a little help from our friends

i somehow managed to leave on my auto-shutoff headlights after returning home from dropping the boys off at preschool. i had a meeting and when it wrapped up early i decided to run a few child-less errands. 

as soon as i opened the garage i knew my fate. my battery was too drained to start the van. since the van has a fob, i could not 'crank' the engine with a little gas. i couldn't even get it into neutral because of all the power controls. 

thankfully, i had an hour before i needed to pick up the boys. unfortunately, matt works almost 30 minutes away. so he started to drive while i prayed that a neighbor was home - with jumper cables. i know we have had some (i have used some more than once with other cars) but they must have gotten lost in one of the moves and forgotten as we have gotten more reliable transportation. the plan was that i would call him if i had any luck so he could turn around and head back to work. he was heading home so that we would have some way of picking up the boys.

i saw that one neighbor's garage was open and headed down the street. not only was lori home and had jumper cables, but she was willing to help me get the van out of the garage and give me a jump! not to say that it was easy (way too much on this van is "power"), but with kristen (another neighbor who was meeting up with lori to head to the gym) reading the manual, and lori and i in our respective vans, we got our van started! 

(i look deranged because i had ripped off my sweatshirt as my embarrassment was causing me to overheat and pulled my bun way off kilter.) 

i was even able to pick the boys up from preschool on time! i did leave the van running while i ran in to get them in fear of it not starting again. we were able to get home but i was not brave enough to attempt my errands for the day - including my free coffee for "coffee day." love.

manning in action

the kids were all playing super quietly in the basement. manning was particularly focused on the shape sorter. not terribly exciting viewing but i still thought i would share.

manning was 'helping' me fold laundry today. he was trying to figure out how to 'fold' the shirt before putting in the pile (the wrong pile, but at least he wasn't undoing my folding in other piles). he was sort of swirling them around his arms into a roll before putting a shirt in the pile. he was just moving clothes by the time i decided to get some video. so then i thought i would show how he is excellent at putting his own clothes away. love.

mommy's little 'helper'

manning (who you will recall is now not napping) isn't so much my 'helper' as 'helping himself'! you might see the steps tool in the background of this picture. he uses it all over the house and there isn't much he can't help himself to and he does.  a frequent favorite is to get any of the wipes containers from around the house and empty them. he does try to use all of the wipes to clean the bench at the table - not the table, only the bench.

and then there is a total meltdown when he is cut off from his wipe supply.

this happens just about every day too. the 'cleaning' not the meltdown. he 'helps' all over the house.  but i think his favorite places are the pantry, the bathrooms and the office.  he doesn't do anything particularly destructive, but he does get into an awful lot. he is the first of the kids who really loves the computers and will go into the office without matt or i being in there and just help himself to the mouse and keyboards. if you get an odd email or message from me, it is from manning.  love.

post #100

i can't believe that i have already posted 100 times and maddie isn't even 8 months yet! i think that i have enjoyed writing as much as you all have told me that you like reading it (okay, so i probably like writing more than you like reading). it really is nice to be able to look back and see when she hit each milestone of her young life. the question is - will i reach #200 before she turns one?

today there was some serious ice here so we stayed around the house. madelyn did her best to help with chores too. here she is helping me with my work and then helping dad with the laundry.

i thought that "dog" was going to be her next word, but it was "no". i only tell her "no" when she gets into the fireplace logs and when she tries to get into all the cords under my desk (the allure of the power switch light is too much for her) so i was sort of surprised that "no" is what her fourth word would be. there are lots of other words that she hears more often, but this is the one with impact. (for review madelyn can say "da-da"/"da-di", "ma-ma", "hi", and now "no").

we bought her a few more books on saturday. she loves dogs and babies in her books. whenever she sees one she gets excited and starts 'talking' to them and patting the page. its so cute how much she enjoys being read too. and i enjoy her excitement about what each page is going to bring.

one last story from the weekend. we babysat two little boys on saturday night (3 years and 11 months). madelyn loves playing with other kids and especially their toys. she liked playing 'chase' with dylan (11 months). she would start laughing and crawl away but would then stop and turn around to make sure that he was 'chasing' her before taking off crawling again. as you can imagine, their 'chasing' didn't last very long before one or both of them would get distracted by something else. but it was still really cute and they did it more than once. madelyn was in rare form and didn't go to bed until 9:40pm! she was so hyper! i was afraid that she was going to wake up the boys who were already sleeping with her squeals of delight.

love.