here i am

this might be the longest i have gone without a post since i started this blog! it has just been that busy. i have been working on wrapping up two huge projects at work and trying to get going on the next one that i need to have completed before i go on leave this summer. and then we had nana (matt's mom) visiting last week during her spring break and grandma (my mom) is coming up this week into next.

not to mention just keeping up with madelyn and preparing for baby boy to come. and madelyn has been doing a great job of waking up earlier and earlier every day (today she got up at 5:20am). at least i can get her back to bed sometimes if it is before 7:00am and she takes a 2-4 hour nap in the afternoon. it helps, but when i am already getting little to no sleep her getting up earlier does not help me start my day (or survive until the end).

she has also been very clingy this week. for the past two days she has fallen asleep on my lap for nap time. she just sits down with me while holding friend and falls asleep within 2 to 5 minutes. she just doesn't want to be away from me for even a second which has also made the mornings difficult because matt tires to let me sleep but madelyn insists on seeing me and there are a lot of tears trying to explain that mommy wants to sleep a little longer. i figure that i am only getting 4 - 6 hours of sleep a night - not continuously either. at least i am going to be ready for nursing in a few months.

anyway, i am going to try and post a few updates today so that i might get back into the swing of normal life again. here is a list of things that have been going on:

- the picture at the top of the post is of madelyn when she woke up one morning last week. she came in our room with her sunglasses up on top of her head like that. she was really into her sunglasses last week and enjoyed wearing them everywhere so i guess she just wanted to get her day started.

- madelyn has been having so much fun checking out all her baby stuff that we have been pulling out of storage for her baby brother. she goes into his room and plays with the toys and reads the books by herself time to time. two weekends ago matt and i were sitting out in the living room while she was playing back in her brother's room. i could here her playing and then there was some crying. she was yelling that she was "stuck" so we went to check it out. she had managed to climb up into the swing and get one leg under the lap bar but couldn't get the other one under it and was therefore stuck.

- i was thinking that i really needed to stop ending statements in "okay?" because i did not need madelyn's permission to do anything. and wouldn't you know it that the very day i caught myself doing it and made a decision to stop madelyn gave me her first "okay?". it is very cute to hear her say it as a question though. she will tell me that she is going to do something and then say "okay?" i hope to catch it on video because it is definitely something that i want to remember for years to come.

- she has also picked up a few more phrases and words from me that crack me up - "um...yeah", "oh man" (as in mom can't get off the couch with her belly), and "sure" (pronounced "shore" like i say it).

- madelyn was really excited to help daddy rake up the dead grass in the yard this weekend. luckily he had a broken rake that worked out to be just her size. i think that she did more to spread out daddy's piles than add to them but it was cute to see them working together. she kept telling me that she was "helping daddy rake".

- we bought madelyn a bird feeder to keep outside her bedroom window. even though it has rained a lot, she has still had several birds already find their way to her bird feeder. what is fun is that she tells us "shhh, quiet" when we go into her room to look out the window to see if their are any birds. we have spent a lot of time looking for and talking about the birds over the past few days.

- madelyn's head/face has had a rough go over the past week. pretty much every time there have been injury tears she tells me that her face hurts. she has three bruises on her forehead, a cut and bruise on her chin (from a slip in the bathtub), and a big scratch on her neck. she just has a knack for injuring her face.

- she has a pair of binoculars that she carries around, wears around her neck, and looks through. she thinks that they are a viewfinder and tells us about the animals that she wants to see in them. (she is wearing them and my camera around her neck in this picture.)

- her second two bottom molars are just about in. she tells us almost everyday that her teeth hurt and we can feel that they are right there.

- i am sure that there will be some video of a temper-tantrum in the near future. they are just becoming more and more frequent. she has a lot going on with her right now and i think that is what has her all out of sorts. we are just hitting the "terrible twos" early.

- i am very disappointed that i never got a picture of madelyn with nana last week. i took the camera with us most places and meant to but never did. sorry, nana! i will have to make an extra effort when we see you again in may. madelyn needs a new picture of you for her photo album.

hopefully, i will do a better job with posting the rest of the week. love.