bed fun

madelyn is quite the chatterbox and her sentences and phrases are getting more and more elaborate. one of her favorite phrases lately is "i don't want it" - mainly at meal times. the nice part is that she also uses "i want it" from time to time. part of the enhancement to her conversation is the use of "i", "me" and "maddie" and a lot of adjectives ("heavy", "spicy", "big", "little"). almost every conversation has a new little surprise for me about how smart she is. and given how much she talks during the day i get a lot of rewarding moments throughout the day.

the best is when she 'reads' to me while i change her diaper. it amazes me how much she remembers and can repeat back from books we haven't read in weeks or months even. since she does this mainly while i am changing her diaper it might be a while before i get a nice video of it to share here.

we were laying/reading/playing in her bed today and she told me that she needed her "choo-choo" and told me that "i will be right back" as she took off out of her room. and sure enough a few minutes later she came back with all four of her train cars from the playroom.

she loves laying/reading/playing in her bed. one of her favorite things to do is hide under the "covers" or "blankets" and wait for us to 'find' and tickle her. she looks so funny during this game because her hair gets so static-y and all over the place.

last night she got some friends (lilly, friend, and cookie monster)and arranged them with their heads on her pillow before snuggling in between them. then she carefully pulled the blankets up around all of them and we read books for bed time. while i get the rest of her room set for bed time (humidifier, music, etc.) she 'reads' the last book on her own until i turn the lights off. she just looked so cute with all her friends that i had to take a picture. love.

"no, thank you"

madelyn spent some time in her room sitting next to the bookshelf 'reading' for a while this morning. i love (and sometimes hate) that she never gets tired of her books. its also nice that she has a different favorite every day, especially with all the "again please" requests.

the book of the day was what's wrong little pookie? - over and over and over. for those of you not familiar with this literary masterpiece the basic plot is that a little boy, pookie, is crying and his mom is trying to guess why by asking him questions. we don't read this book very often but madelyn brought it out to me to read today. later she got up and gave pookie's responses when i read the mom's questions. it was pretty cute. the best part was when she said "no, thank you". this was significant because madelyn has never said "thank you" anywhere close to what it should be and now here she was saying "no, thank you" clear as i would! but when i then asked her to say "thank you" she still couldn't (or rather wouldn't) say it - that is until i asked her in this video...

here is video of her solving her shape sorter. please don't feel the need to watch it. i know that it isn't very exciting over all but i think that is pretty exciting that she can do it now (without any major frustration).

i took a pseudo sick day today (meaning that i worked but took a nap and tried to stay off the phone) and for the first time - ever - madelyn took a long nap when i needed her to take one. she slept for three hours and i got to sleep for two - hooray! i am definitely feeling better than i did on sunday but still not able to breathe very well. this is one of the weirdest things i have ever had. it is not a sinus infection and not anything i caught. i am guessing this is what allergies feel like. my head is so clogged that it is hard to hear! hopefully i can sleep well enough tonight to finally shake it.

i will definitely get some more video of madelyn this week. she is so happy to be feeling better and really loves to sing (even though she doesn't know all the words). love.

rockin' out

i had almost forgotten what madelyn is like when she isn't sick. its like meeting her all over again this weekend - she is a new girl now that she is over the ear infections.

she was being really silly in the car after church today. believe it or not, this is some of the tamer dancing in the video. i thought for sure she was going to tip over her car seat. love.

bilingual?

languages are important to me and i have tried to expose madelyn to as many as possible. (i read that early exposure helps 'map' the ability to learn a language later in her life.) we read translated books, watch the baby einstein language dvd, and talk through a spanish vocabulary book on occasion. before curious george they give a few spanish words during the pbs intro and yesterday madelyn repeated the spanish word for rabbit - conejo - when they the lady said to repeat it. she was quite proud of herself. and so was i!

madelyn is finally acting and eating like herself again. i, however, have bad congestion. i don't think that it is a cold because i have had the sniffles and sneezing for a while now. i think it just finally turned into something more serious in my sinuses. it has been a very long week. here is her enjoying her playroom now that she is feeling better:

i asked her to say "manatee" because we were reading her s is for sunshine book or as she calls it her "beach book". and she pointed at the manatee and said it syllable by syllable "man-a-tee". it was the first time she had worked so hard to pronounce a word correctly so i thought it was noteworthy.

"friend" the bear has been very involved in our day to day activities around the house. if mommy puts lotion on her feet, madelyn wants lotion on her feet, and friend wants lotion on his feet (per madelyn's instruction). friend has a specific seat at the table and often shares in meals and snacks. i posted a while ago about how madelyn likes friend to wear diapers when she gets changed ("friend diaper"). now friend has to get dressed too. mostly she wants him to wear her coat, but she has also asked for shoes, bracelets, etc. the shoes were funny because she would walk him around the house in them and try to get him to stand up on his own. friend is leaning against a foot rest in the picture (she posed him like that).

we made major progress in setting up madelyn's room today. matt built the dress, book shelf, and his own special addition, a chair like his favorite one just for madelyn. she loves her new set up and loves, loves, loves her new chair. she has been climbing up in matt's new chairs all week and was so excited to see that there was one just her size in her room. she picks out a book from her shelf and climbs up to 'read'. it is so cute to see her finish one book and take it back for another off the shelf. she is actually getting really good a 'reading' each book on her own. she points out everything in the pictures and remembers much of the story to some of the shorter books.

we just have to get the glider (aka rocking chair) out of her room and into the nursery before i take some pictures to post. love.

"she looks small again"

its been a long time. i had a successful trip to kansas and everyone survived back here without me too. as a final send off, madelyn decided that she wanted to spend some quality time with me at 2am the night before i left. after about a half hour and a little milk she went back to sleep, but i was exhausted going in to a very long day of work and travel. and i didn't really get much in the way of sleep while i was gone either because of long days at the office.

then i came home to an extra special treat - madelyn started running a fever of 104 after her nap on friday. she is always a little clingy when i first get back from a trip, but she was unwilling to let me step away from her for even a second so i knew that something was a little off. i got her started on motrin every 8 hours and it brought her fever right down. she also had some congestion but nothing too serious. it got much worse overnight and we had a very long and sleepless weekend. i finally decided to call the doctor's office this morning and get her checked out because the fever was still pretty high. turns out that she has a double ear infection! the good news is that she is not in any way contagious and she does not have actual pain in her ears - it looks like we caught it early. she is already doing much better and actually ran around tonight.

even though madelyn was pretty miserable we went to ikea on saturday. we had rented a minivan for the trip or we might have considered going another time. she did great when we stopped to have bagels and slept a little over an hour on the drive there so we were pretty optimistic about the day. however, she went downhill pretty quickly. the worse part was that she had to have me carry her the whole time - about 3-4 hours. she was very heavy (31.6lbs. a the doctor's today) and a strain on my body. she was heavy, hot from the fever, and wouldn't let me sit down with her - i had to stand and rock. when we were in the children's section of the store she had her head resting on my shoulder and kept repeating "play" as she was watching other kids play with all the toys. she wanted to play herself but just didn't have the energy to do so when she was feeling so bad. about the last half hour we were there i remembered that i had a lollipop in my purse and with that we were able to get her to sit in a cart while we finished up and paid. we couldn't get all the furniture in a single trip so maddie and i went to sit in the car while matt got the rest of our items. all in all we were at ikea for 6 hours! and that was with a list and moving through the store pretty quickly.

on sunday matt worked on putting together the furniture for the playroom so that we could empty some more toys out of madelyn's room in preparation for her new furniture to be built and moved in. madelyn was having a lot of fun helping daddy with the screws and giving him the tools he needed. she has about 1-2 hours of happy time after she gets a dose of motrin so we try to make the most of it.

she went down for a nap before we were finished putting everything together so she got to be excited when she woke up to see what was in all the storage bins. it was so nice to see her smile. they have been in very limited supply since i got home.

she was starting to melt down and i took her into her room for a diaper change. as soon as she went in the crying stopped and she let out an "oh wow!" upon noticing that her toddler bed was missing. she just kept looking at the empty space saying "oh wow" again and again. matt got her new twin bed built and into her room in time for bedtime. when we went in to check on her later that night matt commented that "she looks small again" laying curled up in the twin bed. i checked on her a few times because we have the bed so that the sides are not against any walls and in a different orientation than her toddler bed was in the room. i was a little worried that she might roll out and already not feeling well be difficult to get back to sleep. she stayed in bed all night but still woke up three times. she has been waking up for milk because she isn't really eating during the day and gets hungry in the middle of the night. she will only eat after her motrin dose. tonight she ate the most she has eaten since thrusday so i am optimistic that she might let me sleep tonight...

she really likes the new bed and getting under the "covers". today she kept getting into bed to read books or just going in to hide under the covers.

here are some more items of note to catch me up on posts:
- she got a wooden train track at ikea and it has become a quick favorite. she woke up after falling asleep in the car and asked for her "choo-choo" so that she could nap in her bed.

- she almost always has a noun/verb combo instead of single words. this was one of the most striking changes she made while i was gone. she says most things as complete sentences.

- she can solve her shape sorter so quickly now! matt and i were so surprised to see her solve it before i left. i will get some video when she is feeling better again.

- she has been so sick that she can't even open her eyes all the way. even when she is happy and playing her eyes don't open more than halfway.

sorry for the limited pictures. she has been indecent most of the time and i couldn't get pictures at ikea because i was carrying her the whole time. love.

boy, oh boy!

yes, we are very happy to share that we are going to have a boy this june! he is very active and very healthy. out of consideration for him i will not be posting the money shot of his boy parts. lets just say that the tech assured us there was no doubt about him being a boy. and even without any training, i could clearly see that this baby was a boy - we got a great profile view too.

madelyn didn't really care too much (there was a large basket of toys in the room) until the end when she stood on the chair next to me and pointed at the "baby" saying that "yes" she could see him moving. she kept looking back and forth from my belly to the screen so i think she was a little confused about what was going on. she did give me a lot of hugs during it though.

for some reason i was much more emotional this time than i was with madelyn. i think that i was just so happy for matt - he really wanted a boy this time. he was even looking at the boy bedding at babies-r-us this weekend.
mostly, i am just happy that he (the baby - not matt) is healthy and all his measurements are right where they should be. i could feel every kick that i saw on the screen and he was moving around the entire time. apparently he favors his belly. the tech had a really difficult time getting him to roll over for the heart pictures. unfortunately they switched machines and we were not able to get a video like we did with madelyn. oh well.

so there is our news (with pictures). now i need to finish up my packing and get to the airport. love.

just one more day...

tomorrow is the big day! assuming baby cooperates we are going to find out if madelyn is getting a brother or a sister. i am leaving town tomorrow afternoon for kansas right after the appointment so we are squeezing it in because i didn't want to have to wait another whole week. before i head out, here are a few madelyn updates from the past few days:

on saturday morning, madelyn got up nice and early - around 6:30 (the earliest she had gotten up all week). she opened the door to our room, came in, saw that we were both still 'sleeping', and she left closing the door behind her. even though she was considerate enough to close the door for us, i had to get up (actually, i think matt ended up getting up with her) because it just didn't feel right to have her up and about while we were both still in bed.

i was calling "matt" yesterday because he was downstairs and we were trying to leave for some errands. madelyn started to yell "matt" too. it cracked me up because she knew that i was yelling at daddy downstairs and i try to always call him "dad" or "daddy" when she is around. here is a reenactment:

madelyn has been repeating a lot of complete phrases lately. i don't always write them down (and can't remember them because of baby brain) so this list is hardly complete, but here are a few:

- how are you doing?

- see you later.

- what are you doing?

- there you go / there it is.

she has been saying "please" really loudly for the past two or three weeks and i have been trying to get her to say it a little quieter. when i ask her to say it nicely, she says "nicely". it makes me laugh because not only does she say "nicely", but she says it nicely.

i have mentioned that madelyn likes to get the swiffer out and 'clean' the floor for me. today she was singing a cleaning song. i tried to get her to do it again and i think that you can get the sense of how she cleans.

madelyn has become very particular about the difference between dogs/puppies and cats/kittens. i will ask her if the picture in her book is a "dog" and she will correct me to say that it is a "puppy" - the same thing with cats and kittens. in other dog related notes, madelyn said "bye, girls" as she waved good-bye to go to the dogs before heading back upstairs. this was the first time she referred to them as a pair. normally they each get their own "bye" with their names.

and here is my sad recreation of the video i thought that i got from the other day. this isn't near as good (or cute) it was the last time, but it will have to do.

one new word that it kind of impressive is "octopus". she thinks a minute before starting it and then says every syllable very deliberately. then there are some words that just sound too grown-up like "okay" and "drink". i think that it is because she says them so clearly without any baby sounds to them.

i will try to post about the ultrasound tomorrow night, but chances are that i won't get to post anything until tuesday because of my flight. until then... love.

daddy's girl

i almost fell out of my chair tonight at dinner laughing at matt teaching madelyn a trick he might regret some day. matt was pretty late getting home from work so madelyn had already had her dinner. when matt got home she came around begging for scraps at the table and pulled her chair right up next to daddy. she was particularly interested in his "chips". i told matt that one would be okay and madelyn agreed to "one". she asked for "more" a few times, but for the most part accepted that she already had her one chip. as usually happens at the end of meals, madelyn was being very affectionate and hugging matt over and over. he asked her for one more hug. when she hugged him he said "okay, now you can have another chip"! i said that she was a smart girl and she would figure out that daddy would buy her love. i told him that this was going to make the blog.

matt was also asking her about being a "big sister". tonight she was adamant that she wanted a "girl baby". matt said that it would be okay if another girl was just like her.

she begs for "ring around the rosie" all the time now (i just taught it to her recently after reading that her cousin annabell likes to sing it at the library). it makes me crazy dizzy after just one singing, but she likes to sing it again and again. luckily, she was willing to do it by herself so that i could take some video.

(apparently i cannot opperate my camera properly and will have to try the video again tomorrow.)



i thought that i would show why there are so few pictures these days. she was laying on the couch quietly reading a book yesterday, but the second i held up the camera she jumped up and stood on the couch with her "cheese" face. the picture of her laying down was a reenactment after i asked her to lay back down and read again. love.

weaning mommy

so i have been weaning myself off the baby monitor. madelyn can open her door and come out when she wakes up and i have decided that i don't need to hear every little noise she makes. plus, it helps me not have as many interruptions to my sleep when she coughs or first starts to wake up (i have enough interruptions of my own from being pregnant). i still use it at night but have not been using it while she naps during the day. my goal is to stop using it at night, but for now i have just turned the volume very, very low so that i can almost hear her better down the hall than over the monitor.

this morning she didn't even set off the monitor anyway (i have it set to only come on when noises are present). she just opened her door, walked down the hall, opened our door, got the tv remote off my nightstand, and climbed up in bed to lay next to me under the covers. she has never slept in our bed or spent any snuggle time there, so it was pretty special. i think that matt was a little sad that he had to go to work while maddie and i laid in bed snuggling while we watched a little of the today show.

it didn't last very long because she was ready to "eat" her "mealoat", but it was really nice that she came to me when she was ready instead of me having to go and get her. love.

say "cheese"

any time madelyn can get her hands on the camera she looks through it and says "cheese". the change has been that she squints her eyes and smiles really hard - with her teeth clenched. it doesn't really make for the most flattering pictures so today i took some video of her assuming the position. the funny thing was that she was waiting for the flash from me taking the picture and was giving me a "what's taking so long, mom" look.

we had music class this morning and madelyn was happy as always to be there. we started with the recently beloved "big bear" song. she has sang it every day since class last week (where we did not sing it) and was talking about it on the way to class today. she was rocking so large for the big bear verse that she kept falling over. i was considering bringing the camera today, but will definitely bring it in the future. matt has got to see her sing and dance. she was even counting really loud during the jumping song at the end of class (we jump and then stop to count before jumping some more). it must have worn her out because she went down to nap an hour earlier than she has been and slept for over 3-1/2 hours! she got "friend" and asked me to "come" to her room for a "book".

her counting is getting really good and it is something that she is currently very interested in. she can easily count two items and can sometimes make it to four by herself. her favorite number is still "eight" though. she will stay silent during counting 3-7, but calls out "eight" as soon as i say seven. she is even working on using her fingers for counting. she can't quite get how to hold up only three fingers; she just skips from two fingers to five.

her favorite breakfast right now is oatmeal. she usually eats two packets and half an avocado or a banana. she calls it "mealoat" often but can say "oatmeal".

matt is amazed how much her vocabulary grows day to day. he is always telling me things she said or identified and asking where did she learn that? i just tell him that she hears everything and remembers it all. she is getting really good at repeating complete phrases, like "there you go". i need to start writing them down because some of them are really funny to hear come out of her.

countdown - one week from today we get to have the ultrasound! we can't wait! love.

apples and oranges

matt and i looked at each other last night and discussed how this weekend flew by and wasn't restful or really that productive. madelyn had fun though.

over the past week madelyn has been requesting apples. she likes to eat apples whole (like mommy and daddy) instead of sliced. she does a really good job of eating most of an apple down to the core (skin and all). not to mention that she loves it! she has also grown so fond of oranges that we have to stop her from eating the rind. she will pull them straight out of the produce drawer and try to take a big bite and then once she is eating the wedges she has trouble moving on to the next one when the rind is still left. in the picture she is being a ham saying "cheese" for the camera with an orange rind in her mouth.

last night we had her friends avery and tess over for the super bowl (and their parents and a few of their friends). the girls only stopped to watch the 3d commercials. madelyn really liked the glasses and spent some time wearing them today too - not to watch tv though. the 'serious' football watchers (aka the guys) went downstairs to view the game child-free. they did comment that it sounded like a herd of elephants running around upstairs. at the end of the night moms and girls were all exhausted! madelyn told me she was "sleepy" for the first time - ever. she always goes to sleep willingly and will ask to "read books" when she is ready for a nap, but this was the first time she has ever admitted to being tired.

in other maddie news...

- her favorite book right now is "paddington bear". i picked it up last minute on our quick trip to the library last week when it caught my eye on the shelf. i didn't know how well she would like it since it is pretty long, but we must have read it at least 20 times the first day! every time i would finish she would say "again". i was the one who would finally bring an end to the marathon.

- when i tell her "thank you" she replies "welcoming". she used to just say "welcome", but it has become "welcoming" recently.

- she is getting really good at singing along with me. she even sings the first verse of most songs before i get started. while i love singing with her, she really favors singing during meal time which makes it more difficult for me to eat.

i will try to include some video in my next post. love.