just another day

matt had to take the camera to work with him today and of course today presented a lot of photo opportunities. at least i had my phone to try and capture some of them.

it started this morning when madelyn requested gloves and snow boots for going out side - and no clothes. she was actually posing and smiling for me next to the front door, but there isn't a flash on my phone so you can't really see her face very well. this really was the best of the pictures i took. she wore her winter 'outfit' for quite a while. she did take the gloves off twice, but asked to have them put back on right away.

after a morning video conference, we headed off to music class. madelyn was so excited to be there. she really likes her friend dylan's mom, tina. madelyn throws herself into tina's lap pretty forcefully (she does the same to me and kind of bounces off of my belly - and, yes, it hurts me). it would be annoying except that she does it with so much love and joy that you can't be mad. dylan is nice enough to share his mommy's lap because madelyn takes up a lot of it. she even likes to lay down on tina and be rocked like a little baby. it is pretty funny because tina is pretty petite and madelyn looks huge in her arms/lap. i am just glad that madelyn loves our neighbor so much!

as soon as we could get ourselves together and to the car, we headed off to return some books that were due back to the library today. i had to get back for work so we didn't spend a long time picking out new books. on our way out madelyn noticed a statue that she has never given any attention to before. she realized that they were little kids and wanted to sit on the bench and look at their book with them. what was funnier is that she had me sit on the opposite bench and asked that i take her picture!

our trip to the library also reminded me of some other things i have been meaning to post about.

- madelyn is excellent at waiting to look for traffic before stepping out into the street! any time we are about to step off a sidewalk or curb she tells me to "wait for the cars". once she confirms that there are "no cars" she will step into the street. even if i tell her it is okay she will stop and tell me that she is "waiting". she insists that we come to a complete stop to look before stepping into the street. it is very cute - and responsible. the funniest instance of this was when we were going to get the mail and she wouldn't let me leave the end of our driveway until the neighbor five doors down had finished pulling out of their driveway and drove past us. simply because when she looked up and down the street she saw a car moving. we just stood holding hands at the end of the driveway and waited - the neighbor had a nice laugh has they drove by and waved at us.

- she always points out flags when she sees them. it was pretty windy when we left the library and we were talking about the flags waving and madelyn replied by waving at the flags and saying "hi" - so literal.

i don't know how to explain it here but madelyn's communication abilities have taken a dramatic step up over the past few days. our conversations have gotten much more sophisticated. that is the only word i can think of to explain it.

tonight she asked to go to bed an hour earlier than normal and that was after taking a 3 hour nap. either she is growing again or isn't feeling very well. we will see how she wakes up tomorrow morning. love.