what size to wear?

madelyn is between sizes right now - in everything! we moved her up to a size 5 diaper a little over a month ago because the 4s were leaving marks around her legs. she her waist is too small so the diapers have always been too big, but she is also too tall which means that we have to move her up a size when the leg holes won't stretch far enough to let us get the diaper 'waist' up above her hips. we have had this same problem with every size diaper, but for some reason the jump from the 4 to the 5 has been the worst. the diaper hangs down to her knees if she isn't wearing pants!

then we have shoes. with the increased walking we have to put shoes on her when we are out and about. she recently outgrew her size 3 shoes and the size 4 is a little big - and wide. once again her feet are too skinny to stay in the baby shoes that seem to be wider. even the leather and elastic styles are way too wide and tend to come off easy. we have found that shoelaces and velcro are our best bets on such busy feet, but velcro is easily undone while riding in the car.

lastly is her clothes. she is bursting out of her 12 month clothes, but the 18 month clothes are - again - too big in the waist. as you can see in her picture of her standing in her church dress and bloomers this morning. i couldn't pull them up any higher and her legs were too skinny to keep them up by the leg elastic. i just told the church nursery folks to take them off if she was having trouble crawling.

i am sure that in another week she will be fitting into things better, but right now it is just comical to see her with a diaper hanging between her knees and trying to move around in bottoms that won't stay up. not that it is slowing her down at all...

in other maddie news - we put up blackout curtains in her room this weekend in hopes that it will keep the early morning sunlight from waking her up before 7. she (and i) discovered that she is now tall enough to reach the top of the kitchen counters and pull anything near the edge down and that is going to make cooking dinner a lot more exciting than it already was with my little cabinet empty-er. and we both have the sniffles. hopefully, we will not get daddy sick during his first week at a new job! love.