and headed inside madelyn got to see the largest train table she had ever seen! and she has been really into trains lately. that was one of the first toys she showed me when i went to pick her up at jason's house. we had also stopped by barnes and noble at the mall today for her to play at the train table for a while so she was already riding a train high. madelyn is the little pink hat in the picture. it was pretty crowded inside, but madelyn would just work her way up to the gate to get a better look. she really liked that there were all different trains going in different directs one higher up than the last. there was also a little train workshop (the red part of the picture) with little elves working on trains.

our last stop before heading back to the car was to see the beautiful nativity display. the nativity figures have been bought one at a time by a local family and imported from italy (i think they are made at the vatican or blessed there - i didn't read the sign this year). they are almost life sized and really beautiful. madelyn really liked it because our nativity set at home is one of her favorite things. we have it set up on our dining room table and madelyn will go over there and call for me to come and sit down so that she can sit on my lap while i tell her about all the figures. her favorite pieces are the lamb, ox, and baby jesus.

by the time we left, madelyn was done and ready for bed. although she perked right up after getting home and had some silly fun in the kitchen with daddy before bedtime. love.

girl's dinner party

friday afternoon i got a call from my friend kate who wanted to know if we might be able to watch their two girls for a few hours while she and aaeron went to a christmas party. she was very apologetic for the last minute notice, but we don't ever have plans so it wasn't a big deal.

as soon as they got to the house, madelyn excitedly ran to the christmas tree pointing so that avery and tess would see the lit tree. and then she gave them a tour of the ornaments. the tree was quickly passed by for all the other toys available for exploration. after a little bit of playing, dinner was ready (mac and cheese, hot dogs, and broccoli). it occurred to me that this was madelyn's first dinner party. the girls were so excited to be entertaining each other. they were cracking matt and i up because there were almost no words spoken, but they were all hysterically laughing at each other. and then it would fall silent for a few moments.

matt and madelyn spent some time playing basketball in the basement while i was gone and matt suggested that we take the three girls down to run around a play for a while. i don't think that any of them really got that it was basketball they were playing, but they had so much fun running around chasing the balls and screaming/laughing. and occasionally they would try to shoot a basket. i wish that i had the camera with me, but i didn't. luckily no one got hurt and everyone had fun.

at least no one got hurt playing in the basement. madelyn tripped an slammed her forehead on the coffee table. and this only figures because we were planning on taking family picture on saturday morning (i know, i know, i am SO behind this year). it definitely left a mark, but it could have been a lot worse. she quickly shook it off and got back to playing, so everything was fine.

all the girls finally went down around 9, even though none of them wanted to stop playing. all and all, we had a great evening. love.

back home and catching up

i made it safely home on thrusday afternoon. and was really excited to see madelyn (and matt too). she obviously had a really great time playing with jason all week. she was excited to see me when i came to the door and let me pick her up for a hug. but then she wanted to get right back down and show me all the toys she was having fun with over the week.

i got to talk to madelyn a few times on the phone while i was gone. it is so nice that she can actually talk to me and answer my questions on the phone. it makes it that much easier (or is it harder) to be away. matt said that she called out for me during her bedtime routine which is a little weird since matt does bedtime, not me. anyway, i guess some night she was very sad that i wouldn't come when she called out "mommy". (she calls us "mommy" and "daddy" now. i love it!) he also had some trouble with getting her to take off her hippo pjs in the morning. something made her decide that she loves them and could not be away from them for even a moment. (she is wearing the top in the picture.)

i was so worn out and also trying to play catch up that i ran out to grab lunch so that i didn't have to figure out what was in the house (matt did the grocery shopping after i left last weekend). the closest place to the house is mcdonalds so madelyn had her very first happy meal. i went with chicken nuggets even though she almost never eats meat. for a while she just dipped them in the bbq sauce as a way of eating the sauce, but then she actually ended up eating most of them. she of course enjoyed her apple juice and a few french fries. the highlight of the happy meal, of course, was the toy. madelyn loves her my little pony figure - mainly because it came with a comb. madelyn loves that "pink comb".

here is some video matt took while i was gone of madelyn washing her hair. he puts the shampoo on her hand and lets her rub it around for a while before helping to make sure it really gets washed well. she also liked him to pour water above her so that she could put her head under the stream of water like she is in the shower but it was too much full body exposure to post to the blog.

here are a few other updates:

- madelyn says "cheese" when the camera is pointed at her. i don't know where she picked this up because i don't say it when taking her picture - or i didn't until she started doing it two weeks ago.

- i had mentioned in an earlier post that madelyn can say some of the letters in her name, well now she tries to say lots of other letters. she will say "a", "b", "c" when we get out her abc dr. suess book. and lately it has been as if she is spelling words - with random letters.

- she learned how to make kissing noises from staying with jason all week. so that was a nice treat to come home to.

- she has entered the repeating everything phase. usually i have to ask her, but it has been amazing how many words she really can say. i told matt that we really have to be on our toes now (not that we have any trouble with saying things we wouldn't want maddie to say) because you never know what she will repeat...

more to come. love.

back online

as you can see, it has been snow, snow and more snow here (and there is lots more on the way next week). maddie and i were inside all week. except for our single outing in the snow on thrusday in search of internet access. for the average person a few days without internet access would not be the end of the world, but when you work from home and are on a very tight deadline it is devastating. always the resourceful girl, i came up with a plan to get a few hours of internet access in while keeping madelyn contained in a public place - food and coloring. even though the snow came earlier than expected, we still went out before it got too heavy. i had decided that panera would be the best option for internet access. the access was free and madelyn could sit with me in the booth. we ordered a few bagels when we got there which kept her busy for close to an hour. and then she colored for a while. as we neared lunch time we got back in line to get some soup and sandwiches. i felt like i was getting a few dirty looks for sitting there for so long with a small child and working so furiously on my computer the whole time. all and all it worked out really well during an 'emergency'.

the worst part of the outing was trying to get back into the car. i was struggling a little with my laptop case, diaper bag, holding maddie's hand, the falling snow (and the snow slush on the ground), and the limited mobility of being all bundled up. madelyn's hat refused to stay on correctly on the way out, so she was bare headed in the snow. now here is the worst part - we had just gotten to the car (after maddie had slipped and fallen in the wet slush and soaked her pants) when a lady came around the back of the car next to us and said "excuse me". her car was the one next to us and she had us step out of her way and wait while she slowly, very slowly, got into her car. i just kept wondering, who does that. who makes a mother loaded down with bags, with a small child wait in the snow while you take your sweet time getting into the car. and then she didn't even wait for me to get madelyn in the car before she started backing up. really it just makes me sad for her.

anyway, time-warner came out on friday morning and got us back up and running.

now back to the maddie updates. here are just a few of the latest happenings with maddie:

- when i count out numbers, she says "two" after i say "one". she also counts out "two, three" like she says "set, go" when she is about to do something.

- when i spell her name out with her alphabet blocks she points to and says the "m" and the "l". instead of "a" she says "ah"

- "apple" and "off" are the latest significant additions to her vocabulary.

- i was preparing broccoli (frozen) for dinner one night and maddie took a piece and started eating it. realizing that it wasn't as good frozen, she took her stool over to the toaster oven to "cook" it.



- i have shown how madelyn 'swims', but this week she has been laying down on the floor on her belly pushing herself backwards telling me that she is "swimming" or that she is going to "swim".

- madelyn fell asleep thrusday night on the way home from shopping (matt had a christmas party on friday night that we needed to find a gift for) so we decided to just put madelyn to bed without a bath. she actually did great getting out of her clothes and into her pjs without ever really waking up - in fact, she never made a peep. so since there was no bath, i had her take a shower with me in the morning. she was so funny. she has taken showers with me before, but she was really excited about it this time and kept running back and forth under the water giggling. she threw a little bit of a fit when it was time to turn the water off. but once out of the shower, instead of a towel madelyn headed straight for the next obvious choice - breakfast. i guess there is nothing like a shower to bring back your appetite. madelyn ran back to the table to finish off what was left of her cereal. i took pictures of madelyn sitting at the table eating dripping wet, but they were a little too racy for the blog.

- yesterday i was vacuuming and madelyn hides in the laundry room when i do (not that she is scared, it is more of a game), when i turned off the vacuum she started calling out "stuck". of course i thought that she meant herself, but then she came running out.



- madelyn's favorite game these days is "sleeping" and she likes for matt and i to play too. especially matt. probably because matt does a leaping belly flop into the bed. tonight she was getting in the bed and covering herself up to "sleep". it was pretty funny because she was sleeping in her sunglasses (a compromise over her wanting to wear matt's glasses). she is starting to understand that she needs to close her eyes to really play "sleep", not just make the snoring noises. but she is just too excited to see what is going on to naturally close her eyes. her solution - pushing her eyelids closed with her pointer fingers. it is pretty funny because she is still trying to look. so she ends up with half her lid down and half open (like holding the outside corners of her eyes).

as you can see, lots of indoor entertainment here. i am headed to chicago tomorrow and will be there until thrusday (work conference), so there probably won't be any posts for a while. love.

offline

we have been without internet service for the past few days and boy has that been fun (please note the heavy sarcasm). i will update on how we managed to survive tomorrow. for now, i am still playing catch-up.

"a lot"

i wasn't going to post tonight, but then madelyn was hysterical telling matt about her day at dinner. we were all cracking up. mainly because madelyn answered "a lot" without any prompting and without having ever said that before. in the video version she says "a bunch" first, but it was the "a lot" that had us all laughing very hard. especially since madelyn knew that it was funny (even if she didn't know why) and kept saying it over and over, louder and louder cracking herself up throughout the rest of dinner and bath time. it eventually became that she was saying "what" instead of "a lot", but she would come back to "a lot" as her original punchline.

when i came down to download the video i found that i also had some video from this morning as madelyn ate her first bowl of cereal with milk and a spoon. she did a lot better than the video shows and hardly spilled any milk, but you can get the general idea.

when she came out of her room this morning (around 8:30am and she had another 4 hour nap today) she went straight to the christmas tress saying "uh-oh" over and over as she examined it. it occurred to me that she was upset that the lights weren't on and thought that the tree was broken. i had to explain that we would turn the lights on when it got dark, but that the tree was okay. i just thought it was cute how concerned she was that the lights might not be working.

tonight she must have been missing daddy and wanting to go outside in the snow because she spent the evening trying to get me to put his snow clothes on her (they were out from him wearing them to shovel before work this morning). she could manage to get his gloves on by herself and was satisfied with that for a while, but then she wanted his pants and coat put on her. obviously the pants wouldn't work, but she did manage to keep his coat on for a while after i got it on her.

she also broke one of her toys tonight (on accident) and told us that it was "broken" and then said that it "broke". it was only a matter of time on this word since she has broken a lot of crayons recently in her zeal for coloring.

her runny nose continues, but it reminded me that she can blow her nose. granted she does it very softly when she does and blows through her mouth most of the time. but she will hold still when i ask her to blow her nose and makes the effort while i pinch and wipe. love.

o christmas tree

madelyn added "bite" to her vocabulary this morning - as in "could i have a bite of your cereal, mom?". since madelyn was in the mood for sharing this morning, i decided that we should discuss her sharing in the church nursery so that she isn't the room "bully" any more. she told me that "yes" she would "share" at church today. and she repeated to say "share" as she played with her toys before we had to leave.

and there were lots of new things once we got to church too. it started as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. instead of crying when we pulled into the parking lot, madelyn called out "church" excitedly! and she repeated "church" a few more times as we parked. she did cry for a little bit when we got to her room and were taking off her coat. by the time we got off her outer layers she was happy and ready to go. but we got a surprise, madelyn was moving up to the toddler room today! the nursery folks bring her over to the toddler room halfway through the service so that she can get used to it and be ready when we drop her off there next week. everyone expressed that she was ready to be with the rest of the toddlers. at least some of them are her size - or almost that tall.

after church we went to run a few errands before the snow started since maddie and i would be indoors for a few days. between this afternoon and tomorrow morning we are expected to get anywhere from 6-8 inches of snow. and tomorrow it is forecasted to be really windy and really cold so we won't get to play in it until later in the week.

so since we were inside for the day by noon, matt went down to the basement for our christmas tree. (we have used a fake tree for years - we miss the smell but it is very convenient.) madelyn didn't quite know what to think about the tree parts. but once it was together and lit up she was pretty amazed and checked it out from every angle. we didn't get the reaction we were expecting. when she saw the exterior lights she was really excited and "wow" was said over and over, louder and louder. it might not have been her immediate reaction, but once she woke up from her nap and saw it all decorated then she was excited! i missed her reaction, but here she is giving a tour of the christmas tree's ornaments. bear is along because she just woke up.



she also went from a few flurries before she went down to a few inches of snow when she woke up. she was pretty excited about that too, but thankfully she didn't ask to go outside. madelyn has the start of a little bit of a cold. one of those where the congestion isn't really bad, but things are draining into her lungs. i am praying that it will be short-lived since i am heading out of town for a business trip next week and she will be spending the days with one of the neighbors and her son.

matt called me into the bathroom for bath time because madelyn had put on some new 'shoes'. this was the most modest of her poses to show me her 'shoes' and the only one that could possibly be posted. she would put them on her feet and then stick her legs straight up in the air, sliding backwards into the bath water.

i also managed to overhear her asking to have her hair "rinse". i asked matt if i had heard correctly and he said that she was saying "rinse" while trying to hand him the bucket we use to rinse her hair. and one rinse was not enough. he had repeated requests until bath time was finally over.

one last note for the day, in addition to saying "color" (to request to color and to demand that you color) and "i color" (while coloring) madelyn says "sitting" to let you know that she is indeed sitting. sometimes she uses it as a request for us to get her stool so that she can sit while coloring.

i am sure that there will be more snow posts for you all to look forward to this week. love.