home sweet home

it is really great to be back home! my trip went really well, but it is always nice to get back home. it is amazing how dramatically different mason looks after being away for three days and even madelyn is noticeably different to me. mason gave me more of a reaction than madelyn ever did at his age. but madelyn was definitely glad to see me now. she held my hand the whole ride home from the airport and mason cried because he couldn't turn his head enough to see me.

everything went fine while i was gone. not that i was really too worried. it was a little concerning that we had yet to have any success feeding mason from a bottle, but matt wasn't worried about it and he was the one who would have to deal with a cranky boy. by the end of the first day he did take a full bottle from matt so that was reassuring to me.

matt enjoyed the time at home with the kids too. i was happy for that too - its good for him. he said that his favorite part was watching how they interact with each other. doing prayers at night madelyn would give her typical, "thank you for mommy and daddy and mason and friend..." but added another toy that she had chosen not to take care of and gave to other kids (aka goodwill). so she said thanks for it, but then remembered that she didn't have it - "where did it go? oh yeah...i gave it to other kids" - and then she went on with her prayers. this just cracked matt up - and still does when he retells it.

i guess madelyn was a little jealous that mason was getting to spend so much time nursing when i got home because she lifted up my shirt and asked me to feed her. it took me a minute to react because it was so out of the blue, but she accepted my answer of no and we moved on pretty quickly.

mason must have worked on biting while he was using a bottle when i was gone because he is definitely good at it now! i didn't yell out but i removed him and said firmly, "no biting, mason". to which mason instantly made the saddest face i have ever seen and began to cry. i only had to do it twice before he stopped biting me.

on a happier, funnier, note, mason has started to suck his big toe like he does his thumb. he has been able to put his feet in his mouth for quite some time now, but this was the first time i have seen him go to town sucking on a toe. he was so happy.

he still isn't doing much in the moving department but he is becoming a really, really good reacher when he is sitting up. he can reach all the way out to where it looks like the circulation must be cut off to his legs, get what he wants, and sit back up without falling. we have also heard 'talking' that sounds like "da-da" when he sees matt, but it hasn't been repetitive enough to be certain.

so that is the latest on the gang and here are some other miscellaneous notes:

- i took madelyn for a free show at the planetarium down the road sunday morning before i left for kansas. just she and i went since mason and daddy weren't really that interested. madelyn is almost obsessive about the moon and its phases when we are out after dark (even when we are home she looks for it out the window) so i thought that she might enjoy the planetarium but probably would not have tried it when she is so young if it wasn't free. she really did love it. there were a lot of fun things to look at in the lobby and she liked seeing the winter sky star show once we were inside. she did ask to leave at the very beginning of the show, but then she got really into it (maybe i just didn't explain what was going to happen well enough). we also saw some friends there so that made it special to her too. i think that we will go again sometime soon.

- we had a new mattress for matt and i delivered while i was out of town. matt is so very excited because he believes our old one (a sleep number bed) is the root of all his back pain. we will see if the new one makes a difference. i am just glad that he would finally spend the money to find out. madelyn had a lot of fun mattress shopping with us over the past month. she liked trying them all out and bouncing on them (not that we encouraged the later).

- after months of not eating the crust of her sandwich (i think she learned this at school), madelyn has decided that she can only eat sandwiches made with the end of the loaf. she even gets upset when she has already eaten them both and there is a lot of middle slices left. you just never know...

love.