up after dark

something about the time change (maybe its the getting dark at 4) has just made madelyn into the funniest, most energetic little girl! she is just so silly! matt and i are enjoying it very much. it is so nice to end our day with a lot (and i mean a lot) of laughter after dinner. she just runs around the house, laughing, hugging, kissing, pretending, hiding, and of course talking up a very enthusiastic storm.

with the extra energy has come another burst of vocabulary. the most noteworthy from today "ready, set, go", potty, color, and piglet. she is also really, really close to saying a clear "good night"; right now it is "goo, nigh" but two separate words.

the "ready, set, go" took me a minute to catch because i was only hearing the "go" that she says often. once i figured out what she was saying i was trying to figure out where in the world she learned that phrase and it occurred to me that at the end of a lot of songs in music class we have a "ready, set, go" as a cue to shake our instruments really fast. she was just saying it to herself quietly playing with her toys while i was working this morning. and then again in the car this afternoon on our way to make a drop-off at goodwill. she often says "go" when we stop at a red light, but today it was "set, go" over and over.

her silly game after lunch was to dump all her toys out of their containers and try to wear each one as a "hat". the one in the picture worked the best because it was the deepest, the smallest, and clear for the best visibility. she was just walking around with it on her head saying "hat" over and over. of course she was giggling and peeking at me the whole time too. she also insisted that i take a turn wearing the "hat", but that wasn't as funny i guess because my turn ended pretty quickly.

her ability to pretend has really developed, she can invent a game out of just about anything, and she recognizes things out of context. she can now pretend that a box is a car with a "broom, broom", peek-a-boo with a straw, and recognize bubbles from balls in picture books. these are just some of her development subtleties that i enjoy discovering.

grandma z. is coming tomorrow for a long weekend visit so hopefully i will have better stories to post. although the weather is not looking so great for any outdoor activities... love.