should you be doing that?

yesterday was our first neighborhood music class. we have so many small children in our neighborhood that we were competing to get into the few spaces (12) that the county parks and rec offered in their class. so one of the neighbors arranged for us to have our own neighborhood class at her house with the same teacher! it was a little chaotic this first week because there were a lot of us and since we were at some one's house there were a lot of toys as distractions. we keep joking that we will be able to start our own school because there are enough kids for a kindergarten class (when they all get to that age).

madelyn is getting more and more difficult to photograph (this is the best one that i was able to get after we got back from music class). so here are a few stories without pictures.

maddie has a new dance move - cha-cha feet. she gets so excited for the music (or anticipated music) that she starts doing a little cha-cha with her feet. and then she works into the general knee bouncing dance move. the new little cha-cha is so funny, but i haven't had the camera ready when she gets the urge to bust a move.

as i have mentioned before, madelyn likes to 'help' me by picking out food from the corner cabinet. yesterday she was happily examining the different canned options when i asked her, "should you be doing that?" and she responded "no" before starting to replace all the food items in the cabinet! i just thought that it was so funny that she said "no" when i asked. she didn't get everything put back in the cabinet, but she got most of it in there before she lost interest and went in search of more to explore. she is getting really good at putting things she shouldn't have back where they go or closing cabinets/drawers when i ask her to close them.

i have another new noise that i am trying to get on video - "mmmmm". she says it when ever she sees something she wants to eat. for example she will point at the bananas on the counter and say "mmmmm" and sign for 'eat'. it is funny because she says it in a deep sort of growl. it is the way i do it when i am being silly about how yummy something she is eating is (sometimes when it really isn't). i never realized how weird it was until she started doing it! i will have to try and change it into a sweet, normal pitched, sing-songy "mmmm" so that she isn't the weird kid. love.