bilingual?

languages are important to me and i have tried to expose madelyn to as many as possible. (i read that early exposure helps 'map' the ability to learn a language later in her life.) we read translated books, watch the baby einstein language dvd, and talk through a spanish vocabulary book on occasion. before curious george they give a few spanish words during the pbs intro and yesterday madelyn repeated the spanish word for rabbit - conejo - when they the lady said to repeat it. she was quite proud of herself. and so was i!

madelyn is finally acting and eating like herself again. i, however, have bad congestion. i don't think that it is a cold because i have had the sniffles and sneezing for a while now. i think it just finally turned into something more serious in my sinuses. it has been a very long week. here is her enjoying her playroom now that she is feeling better:

i asked her to say "manatee" because we were reading her s is for sunshine book or as she calls it her "beach book". and she pointed at the manatee and said it syllable by syllable "man-a-tee". it was the first time she had worked so hard to pronounce a word correctly so i thought it was noteworthy.

"friend" the bear has been very involved in our day to day activities around the house. if mommy puts lotion on her feet, madelyn wants lotion on her feet, and friend wants lotion on his feet (per madelyn's instruction). friend has a specific seat at the table and often shares in meals and snacks. i posted a while ago about how madelyn likes friend to wear diapers when she gets changed ("friend diaper"). now friend has to get dressed too. mostly she wants him to wear her coat, but she has also asked for shoes, bracelets, etc. the shoes were funny because she would walk him around the house in them and try to get him to stand up on his own. friend is leaning against a foot rest in the picture (she posed him like that).

we made major progress in setting up madelyn's room today. matt built the dress, book shelf, and his own special addition, a chair like his favorite one just for madelyn. she loves her new set up and loves, loves, loves her new chair. she has been climbing up in matt's new chairs all week and was so excited to see that there was one just her size in her room. she picks out a book from her shelf and climbs up to 'read'. it is so cute to see her finish one book and take it back for another off the shelf. she is actually getting really good a 'reading' each book on her own. she points out everything in the pictures and remembers much of the story to some of the shorter books.

we just have to get the glider (aka rocking chair) out of her room and into the nursery before i take some pictures to post. love.