freedom at last

right before i was getting ready to sit down and post tonight, matt had turned on football on t.v. as soon as madelyn heard the nfl music she turned around and shouted, "go chargers!" her daddy could not have been more proud.

yesterday, madelyn and i finally got to leave the house for the first time in almost a full week. we were heading out to her friend kyle's 2nd birthday party at 2pm. i tried to think of some errand we needed to run earlier in the day, but couldn't come up with anything so we waited until it was time to leave for our first taste of freedom.

we had a nice time at the party and kyle's mom (and dad) did a really great job with a sesame street school theme (kyle is into school buses right now - and sesame street). his mom did a school lunch for everyone that was really well thought out and delicious. madelyn liked eating all sorts of foods that she had not had before, like jello. she also enjoyed 'helping' kyle open his presents. she was doing a good job at sitting on my lap and watching at first, but there was an older boy who was 'helping' kyle open gifts and that got all the other kids 'helping' too. the main objective was to keep madelyn out of the way of the grandmas' camera angles. she actually would step back and just watch every now and then. towards the end i had her happily picking up all the torn wrapping paper and putting it in a bag while kyle got to unwrap things at his own speed.

i had worked on madelyn that morning to say "happy birthday". her version was more like "happy day" or "happy b'day" and "kyle" came out more like "color", but she could say it pretty clearly. of course i could not get her to say it to kyle when we got there. she did say "happy day" a few times, but it was too quiet for anyone to really hear her with all the party noise.

after the party, i had to stop by the mall to get my phone fixed. madelyn was so excited to be walking around somewhere other than home that she started crying and asking to "walk more" when we tried to put her coat back on to leave. i don't think that it helped that she didn't really get a nap because we had to leave for the party a half hour after we put her down. i thought that we could carry her asleep into the car and she could sleep on the ride to their house, but she wasn't really asleep when i went to get her and she never went to sleep on the ride over. and

we had one more stop to make on the way home and were later than expected. we had to put her straight to bed after a quick dinner as soon as we got home. she was exhausted, but totally pleasant all day. unfortunately for me, she decided to sleep in this morning. she always seems to want to sleep in when we actually have to wake up at a certain time. on saturday she got up at 6:30am, but today she had to be woken up at 7:30am! i know that she was just catching up from all the missed sleep yesterday.

matt and i had to go bowling with some people from his department this afternoon so we got a babysitter for madelyn. this is maybe the third time that madelyn has had a babysitter so i told her that kayla was coming over the play with her today and had her practice saying "kayla". as soon as kayla got here madelyn said "hi kayla" and started to show her all of her favorite toys. when i went to tell her that daddy and i were leaving, she said "bye" and gave me a kiss (daddy

also got a kiss). apparently she was really good and slept for 2-1/2 hours. i told matt that this means that we will just have to go out more if she is going to be this easy about it! not that i was really surprised. she never has had a problem with babysitters. i think she was really excited to have someone in the house other than matt and i.

(for the record, i beat matt - substantially - the first game and he beat me the last two.)

all in all a nice weekend but one that has left me more exhausted than rested, not the way i like to start the work week. at least it will be a little warmer and maddie and i might get out some. love.