madelyn's 2

madelyn turned 2 today! and as of 9:35pm she is not going to have to share her birthday with her brother (my big concern with the due date being so close to her birthday) - not that i am not ready for him to come out already.

we have been so busy around here this month and will have house guests next month so we have opted not to have a birthday party for madelyn this year. i, of course, have "mommy guilt" and decided to take madelyn to the zoo this morning. it was going to be a pretty hot day (for here - not other parts of the country) so we got there shortly after it opened. after about a half hour i realized that i really had no business pushing her up the hills in that heat; not that it put me into labor or anything.

madelyn took care of protecting her knees from the sun. she actually wore three of these stickers on her legs for most of the day. they were stickers that she got from one of our visits to the doctor's office and found in the car on the way to the zoo. for some reason she insisted on riding around in her stroller almost the whole time we were there, which is very unusual for her. she also had no interest in the fish building - a first. but i practically had to drag her away from the hippos after like 20 minutes. at least she always finds something of interest when we go.

again with the "mommy guilt," i wanted today's trip to the zoo to be a little special so i let her get a pressed penny souvenir. she thought that was the coolest thing ever. if i had more quarters i would have let her get two, and she chose to have a giraffe for her single selection.

unfortunately, she didn't get a decent nap again. she has just been falling asleep in the car early in the day and then can't go down for her actual nap. hopefully we will have better luck tomorrow because she really does need her nap.

since it was madelyn's day i just went with whatever she wanted instead of what was normal. she had a bowl of canned corn for breakfast (her request) with a slice of sharp cheddar cheese and two bananas with string cheese for lunch. i think that she had two cups of yogurt with daddy this morning before i got up too. dinner was a medley of taco ingredients. we never got to the birthday cake because it got too late past bedtime after we finished with the presents. we will just have to sing and eat it tomorrow night.

she was going to have swimming lessons today, but they got cancelled due to a power outage at the pool (i guess it messed up the chemical system). when i was getting her ready for swimming she told me that she wanted to "go to the doctor's first". this is because last week she had to go with me to the doctor's before class - i thought that it was funny that she remembered and asked to go. since madelyn was so excited about swimming, and already in her swimming suit, we invited her friends michael and dylan down to swim in her pool instead (they have swimming lessons at the same time too). she was so excited to have the boys down to enjoy some splashing fun with her.

after sliding and splashing with the boys we went in to have some dinner. i didn't think that she was going to make it through dinner. she was definitely bobbing her head with her eyes closed while eating slowly. as soon as daddy started using his tools to hang up her height chart in the playroom she perked right up! right now it is just a painted board, but once i get all the numbers written on it it will be a height chart. matt just wanted to make sure that we got her measured on her actual birthday. she did so great at standing straight up against the wall! her 2nd birthday measurement came in at 37 inches! if what they say about doubling is true, she is going to be 6'2" someday.

once we finished with the measuring madelyn became ecstatic about the mention of presents. every time the doorbell would ring she would come running and ask, "what is it, mommy?". if i asked what she thought it was, she would shout "toys!" i haven't let her open anything over the past week, but today i did let her open her presents from uncle josh and aunt adrienne when it arrived.

now, back to the presents... madelyn go so many presents! and not from mommy and daddy either. we got her a little tent and a tunnel (one of those cloth things that kids crawl through). there weren't pictures that i could really post because she wasn't dressed. i should have thought about that and put some clothes on her before presents, but i didn't. i am sure that there will be many pictures of her and her gifts throughout the rest of the week. (on a side note, she had been asking me not to take her picture today. there were lots of pictures that i wanted to get and couldn't.) she really loved the tool belt from her blogger friend, lorelai. i really wish i could post how cute she was with it, but i have a feeling that you will see a lot of it in the future.

she also got several dress-up outfits including a thumbelina costume (which you might remember is our nickname for our little thumb sucker). she is going to have fun dressing up in these some day. i can't even list everything out. all i can say is that she is very spoiled (and loved)! thank you to everyone who made our little girl feel so special on her birthday.

(madelyn got a special birthday greeting from her blogger buddy, lorelai, today too for anyone who wants to see it.) love.