signing "i love you"

manning's first time signing "i love you" - he was SO proud of himself! love.

what a week for manning

i feel like i don't post enough about manning's milestones these days so here are a few that either happened (or i just noticed) this week or just some things i thought i should mention/document.

- we are cutting out naps for manning.  he has gotten to the point where he will not go to bed at night if he takes any nap at all during the day. for the most part, he has done fine without napping but he hasn't felt great this week which has given me one very cranky boy.

- i was attributing his crankiness to the fluid in his ears (did i mention that after back to back ear infections, he still has fluid in his ears?) and was a little worried that it was turning into another infection.  but during a screaming fit, in front of friend who had stopped by, i noticed that he was cutting molars!  now that makes more sense of his mood and the waking up crying in the night. he stays in bed but wakes up several times crying.

- i have also taken this week to wean him off his "lovey". since we have been home all day, every day, he has been carrying his "lovey" and sucking his thumb all day too. so i have been hiding "lovey" in my room shortly after breakfast and not giving it back until bedtime. this, too, has been going pretty well.  he does ask for lovey from time to time, but he has been fine without it and i am already finding that he speaks more words without his thumb in his mouth.

- manning signed "please" without a prompt for the first time. i always love when they learn that "please" is a nice manner to use when asking for something. he caught on to "thank you" a long time ago, but the "please" has been slower to come.

- manning is totally one of the boys and loves playing with his brothers. it has come in really handy this week to have all four kids playing together. although the captivity day after day has also led to lots and lots of fighting and crying. well, maybe not "lots" but way more than we would have on a normal day. 

- we are using the stroller less and less. (yay!) manning does a great job of walking with the cart (holding on) or holding a hand - for the most part - i mean, he is just one.

- he has also started to wake up around 5:30am. boo. he hasn't really been an early riser like the other kids were but he has been in an unfortunate development. occasionally, he will snuggle up with me and go back to sleep - which is great for our non-napping effort - but it keeps me from being able to get up and get things done in the morning. i would like to get up at 6am, but i don't want manning to wake up until 7 or 8am. hopefully, this will be very short lived.

he is getting to be such a big boy. love. 

"i love you"

after a lot of practice, maddux was pretty proud of getting at least the fingers right for signing "i love you".  love.

please and thank you

mason has been getting really, really good with his please and thank yous.  he signs them both, but comes pretty close to saying "please" (it sounds more like "pweez").  it is so cute to see him signing thank you to strangers who might give him things (think food samples at stores).  they have no idea what he is doing and he just keeps trying to get their attention.  i usually jump in a translate for him so that he knows the job is done and he can walk away.  it is nice to see he is so dedicated to his manners.  love.

moving day - wednesday

"crunchy mango" snack
in the apartment after
the long drive.

mason was fine as long as he could be in physical contact with me in the hotel bed. so when i got up with maddux at 2:30am mason woke up and starting calling for me within 10 minutes. thankfully, madelyn sleeps like matt and didn't hear any of it. i was so afraid of oversleeping (and had mason practically on top of me) that i don't think i slept for more than an hour at a time for a total all night of around two hours. on the plus side, i was awake early enough to take a long shower before hitting the road and mason (or anyone else) didn't wake up during it.

matt and i loaded the van while derek stood outside the room while the kids were still sleeping. once we were ready, and the van was warm enough, we loaded in the kids. i think that we actually got on the road around 5:30 or 6am. the drive wasn't too bad. we had lucked out with the weather because we didn't have more than flurries the whole drive and traffic was fairly light the whole way too. we only stopped twice, which i thought was pretty impressive. (i think that it was on the first stop that i learned what didn't make it on the truck when they started running out of room! i knew it was serious because matt said that his coffeemaker almost didn't make it either.) madelyn and mason dosed a little while watching movies and maddux slept. and maggie rode in the back of the truck. she was totally fine and did great on the trip. thankfully, she loves the cold and would spend hours just laying in the snow.

mason checking out a
hiding spot in the kitchen. 

we had to be in ohio by 4pm to get the keys to the apartment before the office closed. i think that we rolled in at 3:30pm. with the time change it took us around 9 hours. all three kids started crying while matt was in the apartment office and i went in to see how much longer they were going to be because i could just drive around to help them calm down. we just all really wanted to get out of the car and eat (we didn't have lunch because the stop was too sketchy so we just had a light snack). mason was even signing "all done" over and over at one point.

once we were in the apartment, everyone was happy. madelyn ,mason, and maggie were just running around happy as can be and maddux was nursing contently while matt got the tour from the 'sales' guy - mike. we got the van unloaded and matt and derek set to unloading the mattresses off the truck. (mattresses and the nursery furniture were the only large items to come on this phase of the move.) we ordered pizza and had a picnic lunch on the floor. mason wasn't too sure about eating on the floor but madelyn was very excited.

madelyn with her "babies" - new and old

as the apartment filled up with our boxes and the kids were melting down, we decided that we would go up to chick-fil-a for dinner and then toys-r-us for 'house-warming' gifts. i love cfa and we haven't lived anywhere with one since college. i am really too excited about it. madelyn has asked to go back everyday since we have been here so i think she liked it too. toys-r-us was crazy but both kids had a good time selecting their special "new house" toy. i had promised madelyn that she could have a new toy when we moved and she told me that she wanted a "red ariel doll". she settled on a baby ariel that came with a crown, blanket, bottle, and story. mason selected a firehouse with siren, truck, dog, and man. in all $25 spent and it provided at least an hour of quiet playing when we got back to the apartment - worth every cent! besides madelyn being over the moon about her doll and telling all of us, even uncle derek, thank you for it and that she loved us and it.



maggie's post by the
front door.



since we don't have guest space here, derek slept in the nursery on mason's mattress and mason slept in our bed while maddux slept in the pack-n-play in our room. madelyn slept in what will be her and mason's room.

all in all, a pretty successful moving day! the apartment isn't huge, but there are three bedrooms, two bathrooms, new paint and carpet, and it is very convenient to stores. matt thinks that maggie is the happiest of all about this arrangement; she gets walked multiple times a day, gets to be in the main living space, and will get scraps from the kids. our goal is to keep as much of our furnishings and items in storage as possible until we move into an actual house, hopefully, before next christmas! love.

my notes from the past week

i have been taking very few pictures but i have been trying to keep notes on the kids. here is what i have from the past week:

- mason has started to make an 'o' face for his own amusement. it is kind of funny because it is a long 'o' face.

- mason loves to dance, i have mentioned before, but now he spins in circles as part of his groove.

- mason is adding more signs and using them more frequency without my having to remind him. the newer one is 'water'.

- he has also started his own version of nodding. he sort of tucks his chin to his chest and tilts his upper body almost as a nod. he also adds a high-pitched affirming sound. and it has been extremely helpful for him to answer our questions. tonight, as a joke, i asked him if he was going poop in his diaper and he 'nodded' yes while grabbing his pants and started to walk towards the changing table, gesturing for me to come too. sure enough, he had pooped.

- related to the dirty diaper above, mason was trying to pull his pants down in our bathroom while backing up to the edge of the toilet. he was trying to get on and nodded when i asked if he wanted to go potty. if we weren't running late for church i would have let him try it out.

- we were playing in the playroom and mason found some coasters he had brought in the day before. he picked them up and took them back where they belong in the living room - all on his own! i was so proud of him. this wasn't the first time he has done something like this but this was the only specific one i jotted down.

- as a sign of approval we have been giving mason high-fives. he comes running to you with his hand up and ready to go; very cute.

- mason loves his shoes. as soon as we get him dressed (or sometimes before we get him dressed), he heads over and picks out a pair of shoes. he tries to put them on himself and then brings them to me for some help. he is also getting better at sitting down to take them off when we come back home.

- madelyn mortified me this week when the internet/cable guy was working in my office with us to fix our modem and she said, "mommy, i am scared of that man." did i mention she was less than five feet from him and he was black? (i might have been more sensitive about this because all summer we have been doing racially charged readings in our book club.) i suggested that she tell him hello and tell him her name. he was so nice to her and introduced himself. she obviously felt comfortable with him because when the stink from mason's diaper could be ignored no longer, madelyn chose to stay in the office with the internet/cable guy. when i came back they were chatting away like old friends about the picture she was coloring.

- on one busy and exhausting day of parenting this week madelyn and i took some time to just color together before bed time. she and i had some confrontations about behavior that resulted in her spending time alone in her room more than once. i was asking her about how she enjoyed her day (we had gone to the library, etc.). i asked her what her favorite thing was from the day. she said that she didn't know so i started to name off some of our highlights. then she said, "mommy, you are the best part of my day" and gave me a big hug and kiss. that was the best part of my day!

- mason is obsessed with belly buttons. if he is with me when i am getting dressed he can't resist my outtie. i finally have to cut him off and cover it with a shirt because otherwise he wouldn't stop pushing it in. and he goes after his as soon as his shirt comes off. the funny part is that he tries to see his belly button but can't quite bend enough over his belly to see it.

- madelyn is convinced that only one person can sing a song at a time. even if she asks you to sing a song because she can't remember all the words, you can't sing when she starts singing. it has kind of put a damper on car trip sing-alongs. i figure she will have to get over it once mason can join in.

- out of no where madelyn came to me and said, "mommy, i tell the truth and you don't." apparently "truth" falls into the same category as singing - only one person at a time. she was unable to give me any example of when i didn't tell her the truth and i couldn't think of any instance where i have told her even a 'white' lie.

- other recent expressions are "you hurt my feelings when..." and "my eyes were starting to water". each of these usually comes into play when she doesn't get her way or gets into trouble.

- her "eyes started to water" and her "feelings got hurt too" when i was trying to comfort mason after madelyn had unintentionally slammed three of his fingers over and over and over in a door. it must have been almost 10 times. she had opened up the door to the storage part of the basement while i was working on friday and i told her that she needed to get out of there (it is where the toys that aren't taken care of end up). i realized that she was having trouble closing the door and that mason was crying. i asked if she was getting his fingers in the door and she told me no. another minute or two of door slamming and crying and i got up to investigate. i thought that mason was just crying because he didn't want the door closed. she had left the light on so i opened the door and turned it off. that was when i saw how mason was holding his hand perfectly straight. his fingers were being pinched in the hinge side of the door. i would have taken a picture of his fingers because it was dramatic, but he didn't stop crying for almost an hour (well, it was off and on once i got him calmed down and eating a little lunch) and i just couldn't justify a picture. i am happy to report after lunch and a nap he was perfectly fine. he has no discoloration either which is truly remarkable after seeing the initial injury. there is just a faint red line where the fingers were actually pinched - no knuckles or nails were caught. having had my fingers slammed in a van door as a child, i knew how bad his hand hurt. madelyn felt just awful about the whole thing and i had to assure her more than once that i knew it was just an accident. she was really scared when she saw that he was really hurt.

i am going to do a separate post about their sleeping in the same room tomorrow. love.

15 months

madelyn is 15-months old today! i thought that she had a 15-month appointment, but i guess she has a 16-month appointment instead. so i still feel like this is a milestone age so here are my updates.

• here are all the words she uses in context as of today (in no particular order): mom, dad, ball, turtle, please, up, again, waffle, dog, stick, rock, hi, bye, balloon, duck, peacock, bob, bird, go, no, wow, ding, car, truck, clock, what's that?, bean, cup, comb, okay, uh-oh, gone, cracker, down, snacks, bug, bubbles, cook, baby, salsa, talk, yes, kick
• here zoo of animal noises is growing too - dog/"woof", cow/"moo/boo", tiger/"grrr", lion/"roar", snake/"sss", duck/"quack", sheep/"baa", goat/"maa", giraffe/tongue out, monkey/"ah-ah-ah", chicken/"cluck"
• signs - more, eat, water, book, dad, airplane, shoes, cheese
• other noises - she calls out "hi" whenever she sees a phone (picture or real), says "brroomm" when she plays with cars or sees a motorcycle, and says "woo, woo" for a train
• madelyn is down to two cups of milk a day - one first thing in the morning and one after her nap. sometimes she skips one or the other in favor of a snack.
• one nap a day for around 2 hours - for now

i don't have any pictures because i was really busy this morning and matt borrowed the camera for work today. not to mention that i am really sick - of the head cold variety. until tomorrow. love.

this and that

okay, so last month i mentioned that madelyn was asking "what's that". shortly afterwords she stopped doing it as much. however, now its a different story! not only does she ask "what's that?" all day, but she has added "what's this?" into the rotation. and i am loving every minute of it! sometimes it is difficult to know what she is asking about because she points and sometimes she is pointing as something at a distance that could be any number of items.

it was fun today at the grocery store. she would point and say "what's that?" and i would have to quickly come up with a response without loosing track of what i was actually looking for - and i did loose track, several times.

to go with the questions and pointing is that she can point to things we ask about too. when we read books before nap time (daddy does bedtime) i can ask her "where's the dog?" and she can point to it! this makes story time that much more fun for me. and she must like it too because when we get to the end of the book she turns it back to the front cover for me to read it and quiz her again. (and if i don't quiz her she starts pointing and asking "what's that?") i am working on getting this on video. so far i have only gotten like one second because she looses focus when i get the camera.

her comprehension is getting really great too. i can ask her if she wants her diaper changed and she will go to the changing table in her room, tell her that it is bath time and she will head to the tub, when she wants milk she signs "milk" until i tell her yes, lets go get it and then she heads to the refrigerator, and last when i ask her if she is hungry she heads to the highchair and starts to climb. i think that she has climbed all the way up into the highchair at least seven times in the past two days. she just climbs up (silent as a cat) and signs for "more" when i find her. that is her sign for "eat" - we're still working on it.

back to the climbing into the highchair - well, i need more pictures. i will post more about that tomorrow. (the picture is a clue...)

she is also getting really good at her sign language - well, i am biased. she has added "daddy" to her signs. we were watching her baby einstein "first signs" dvd this afternoon (well she was watching while i made dinner for one of the neighbors) for the first time in a few months and she was trying to sign along (that is where the "daddy" dvd showed up today). when they came to the "eat" part, maddie signed "more". it gets her what she wants, so why learn the right sign, right? love.

can i go out and play?

madelyn loves her dogs. she likes to stand at the door and watch them while banging on the glass and 'talking' / yelling to them. since the weather is nicer she can get a little more interactive with only the screen separating them. it gets a little crazy when she is actually out on the deck, so the screen works best for me.

i didn't notice that she was pointing at and then signing "ball" until after i stopped the video. her sign isn't the greatest, but she does it after she points at the ball or when looking at it so i figured it out (she kept doing it for a while after i turned off the camera - that's how i made the connection). watch towards the end of the video and you will see her pointing/"ball" combo.



this morning i took madelyn to one of the biggest pizza places i have ever seen - unfortunately i left my camera at home. they do a mom's morning out from 9 - 11 during the week and i thought that we might check it out as a practice outing of getting somewhere on time in the morning before her music class starts next tuesday. they had a water play room with cascading tables and toys (they even had vinyl smocks to wear and keep clothes dry), a train room, a pizza restaurant play kitchen, a large block room, a face painting room, and a hamster style play gym. some of our friends met us there too. it costs just under $5 and includes a coffee, juice, milk, pastry, fruit, and cereal buffet. i think that we will try it out again sometime - especially in the winter months.

matt is such a great dad. i know that i am biased, but he is so cute with her. we stopped to get a quick dinner tonight while running errands and matt was sticking cheerios on his tongue and then sticking it out for madelyn's amusement. i had to remind him that madelyn wasn't the only one who could see him... then when we were leaving sam's, matt had her on his shoulders and was skipping. yes, matt skipping. i wish that i could have captured it because she was laughing and squealing and bouncing on his shoulders while matt skipped the whole way to the car. so sweet. i love to watch them together.

good night. love.

"ba" (read "ball")

madelyn has started saying and signing "ball" when matt reads to her at night. anytime she sees a ball in a book she gets excited saying "ba" and signing it. she has also begun to do the same with balls in real life too. she has been able to follow requests to "get the ball" for a while now, but it is really exciting to see her say/sign it. matt was excited because he would only do it for him at first because when i come in she is only interested in her last feed of the day.

speaking of her last feed of the day... she has started to cheer when i come into her room at night! i might even try to get it on video tomorrow - if i can remember. this is how it goes. matt does bath time, brushes her teeth, gets her ready for bed, and then reads to her until he or she can't take one more book. then maddie gets to signing for milk and matt calls me in to finish her bedtime routine. the past couple of nights she has been doing the cheering and practically leaps off matt's lap trying to get to me. and if i am to slow she turns around to climb down out of the chair so that she can get to me sooner. i don't think that she could be any happier to see me - ever.

and, yes, she is still nursing. i almost have her totally on whole milk during the day, but she nurses in the morning and before bed. her getting sick was actually great for helping her wean. but now that she is feeling better its as if she has just realized that she isn't nursing during the day. i guess it must be that we have had a few warmer days and i am not totally covered up from the neck down. she will be going to town on her milk cup, but then will look up at me and you can see the idea pop in her head of "hey, what's going on here?!" and she doesn't mess around drinking out of her cup either. she puts away anywhere from 5 - 14 ounces at a time! usually it is 7 - 10 ounces.

keep reading to hear about maddie's adventures in chicago, at a brewer's game, and on a return trip to the zoo. love.

lots "more"

maddie started signing "more" at mealtimes today! i was excited. she doesn't have it totally right, but she does it each time she finishes eating what is on her tray until she was full.

today was also exciting because i dropped her mid-morning nurse and instead gave her milk in a cup. i have done this a few times before, but now we are going to get serious about starting the process of getting rid of nursing. she was being super silly and chatty after she drank most of her milk so i got the camera. as usual - she settled down once i got to filming. shortly after this video the camera battery died so i figured this video was better than nothing. enjoy.


the real tragedy of the dead camera battery is that she started walking around a lot once it was dead! i even went to get my old camera, but the batteries in it were dead too. maybe another day i can show you, but i was pretty excited. she would just stand up in the middle of the room and walk to one of her toys or some piece of furniture. crawling is still her main mode of transportation, but walking is gaining ground. its cute because it is two steps forward, one step back, three forward and then a few in place kind of walking. and she is smiling and giggling almost the whole time.

i have also had to move her crib out about a foot from the wall because she can reach the mirrors hanging up. plus, she somehow managed to get her left leg between the bars and wedged up against the wall during a nap yesterday. i am not sure how she managed that considering that she sleeps in a sleep sack and i had to pull the crib out in order to free her while she screamed like her leg was broken (and i thought it was from her yells and trying to figure out how it got in there in the first place).

just to keep me on my toes, maddie decided to try her hand at climbing the bookshelf in my office. luckily, this is one of the first pieces of furniture that we secured to the wall thinking that it would be the easiest thing for her to climb. she pulls the books down and pulls out the baskets everyday while i work, but this was the first time she made an effort to climb it.

matt is still at the office (he didn't get home last night until 11!), but it is his last day and he wants to make sure that everything is taken care of before he heads out for the last time. monday morning starts a whole new job in a totally different type of hospital. hopefully, he can get some rest over the weekend - or he could watch maddie...

love.

new signs

maddie has started signing "story" back to us (excitedly) when we ask her if she is ready for a "story". that one might be my favorite. she also added "eat" to the rotation this morning. she was signing to ask me for "more" to "eat" as a way to say that she was ready for breakfast. of course her signs aren't perfect, but they are easily identifiable.

she also started walking more with her lion over the weekend. the cute (or not so cute) part is that when she hits the end of her straight line of walking (a wall, the couch, or some other immovable object blocking her forward movement), she tries to turn it for a minute and then sits down to cry until we help her out by turning it around so that she can go back the other way. she really likes this walking upright thing!

i think that she is hitting another growth spurt. she has been sleeping more lately. last night she slept almost 12 hours, took a 3 hour morning nap, and then a 2-1/2 hour afternoon nap! we will just have to see how much she shoots up. the only thing is that her appetite hasn't increased like it has with other growth spurts. in fact, the funny thing is that she is more interested in nursing lately! everyday is a surprise... love.

good signs

madelyn is getting pretty good at signing. well, maybe "pretty good" is being generous, but at least i can understand some of her gestures. she can sign "milk", "more" (her version that is just holding her hands), and tonight she added a "drink" sign. and she waves "hi" too - very enthusiastically.

i have added beans to her morning porridge to make a 'complete protein' and round out a healthy vegetarian diet. we intend to add meat, but the food plan we are following does not include meat. plus, our doctor asked us to wait until she was at least 9 months old (its just her preference). we will probably add it after our next appointment on monday. other than beans lately we have added spinach, cucumber, flax seed, cheddar and feta cheeses, whole wheat pitas (buttered with tahini), and beets are next.

matt and nana took maddie to "lotza fun" today and she had the whole place to herself! i guess someone else was there when they arrived, but didn't stay much longer. i don't think that they were as impressed with "lotza fun" as i was, but then again, they don't spend as much time stuck at home with a crawler either.


maddie did try the "gerbil" tunnel with them today. i hadn't taken her over to that part of the room on our previous visits. it looks like she liked it! i think it helped that she has had a lot of practice crawling under our coffee table when the baskets are pulled out.

so now i have to finish packing. i have all of maddie's clothes, toiletries, and food packed but i need to get myself ready for our morning departure. love.

happy new year!

its the first day in 2008 and we spent the day getting everything in order for the new year. matt worked on baby-proofing the house and i worked on cleaning up my office for optimal organization and maddie friendliness.
while we haven't counted it as an official first word, maddie does say "da-di". i have been working with her on saying "daddy" for months now. my goal was to get her to say it by Christmas (like i have any control over these things). today she looked at matt and said "da-di" more than once, but we aren't convinced that it isn't just a coincidence - yet. she also did a good job of playing "where's daddy?". i ask her "where's daddy?" and she looks all around for matt until she sees him and then smiles. the video doesn't quite capture it because she was more interested in my new camera, but you can get the general idea. its pretty cute how much she loves her daddy.



in addition to office organization, i worked on prepping finger foods for maddie. we introduced cubed pears today and she did pretty well. it takes her a while to 'chew' them up because at first she just sucks on them like the banana puffs waiting for them to dissolve. once she realizes that they don't work that way she sort of gums them and bites them with her teeth. most of them fell out of her mouth while she was chewing with her teeth because she hasn't figured out how to close her lips while chewing to keep the food in. after i finish blogging i am going to prep and freeze avocado, banana, and mango cubes to try in the future.

as you may have noticed in the pictures, i tried a new hairdo today for keeping her hair out of her eyes. matt doesn't like the little clips because they could be a choking hazard and the big bows aren't really practical for everyday play, so this was what i came up with...

here are some more pictures from our day at home.

maddie helping mommy clean her office.

while this isn't a great shot of maddie, it was the only way i could get a picture of at least two of her front teeth.

playing ball in mommy's office. she was laughing as she would kick it away with her feet and i would roll it back to her.

one last note - i started introducing sign language a few weeks ago and i think that she might be trying to sign back. tonight we were saying "daddy" over and over doing the sign (open palm with the thumb touching the forehead and then moving away from your head) and she kept bringing her hand to the side of her head after we would do it - sometimes her hand was even wide open. i know, you are thinking to yourself that i am crazy, but i found it to be encouraging to my signing efforts.

as part of the signing effort, i have been letting her watch the baby einstein signing dvd. and she sits and watches it! i'm not really sure how long it is, but it is at least 15 minutes. she will glance at the tv when we are watching it, but she has never paid this much attention to it before. (don't worry, she doesn't sit that close all the time. i had actually turned it on for me to learn the signs to do with her, but when i saw she was watching it i took a picture and then moved her farther back.) she even gets excited at certain parts and talks to the little boys in the video (yes, she already gets excited about boys - more about that another day.) she likes when the mommy puppet tries to feed the baby puppet with a spoon. she started talking to the screen at that point both times we watched it.

okay - i am done sharing for tonight. love.