beyond christmas

there has been so much going on here the past few days that i needed to do a miscellaneous post.

- mason has really committed to scooting around on his back (i should really get some video. it is pretty funny looking). so much so that today he would practically refuse to sit up. he would just throw himself back so that he could scoot.

- i was working on getting mason to crawl on all fours today and talking to him. i was saying, "mason, you need to learn how to sit, and crawl, and..." but before i could finish madelyn added excitedly, "and play!"

- madelyn got a few chapter books for christmas. i thought that with her attention span and active imagination she would like having them read to her. last night we started charlotte's web. she took to it even better than i thought! she paid close attention and asked questions. i am really looking forward to this addition to our routine.

- there has been a real shift to madelyn using the bathroom "by myself". sometimes she is too independent and we have to take her back for another try at wiping, but she is really proud that she can do it all on her own. she doesn't even need a step stool anymore.

- my new nickname for mason is "monks". madelyn was asking me about it the other day so i guess it might stick. monks is short for monkey.

- madelyn got a veggietales lullaby cd for christmas. she just has an ipod dock in her room so we loaded it for her and let mason use the actual cd for his nap. madelyn heard the music coming from mason's room - she never misses a veggietales detail - and asked what it was. i told her that it was the lullaby cd. after mason's nap we heard madelyn singing to him, "love-aby, love-aby". she told me that she was singing him to sleep.

- mason stopped nursing to sleep on christmas eve. he just doesn't nurse at bed time. he still sleeps all night too. we are most excited about the flexibility this gives us at bed time. since mason will not take milk from a bottle matt always has to put madelyn down and misses that time with mason. now he can read books and have quiet time with mason at night too.

- there have been a few things recently that have lead to madelyn being really interested about getting her adult teeth and the tooth fairy. we recently read a book about the tooth fairy and mason getting his new teeth have lead to her telling us often that she is getting big/new teeth soon. the funny part is that she got a few tinkle bell gifts for christmas and she refers to her as the "tooth fairy".

- probably the most popular gift madelyn received is an old school water ring game. (the ones where you push buttons on the bottom to force the water up to float the rings on to the 'sticks'. it is shaped like a cell phone so madelyn calls it her "phone" and has barely put it down.

- we have been working with madelyn on not coming out of her room until 7am. if she gets up at 6:30 we take her back to bed as if it were 3am - she has to wait until 7. at first she was having trouble and would cry that her "clock has a 7". i finally realized that she was looking at the minutes and not the hour! after explaining, again, where she needed to see a 7 we have had a lot more success. and she is usually in our room by 7:01. we let her up a little early on christmas. plus, i had already woken matt up because i was so excited.

and that is everything. love.