dancing machine

madelyn was a dancing machine today! she was having so much fun doing her 'cha-cha' dance all over the house. she particularly liked dancing in the guest room after turning on the radio. this was the best video i got because she has decided that it is more fun to watch the videos than to do whatever i am trying to catch. it is so cute how excited she gets to see the video. i did get her to run out and dance for a few seconds before racing back to watch, but it wasn't really worth posting.

today brought a flood of new words! here is some video of me trying to get her saying the first new word of the day - "turtle". most of the time it sounds like "turd", but she is trying to identify the turtle toy. if you listen closely the first time sounds the most like "turtle". she said it much more clearly other times, but this was the best i got on video.

in addition to "turtle", she said "bean" a few times while eating her green beans at dinner, "comb" after dinner (she had been playing with several combs before dinner with daddy), and her first really clear "uh-oh". she has been making the "uh-oh" sound for a while, but this was the first time that she has said the two syllables clearly. i get so excited when she adds a new word to her vocabulary! i am working on a list of all the words, animal noises, signs, and other identifying noises for her 15 month appointment next week because so many people keep asking me how many words she has in her vocabulary and i never have a good answer. i will post my final tallies after we go to her 15 month appointment. love.

energy burners

madelyn is starting to get a little cabin fever from all the rain we have had over the past few days. the rain has been constant and today it was starting to get pretty cool, so we have spent much of the past two days inside. madelyn has come up with some new ways to pass the time - and burn off some energy.

i was trying to take a picture of maddie's shirt ("when mommy says no... call 1-800-GRANDMA") and she started scooting around on her back on the hardwoods. so i started dragging her around on her back by her feet. the big smile is from mommy kissing her neck and sides for uncontrollable laughing. i have found tickling to be a great way to burn off a lot of her energy! not to mention that it is a lot of fun for both of us. she is learning that she can slide around better on the hardwoods than on the carpet - mainly by falling down when running in her socks. she will just lay down on her back and scoot around the floor laughing or talking.

another new 'skill' for burning off energy is spinning in circles. she was doing this on friday while eating the last of her lunch for the first time. i was on the phone with work when she started doing it and went for my camera. every time i would start recording, she would stop spinning. it is just as well because i am having a work conversation over all the footage i did get. today she was being silly with daddy bouncing her ball in the kitchen while i was cooking dinner and this led to lots of spinning. she figured out today that she gets dizzy when she spins - and that is really fun! there was a lot of spinning tonight while waiting for dinner. love.

the pocket lady

matt had a work event today and since it was a community-type event(read: child-friendly) maddie and i went to take a look. madelyn was particularly taken with "the pocket lady". she had a quilt like skirt with at least 30 pockets on it filled with surprises (like the tea pot she is holding in the picture). she also enjoyed dancing with the local high school cheerleaders/dance team. they performed twice and madelyn was really, really into it. she was even shaking her hands like they were with their pom-poms! sometimes she would freeze her dancing to just stare when they did a jump or something in unison. i should have taken a video, but it was lightly raining and i was carrying a lot of treats that we had been given during our visit.

i took this video yesterday too trying to catch her growling "mmmmm". you can sort of catch it a few times, but the funny part is that i caught her climbing into the pantry cabinet to get out a jar of baby food that she then brings to the table to eat (she didn't though). we have a few jars left and when she gets them out we let her eat them. my favorite part (besides the climbing into the pantry) is when i ask her if its good and she stops to take a closer look at what she is carrying - as if to decide if it is indeed "good". love.

"please" stop the bleeding

this morning madelyn tripped at the park and got her first bloody injury, below the neck that is, on her knee. she got up, cried a little bit, and brushed herself off. once she was back on her feet she just got in the wagon and called out "go". i guess that was the end of the park.

once we got home i showed her how the peroxide made 'bubbles' on her new cut before applying her first band-aid. she left it on for most of the morning, but then curiosity set in and off it came. luckily, it had done its job and the bleeding had stopped.

madelyn loves to watch videos of our blogger friends. she really, really likes a "please" and "thank you" video by our friend lorelai. i think that she likes that lorelai eats a pretzel in the middle of the video. she signs "more" and "eat" every time we watch it and then "more" again once it is over. she has watched it so many times now that she knows when it is almost over and starts signing for "more". she has been trying to say "please" along with lorelai, so after watching it at least 10 times today i decided to say if she would say "please" for a snack too. and here is what i got... love.

sleep tight?

madelyn was a little over tired when bedtime rolled around tonight and cried a little when matt put her down. madelyn usually puts herself to bed, so crying is a very rare occurrence. the last time she cried (again overtired) i went in to check on her after she quited down and found her asleep on the floor behind the door. i had to gently inch the door open to get into her room because she was in the way!

that is what i was expecting to find tonight, but instead i found her in this uncomfortable looking position - sound asleep. love.

zoo afternoon

i know that you all are probably getting a little bored with hearing about our trips to the zoo, but here is another one. after her afternoon nap and a little lunch we headed to the zoo for a few hours. there was hardly anyone there and the animals were pretty active.

what i love about our zoo is that maddie can walk almost the entire time and can get really close to the animals. how often can you get that close to a tiger. it made several passes too, so we got to really check him out. she walked almost the entire time from one exhibit to the next and since there were very few people, i didn't have to worry about her getting into any trouble.


in the primates house maddie made a friend named mackenzie. mackenzie is three and insisted that i take her picture too when i was trying to take a picture of madelyn trying out a water fountain (aka "bubbler") that was her size. mackenzie was trying to teach madelyn how to use it. she was also trying to teach her the alphabet song. we ran into mackenzie and her grandma a few more times during our visit and she was always happy to see us and tried to help with the stroller and maddie.

in the fish pavilion (not really what it is called, but the real name escapes me right now), madelyn excitedly ran between the fish exhibits and called out "wow" for every single fish she saw. and she wasn't just running from exhibit to exhibit. she would stay at each tank until i told her to come see some more fish at the next tank. then she would run over with lots more "wows".

every time we go to the zoo i think that we should do this more often (and i wish that matt could join us too). love.

should you be doing that?

yesterday was our first neighborhood music class. we have so many small children in our neighborhood that we were competing to get into the few spaces (12) that the county parks and rec offered in their class. so one of the neighbors arranged for us to have our own neighborhood class at her house with the same teacher! it was a little chaotic this first week because there were a lot of us and since we were at some one's house there were a lot of toys as distractions. we keep joking that we will be able to start our own school because there are enough kids for a kindergarten class (when they all get to that age).

madelyn is getting more and more difficult to photograph (this is the best one that i was able to get after we got back from music class). so here are a few stories without pictures.

maddie has a new dance move - cha-cha feet. she gets so excited for the music (or anticipated music) that she starts doing a little cha-cha with her feet. and then she works into the general knee bouncing dance move. the new little cha-cha is so funny, but i haven't had the camera ready when she gets the urge to bust a move.

as i have mentioned before, madelyn likes to 'help' me by picking out food from the corner cabinet. yesterday she was happily examining the different canned options when i asked her, "should you be doing that?" and she responded "no" before starting to replace all the food items in the cabinet! i just thought that it was so funny that she said "no" when i asked. she didn't get everything put back in the cabinet, but she got most of it in there before she lost interest and went in search of more to explore. she is getting really good at putting things she shouldn't have back where they go or closing cabinets/drawers when i ask her to close them.

i have another new noise that i am trying to get on video - "mmmmm". she says it when ever she sees something she wants to eat. for example she will point at the bananas on the counter and say "mmmmm" and sign for 'eat'. it is funny because she says it in a deep sort of growl. it is the way i do it when i am being silly about how yummy something she is eating is (sometimes when it really isn't). i never realized how weird it was until she started doing it! i will have to try and change it into a sweet, normal pitched, sing-songy "mmmm" so that she isn't the weird kid. love.