madelyn and the nonspecifically grumpy day

madelyn was in a grumpy mood today and from what i can tell it was for no obvious reason. i mean she was agreeable for the most part, but not her normal enthusiastic self. except of course when she put on daddy's chargers knit cap and rode her horse. i checked her for new teeth, a new injury, fever, diaper rash, anything i could think of at all, but there is no obvious source for her discomfort. maybe it is just "growing pains".

for the past several nights madelyn has been waking up crying a painful sort of cry several times a night. it started a night or two before the vomit night and is still a problem. sometimes she cries for only a few seconds before falling back asleep, but most times i have to go an stroke her forehead or rock her a little. last night we gave her a little motrin because she cried three times between 8 and 10pm - totally out of character. it seemed to help and i got my first full night of uninterrupted sleep (5 hours) in almost a week.

so today i thought that we would head to the zoo since we had to go that way for a few errands. she got excited as soon as we pulled into the parking lot and began 'naming' (with their sounds) all the animals we would see. she was practically bouncing up and down in her stroller on the way in, but somewhere between the entrance and the primates building she lost her enthusiasm. usually as soon as we see the gorillas she jumps out of her stroller and runs from exhibit to exhibit after studying each one. instead she insisted on riding in her stroller and when she would get out it would be to come to me and ask to be carried - "b-up" (it used to be just "up", but last week she added the "b"). she also fell down every time she would try to take a step or two. sometime later it occurred to me that i think that she had a growth spurt in the past week - could her feet have spurted as well? um, yes. her toes were so jammed in that she couldn't keep her balance. i think that pair lasted all of two months and we bought them really big! how big can you buy shoes and still have her be able to walk? needless to say we are going shoe shopping this weekend.

after the zoo and errands madelyn was too tired to sit up and eat her lunch, so here she is reclining eating the peanut butter half of her pb&j. she pulls it apart and picks all the jelly off before eating each half of the sandwich on her own. its not the most efficient way to eat a sandwich but she eats the whole thing. you might also notice that we wasn't feeling the texture of her pears today. she would put some in her mouth chew it up for a while and then spit it out on her shirt before getting some more and doing it again. if it wasn't such a mess i would have laughed more.

i thought of something else after i posted last night - madelyn says "hi" during dinner. she says "hi" a lot. when we all sit down for dinner at night madelyn looks at matt and says "hi" (enthusiastically) until matt says "hi" back, and then she looks to me and says "hi" until i say "hi" back, and then back to matt. if you don't respond after about 4 "hi" attempts she will get out of her chair and come over to you in case you didn't hear her the first four times and need her to put her head in your lap for acknowledgement. it is very sweet, but after the 20th time or so it gets a little difficult for matt and i to carry on a conversation. she was doing this tonight while the contractor, jim, was here. she just kept going back and forth between matt, me, and jim. matt and jim were busy going over some numbers and didn't have time for this game so i had to absorb all the "hi"s. she sure is a friendly little kid. love.