please give me a diaper!

tonight while i was preparing madelyn for bath time she started to do a little dance and demanding a diaper. she has been sitting on her potty reading a book while the tub is filling and we were doing just that tonight. once the tub was full, i put her in and she started crying for a diaper and crisscrossing her legs. i asked her if she had to go potty and she said yes. i took her out and she sat on the potty crying for a diaper and doing a little dance. after a few minutes of this i decided to go put a diaper on her. once she had the diaper on she ran back to sit on the potty and read her book. after a few minutes i told her that it was time to take her bath. when i took off her diaper is was very wet!

while i don't think this is a great sign about what we have to come with potty training, i do see two positives - one - she knows when she has to go - two - she can hold it successfully. she also came to get me after lights out because she had gone "potty" and wanted a new diaper. again, her diaper was very wet. this is really exciting for me because i normally have to beg madelyn to change her diaper. she usually couldn't care less about her diaper being dirty and it has been several months since she was consistently asking to be changed at dinner time so i am taking this as progress towards the possibility of potty training.

we also said good-bye to grandma this evening. madelyn gets a little nervous when we go to the airport with me in the car. she worries that it means that i am leaving. she was sad to see grandma go, but was happy to see that i was getting back in the car and leaving with her.

before we left the house for the airport, grandma reminded us that we needed to get a picture of her with madelyn. madelyn had just woken up from her nap and was not in a hugging (or touching) and smiling mood. it took a while to get her to come sit on grandma's lap for a quick picture, but we got one.

and - for the record - i am not ignoring the fact that i turned thirty yesterday. i haven't posted about my day because i want to get some video of the most beautiful version of "happy birthday" i have ever heard on my birthday. not only that but she has a wonderful answer when i ask her about how old i am. i love her. love.

easter bunny

we were at the mall today and while we were walking upstairs madelyn looked down and saw the easter bunny set up for pictures. she was really excited! she kept saying "hi, easter bunny" and waving. luckily, the bunny looked up and waved at her too. she just kept talking about that the easter bunny waved at her and she wanted to hug him. so grandma suggested that we go down to say "hi".

we had a little fight about what madelyn was going to wear this morning and she ended up wearing jeans and her pajama top. i didn't think that she was exactly dressed for bought pictures and that we should come back another day. but grandma had another idea - why don't we dress madelyn in one of the spring dresses we just bought for the picture. okay. i gave in. we striped her down in the mall and put her in dress.

as excited as she was to see the bunny, she froze up once she was on his lap. it actually looked like she might cry one or two times. thankfully, there was no one waiting behind us and the staff worked really hard to get her to smile and didn't rush us. here one of the pictures i was able to take with my camera:

surprisingly, the real photo came out pretty well (different from the one shown here) and overall it went better than santa did at christmas time. and madelyn got off his lap and waved "bye, easter bunny!" like the whole experience had been great.

not only did she enjoy the experience enough to talk about it the whole way home, but grandma told me that it was her first time getting to do holiday pictures with a grandchild at the mall. i am glad that i gave in to the impromptu photo shoot. love.

baby shower for baby boy

today was the baby shower for baby boy. grandma has been working hard on the shower since she got here because she couldn't stand the idea that i wasn't going to have one. she brought a suitcase and a half of supplies with her too!


last night we prepared the house (cleaning and decoration) and food so that all we would have to do after church was pick up the cake and put everything out.


madelyn likes to help and last night she was helping me vacuum. i ran for the camera when she was pulling it back and forth like i was but she had gotten herself a little stuck up against the door by the time i got back. here is a little clip because she was just trying so hard.




we had expected 7-11 inches of snow last night because of the weather forecast, but were glad to see that we only had a few (maybe 2 inches) when we got up this morning. granted, it took matt a long time to shovel the driveway before church this morning.

matt tried to get madelyn down before the shower started at 1, but the allure of cake and the sound of voices brought her out to peek around the corner to see if she could come out too. i let her come out and she ended up not taking a nap at all today. she did so well during the shower! i was actually proud of her, there was no begging or crying. this was surprising because she was obviously tired when daddy tried to put her down.

after the shower she could barely keep her eyes open while eating her dinner (3 packets of oatmeal, a plum, and some dried mango). it was so funny to watch her try to stay awake that i told matt he needed to take a break from painting the nursery to sit and watch for a while. we were all laughing so hard (as quietly as possible) watching her shovel in oatmeal with her eyes closed. she would throw a fit when the camera came on because she wants to see "maddie". to get this video i had to go into the other room to turn it on, but she saw me pointing it at her and that is why she is saying her name over and over. she was almost asleep so she is just saying her name with her eyes closed. grandma didn't realize that i was taking video and wakes her up out of this when she tries to pull the table cloth up like a "sheet". enjoy!



everyone had a very nice time at the shower and you will get to see the great onsies and bibs they made for baby boy when he gets to wear them (there are some really good ones!). surprisingly, madelyn made it all the way to her normal bed time without any major meltdowns. i just don't want her to get used to not napping... love.

sticker fun

as most kids her age, madelyn loves stickers. she loves getting them from the doctors' offices, grocery store, etc. and since we have set up the playroom i moved my sticker collection (dating back to at least middle school) in for her to use. she loves sticking them to her clothes and as of yesterday, her nose and checks. now that she has more variety in her sticker choices, she likes to stick them on a sheet of paper to hang on the wall.

(the outfit is a combo of her pj top that she didn't want to take off with her pants for today. and her bow was red and green - christmas style. she was quite a sight. its a good thing that we weren't leaving the house today.)

in the past month or so she has gotten really good (and confident) about removing the stickers off the sheet herself. she can even handle the really small ones. today i got brave and gave her the entire collection of stickers and went about my work while she played quietly by herself. the funny thing is that she was most interested in the labels, name tags, and hole reinforcers.

we spent a lot of crafty time because madelyn was in a horrible screaming mood this morning - like when i was trying to have phone meetings... even though she slept until 7:20 this morning she was tired. she even came to get me and said that it was "nap time" at 11:30 (she normally goes down closer to 1).

we also spent some time playing with play-doh. i added chopsticks to her 'tools' today. i made the mistake of rolling a ball to put on the end of one and said that it was a lollipop. of course that went straight into her mouth! i told her that it was pretend and then made a ball for the other and told her that they were drum mallets since she had used some in music class yesterday. she loved that! she was drumming with her play-doh mallets while i drummed along with my fingers. and she kept telling me that she was drumming like music class and we repeated "hand, hand, fingers, thumb" from dr. seuss. and when i got the camera it took a lot, i mean a lot, of persuasion to get her to do anything but try and watch "maddie" on the camera. it was also the only time she drummed with the stick end and not the play-doh end.

madelyn pulled out our baby viewing mirror for the car today and insisted on listening to and watching it throughout the day. here is just a quick piece of her doing a cute little dance to the music before she went over to get some more play-doh.

this morning matt dropped something out of the refrigerator and madelyn exclaimed, "oh shoot!" although we thought that she had said the four letter version. it was one of those horrifying moments of "please don't ever say that again." needless to say, it got our attention more than the food falling from the refrigerator.

tomorrow we get grandma from the "port" for her visit. madelyn isn't going to know what to do with herself after all this spoiling from the grandmas! love.

where do they live?

okay. this really happened - matt is my witness. we were having dinner a week ago and telling madelyn about nana coming on monday night. here was the conversation:

mommy: "who's coming tomorrow?"

madelyn: "nana. nana. nana."

mommy: "where do papa and nana live?"

madelyn: "kansas."

daddy: "who lives in florida?"

madelyn: "grandma and pop."

mommy: "where does uncle derek live?"

madelyn: "georgia."

mommy: "where does madelyn live?"

madelyn: "wisconsin" (said "scon-sin")

really. that is almost the conversation exactly. we went through it twice because i was so shocked (and daddy was even more surprised because he doesn't review the map with her) before i got the camera. and, of course, she just kept saying that everyone was from wisconsin so it was useless in proving that she can do it.

for the record, i don't quiz her on the maps. she brings it to me and asks me to tell her about it so i tell her about where all her family lives. i had no idea she was retaining so much of it because we have maybe done this 5 - 10 times. i was really surprised at our dinner conversation. love.

baby brother

we went and bought paint for the nursery this weekend. madelyn was really, really excited to help daddy paint. i don't think that daddy was that excited about it, but he did let her pretend to help while he did his prep work. (the paint on the walls is the old paint job, not the nursery colors.) here is some video for the sake of video because she wasn't as talkative as i was trying to catch in the first place. she was talking about her paint brush all day. she has been telling me all day today that she is going to "paint today". i told her that she has to wait for daddy for painting...

she is starting to talk more and more about her "brother". although when you ask her what's in my belly she says a "baby girl" and will not change this answer even when corrected.

i had ordered some spring/summer maternity clothes and threw in a little boy outfit too a few days ago. when it arrived on monday i opened it with madelyn and she grabbed the boy outfit out of the box and said "brother". then she took it to his room and put it in the closet. i did not give her any idea that there was anything in there for her or her brother so she surprised me here again. love.

here i am

this might be the longest i have gone without a post since i started this blog! it has just been that busy. i have been working on wrapping up two huge projects at work and trying to get going on the next one that i need to have completed before i go on leave this summer. and then we had nana (matt's mom) visiting last week during her spring break and grandma (my mom) is coming up this week into next.

not to mention just keeping up with madelyn and preparing for baby boy to come. and madelyn has been doing a great job of waking up earlier and earlier every day (today she got up at 5:20am). at least i can get her back to bed sometimes if it is before 7:00am and she takes a 2-4 hour nap in the afternoon. it helps, but when i am already getting little to no sleep her getting up earlier does not help me start my day (or survive until the end).

she has also been very clingy this week. for the past two days she has fallen asleep on my lap for nap time. she just sits down with me while holding friend and falls asleep within 2 to 5 minutes. she just doesn't want to be away from me for even a second which has also made the mornings difficult because matt tires to let me sleep but madelyn insists on seeing me and there are a lot of tears trying to explain that mommy wants to sleep a little longer. i figure that i am only getting 4 - 6 hours of sleep a night - not continuously either. at least i am going to be ready for nursing in a few months.

anyway, i am going to try and post a few updates today so that i might get back into the swing of normal life again. here is a list of things that have been going on:

- the picture at the top of the post is of madelyn when she woke up one morning last week. she came in our room with her sunglasses up on top of her head like that. she was really into her sunglasses last week and enjoyed wearing them everywhere so i guess she just wanted to get her day started.

- madelyn has been having so much fun checking out all her baby stuff that we have been pulling out of storage for her baby brother. she goes into his room and plays with the toys and reads the books by herself time to time. two weekends ago matt and i were sitting out in the living room while she was playing back in her brother's room. i could here her playing and then there was some crying. she was yelling that she was "stuck" so we went to check it out. she had managed to climb up into the swing and get one leg under the lap bar but couldn't get the other one under it and was therefore stuck.

- i was thinking that i really needed to stop ending statements in "okay?" because i did not need madelyn's permission to do anything. and wouldn't you know it that the very day i caught myself doing it and made a decision to stop madelyn gave me her first "okay?". it is very cute to hear her say it as a question though. she will tell me that she is going to do something and then say "okay?" i hope to catch it on video because it is definitely something that i want to remember for years to come.

- she has also picked up a few more phrases and words from me that crack me up - "um...yeah", "oh man" (as in mom can't get off the couch with her belly), and "sure" (pronounced "shore" like i say it).

- madelyn was really excited to help daddy rake up the dead grass in the yard this weekend. luckily he had a broken rake that worked out to be just her size. i think that she did more to spread out daddy's piles than add to them but it was cute to see them working together. she kept telling me that she was "helping daddy rake".

- we bought madelyn a bird feeder to keep outside her bedroom window. even though it has rained a lot, she has still had several birds already find their way to her bird feeder. what is fun is that she tells us "shhh, quiet" when we go into her room to look out the window to see if their are any birds. we have spent a lot of time looking for and talking about the birds over the past few days.

- madelyn's head/face has had a rough go over the past week. pretty much every time there have been injury tears she tells me that her face hurts. she has three bruises on her forehead, a cut and bruise on her chin (from a slip in the bathtub), and a big scratch on her neck. she just has a knack for injuring her face.

- she has a pair of binoculars that she carries around, wears around her neck, and looks through. she thinks that they are a viewfinder and tells us about the animals that she wants to see in them. (she is wearing them and my camera around her neck in this picture.)

- her second two bottom molars are just about in. she tells us almost everyday that her teeth hurt and we can feel that they are right there.

- i am sure that there will be some video of a temper-tantrum in the near future. they are just becoming more and more frequent. she has a lot going on with her right now and i think that is what has her all out of sorts. we are just hitting the "terrible twos" early.

- i am very disappointed that i never got a picture of madelyn with nana last week. i took the camera with us most places and meant to but never did. sorry, nana! i will have to make an extra effort when we see you again in may. madelyn needs a new picture of you for her photo album.

hopefully, i will do a better job with posting the rest of the week. love.

mommy has six fingers

madelyn still has some work to do on her counting, but she can suddenly count to six (before skipping to ten and twelve). she tells me that i have six fingers, but on daddy's hand she only counts five... love.

indoor pool

today i decided to let madelyn 'swim' in the big, 6 foot, whirlpool tub in the basement. she picked out her swim suit and was really, really excited to head down for a swim. the suit barely fit. there was no way to put a swimming diaper with it - there wasn't room. it was stretched as far as it could stretch and it looked like it hurt to me, but she was very happy to have it on. she also insisted on bringing some ducks down to swim with her.

here she is trying to share some water with our dog, lady. i thought that it was cute how she says "no thank you" when she realizes that lady doesn't want any.

she really liked the jets in the tub and how they "squirt" water too. i am sure we will do this again while waiting for the weather to finally warm up enough to use her outdoor pool. love.

fun with daddy

madelyn has so much fun with daddy. they chase each other around the house, laughing. and daddy does a lot of things that mommy can't or won't do. tonight we went for a walk around the neighborhood since it was fairly warm (45) after dinner and had stopped raining. mommy won't carry madelyn, but daddy will. she rode most of our walk sitting up on daddy's shoulders. she told us that she was tall like a giraffe. i loved that she made that association! plus, it gave matt and i a good laugh. before she got up on daddy's shoulders we had pointed out a worm on the sidewalk and she squatted down to take a closer look. much to my surprise she tried to pick it up. and then she jumped back and gave a horrific expression. she said that it was slimy and yucky like a snake. she told us about it for most of the walk and would not touch another one. i didn't have the camera with me and tried to get her to talk about it when we got home, but she was too interested in the new mobile for her baby brother's room that arrived today.

on sunday, matt tried to teach madelyn how to massage his back. she was trying so hard to do a good job.

here are some other notes:

- madelyn has been pointing out colors, numbers, and shapes when we are out. today at the doctor's office she told me that there was a triangle sticker and sure enough there was a triangle window cling in the office window. and yesterday she took a pocket planner i gave her and identified all the numbers on the page without any prompting from me.

- she has been counting "ten, twelve" a lot lately. it makes us laugh because she just keeps saying the numbers over, and over, and over happily.

- madelyn put herself down for her nap earlier than normal and instead of sleeping she sang, laughed, and talked for about 40 minutes before knocking on her door saying "knock, knock, knock". i went in and tucked her back in and didn't hear another peep for about two hours.

- when ever she is climbing on something or trips she says "be careful".

- she has been singing a lot. her current favorite is "row, row, row your boat". madelyn sings it "row, row, row the street". even though she sings most of the day it has been impossible to catch it on tape. i will keep trying though. love.

24 week check-up

today i had my 24 week check-up. i am happy to report that baby boy is doing great and we are to the point that he could survive if i were to give birth so that is always nice to hear - not that i want to have him any time soon. i think i only gained 1-1/2 lbs. over the past five weeks for a total of about 12 or 13 lbs. it is hard to keep track because they don't really talk about weight or even say what it is.

matt had a work thing today and couldn't make the appointment - the first he has missed - so i had arranged for one of the neighbors to watch maddie before music class while i went to the doctor. the bad news is that about 10 minutes before i had to leave for the appointment i found out that the neighbor's son got croup overnight and she couldn't watch madelyn. normally it wouldn't be a big deal (and it wasn't really a big deal today) but madelyn slept until 8:30 and we needed to leave around 9:00. so i had to hurry her along and throw a waffle and banana in my bag for her to eat quickly while we waited for my appointment.

she has been getting up at 5:30am since the time change! luckily, i have been able to persuade her to go back to bed and the past two days she has slept until at least 8am. so this morning i let her sleep thinking that it wouldn't be a big deal to take her breakfast over to the neighbor's when i dropped her off. oh well. we got to the office and i went to give my regular urine sample. and madelyn helpfully poured it down the sink while i got the label ready for it. that would have to wait until after the appointment...

madelyn did really fantastic during the exam and told the doctor that she wanted to hear the baby's heartbeat. while we were waiting for the doctor madelyn kept saying "doctor coming". she was sitting on my lap being very snugly, hugging and kissing me sweetly. it was so nice. when she told daddy about the appointment she said that we went to the "baby doctor" - she came up with this on her own we have never said this to her.

next we had to stop by the lab to pick up the drink for my glucose test at my next appointment. i guess madelyn remembered when i gave blood there last time (which had reminded her of her own blood draw) because she would not even come through the door. she was crying to go and get in the car. she was even pulling on my hand to get me to leave. after assuring her that we weren't giving any blood just getting some drink she allowed us to go inside. i have already told matt that he has to come to the next appointment because madelyn was not going to be able to handle my blood test.

we survived. love.

mango gelato

madelyn had her first 'ice cream' cone tonight topped with mango gelato. we let her taste pineapple and mango before asking her to choose. it wasn't that big of a surprise that she chose mango - it has been her favorite fruit for some time now. i just recently got her some dried mango (because the fresh is difficult to come by this time of year up here) and she loves it! otherwise she has been eating it canned since last fall when we last got some decent mangoes.

anyway, we went to go check out a local "art crawl" tonight but there wasn't much going on because of continuous rain all day today. since we were already down there we decided to take madelyn for a gelato treat (okay mom and dad got treats too). she was a little hesitant at first and ate most of it with a little spoon (go figure). we finally got her to actually lick it instead of sucking it off the cone. i think that she might have gotten a little brain freeze once or twice from the expression she gave. i couldn't decide which picture was my favorite for the post so i put several for your viewing pleasure.

she had a lot of fun just looking at all the night time business lights and people watching as we strolled around for a few blocks. we stopped in a book store to listen to a harpist (i think she was 13 - 15 years old). madelyn was really into it. she sat on my lap while we listened and let out a very quite "yea" when the harpist paused between pieces. and when i spoke in a normal volume to tell matt something she put her finger to her lips and gave me a gentle "shhhh".

all and all a nice evening to a nice day together. love.

sometimes you just have to take a picture

madelyn is deep asleep in this picture. i was joking that she was getting out of bed but fell asleep before she could stand up. matt and i were downstairs watching a movie last night and i peeked in on maddie before heading to bed myself once it was over. i ran to get my camera and matt after i looked in her room. i am glad that i got him because all my giggling and camera flashes woke her up a little and i would not have wanted him to miss this. love.

(on a baby boy note, i was resting my hands on my belly while we were watching the movie and he kicked so hard that he actually knocked my hands off my belly! it totally surprised me because he wasn't kicking that much and - bam - my hands went airborne.)

finally! a trip to the park

as soon as i saw the forecast for this week i cleared my friday morning so that we could go to the zoo. it was going to be 48 and sunny - a real heat wave in comparison to what the weather has been. it actually got above 50 today (i think). it was so nice to be out and our neighbors michael and dylan, with their mom tina, met us at the zoo. madelyn was so excited to see them and quickly took dylan's hand so that they could walk and run around together. they were so cute talking to each other and pointing out what they could see. i probably should have gotten some video, but just took stills - sorry.

it was such a nice day and the zoo was packed with other families who just needed to be out of the house (we saw several other friends and neighbors). as a special treat, we went on a train ride around the zoo. we didn't go last year because the line was always long and we didn't think that madelyn was old enough to appreciate it. and it doesn't run in the winter, so this was our first trip since it started running this year. every time it went by and the whistle blew madelyn froze in her tracks to watch. she would call out "choo-choo" and get excited. michael - who is a train fanatic - suggested that we take a ride before we left. i wasn't sure that madelyn was enjoying the ride until she cried when it was over. she didn't want to get off the train. tonight at dinner she kept telling daddy that the "train ride all done" when we were telling him about our day.

not only did madelyn have a lot of fun with her friends, but she took a 3-1/2 hour nap when we got home. it is a double bonus for me - a nice long walk outside and a nice long break when she takes a long nap afterwards.

tina had mentioned that her boys had gone to the neighborhood park yesterday with their dad. i hadn't realized that all the snow had melted and it was dry enough for playing. so after madelyn's nap we headed down to take a look. madelyn was so excited to be going to the park that she skipped her snack and after nap cartoon. i guess other neighbors had the same idea because we got to see a lot of our friends there. we even got to meet some new neighbors.

madelyn tried out her friend ben's big wheel today. her feet could reach the petals, but were not quite long enough to push them forward. she mainly steered and scooted it backwards with her feet. besides the big wheel she spent most of our time there swinging. she loves to swing! she would reach out to me and call out "hug" so that i would catch her on the upswing in a big hug before letting go so that she would resume her swinging. she was also enjoying acting as the unofficial greeter to everyone that came down to the park. she would say (yell) "hi, girl" or "hi, boy" to anyone coming down the hill until they got close enough that she could tell who it was and then she would call them by name - if she knew it.

the big accomplishment today was that she climbed the rock wall for the first time. she needed a little help because her jeans are a little small (she has pretty much outgrown the 2t clothes now) and she couldn't quite lift her foot high enough. she needed me to help her with the last 1/2 inch to get her toe on the rock. i think that is going to be one of her new favorites this summer. she climbed the wall (which is taller than i am) 3 or 4 times while we were there today.

it is going to become cold/rainy/snowy again this weekend, but it is nice to have a little taste of spring weather to give us hope that we will play outside again soon. love.

"my house!"

madelyn has had another companion besides "friend" for the past week or so. i hadn't mentioned it because she seems to pick one thing each day that is going to be friend's plus one and they tend to switch every few days. usually it is a stuffed animal or a toy, but this one is so odd that i thought it deserved its own post. she has selected the ceramic (or something like that) house that holds bible verse cards on the kitchen counter. it is maybe three or four inches tall and three inches wide - and hard. she takes it everywhere. it is her choice to bring in the car (because we don't let friend ride in the car), it must be accounted for throughout the day, comes to bed for sleeping, and gets described in detail at meals. she counts the windows, points out that one window is "round" or a "circle", identifies the "chimney", "door", "bird", etc.

it seems like it would be uncomfortable to snuggle up in bed with such a hard item, but madelyn insists on having it with her. i take it out of her bed when i check on her after she is asleep because i don't want it to wake her up by poking her. but it is in one of her hands when she comes out of her room in the morning or after a nap.

her beloved companion's name - "my house". love.

nemo interview

madelyn was going on and on about "nemo" while we were riding home tonight and cracking me up. while matt ran into the store for a few quick things i wanted to try and get some of the interview on video. its like the camera distracts her. it is sort of a representative of what she was saying, but when the camera was off/down she made a lot more sense and gave more feedback.

she has been asking me to draw "hammer head shark" all day because of seeing the "stick shark" in nemo and having me tell her that it is a hammer head. and i guess the swimming underwater looks like "swimming in the air" to her. after i stopped filming she starting saying "duuude" like the sea turtles in the movie. she was quite amused with herself.

she keeps saying "okay" because she was really upset about coral, nemo's mom, getting eaten at the start of the movie. i told her that sometimes big fish eat little fish and it is okay. today was the first time this was ever upsetting to her (she has seen it maybe 5 times before). she also got upset when the sharks were chasing marlin and dori; i told her that it was okay because the sharks couldn't get them. so for the rest of the day she kept saying that different things in the movie were "okay".

okay - one last point just because it is crazy. twenty minutes (or less) from our house got 14.3 inches of lake-effect snow today and we had sunshine all day. just crazy. love.

the meanest mom spring giveaway

i have posted about "the meanest mom" before and if you have yet to check out her blog now is the time! she is offereing up some really great mommy gifts in her "march madness" giveaway. here is a link: http://themeanestmom.blogspot.com/2009/02/march-madness.html. i wish you all luck (but secretly hope that i win). love.

pregnant belly

i finally look pregnant enough to have a stranger acknowledge it! when greeting those seated around us at church this morning i got a "congratulations" from the woman sitting in front of us and it made my day. with maddie it was a man sitting next to me on an airplane to be the first stranger to make a comment. i always like knowing that i have passed the 'fat' look into a pregnant look.

since i look pregnant now, i had matt take a picture for me to post. it isn't the greatest picture of me, but i was just trying to let you see my belly today at 23 weeks, one day (i don't have one with from maddie until 26 weeks so i will compare the two then).

matt was feeling a little better today so i convinced him to go to the outlets for some baby boy shopping. it is the first time we have purchased anything for our baby boy to come. and we purchased a lot. we had coupons and there were great sales. we actually got more for maddie than for the new baby. we got maddie a lot of winter clothes on clearance for next year and a few summer items. the best was that we found cute "little brother" and "big sister" shirts (you will have to wait a few months to see them).

madelyn was so cute while shopping. to my surprise, she picked up a headband and put it on her head at one of the stores. i don't know how she knew that it should go on her head, but she wore it all over the store and for several more stores to come (after we purchased it - of course). she was so content for the entire outing (about 4 hours of shopping and store hoping) and had fun walking around and hiding in the clothing racks. at the carters store she played with a block table while we shopped. when we told her that it was time to go, she carefully took apart all the towers she had built and put them back in the bucket in the middle of the table. i was so proud of her for cleaning up what she had been playing with before we could leave. she even told us when she needed to have her diaper changed. needless to say, she fell asleep the second we got in the car after lunch to head home.

her behavior has been a dream since she started feeling well again, but she has been getting up very early (for her) in the morning. she has been getting up between 6:00 and 6:30am (instead of 7:00 - 7:30). on saturday morning she got up early and instead of coming into our room like she normally does she went downstairs to see the dogs. i could tell that she sounded far away, but i was surprised to find her in the basement happily playing.

in other stair news, i have been meaning to post for a while now that she can walk up the stairs holding on to the railing all by herself. she still prefers to hold our hand while going down the stairs but, as you can tell in the previous story, it is not necessary for her to get down. she will try holding the railing for a few steps, but i think she just gets a little nervous and wants to hold a hand and/or slide down on her bottom.

i was all ready to post when i got one more video to share. madelyn asked for paper to color with markers (this is unusual since we haven't used markers in a very long time). i had gotten some new washable markers at the dollar store so i decided this was the perfect occasion to give them to her. she was being so careful with them that i left the room to talk to matt for a minute. she was still doing so well at recapping the markers and putting them away that i had to get some video. love.