madelyn has started declaring "potty" during dinner. and she wants me to take her to the potty to sit for a while. she only does it during dinner and really does want to sit on the potty. i strip her down and she claps her hands while sitting on the potty.
yet another indication that i might not be able to wait until spring to start her training. love.
after a total failure of getting a family picture at home this morning, we decided to skip the picture until tomorrow. madelyn was having a total crying meltdown. instead we were going to head to the mall for christmas shopping and pictures with santa. i didn't have high hopes for a very good picture with santa, but still wanted to give it a try. madelyn slept a little on the way to the mall, so i thought that improved our odds a little.
the line was a little long, but they had animated windows and christmas movies playing throughout the line and it didn't seem all that long of a wait. at least madelyn didn't seem to mind waiting. while in line madelyn noticed santa's thomas the train shirt ("choo-choo") and we talked about sitting with him and showing her teeth when she smiled. the second it was our turn madelyn took one look at santa and backed up four steps! he was a really good santa too, real hair and beard. i have never seen madelyn hold so still for so long. it was like she was in shock. zero expression, zero movement, she was just staring straight ahead. i overheard someone in line say that she looked like she was going to cry. at least she didn't cry and she did look at the camera. it could have been worse. the picture here is the one i took after they finished with the official pictures so it isn't as 'good' as the one they took for us.
after a few exhausting hours of shopping, we went home to rest before going out again. but once madelyn woke up, matt and i didn't have it in us to go out again - just more errands for tomorrow. we did decide to go visit a local light display though since madelyn was in a much better mood than she was in the morning. it is a rather large display that you drive through and then there is a few displays at the end for you to get out of our car to view indoors.
the light display is really nice and madelyn asked "what's this?" a lot. some of them were difficult to figure out, but we could usually figure something out to tell madelyn. in addition to the light displays, there are several animated window displays. here is a picture of the reindeer inside of a barn. she didn't give as many "wow"s as she does when we are just driving around neighborhoods, but she asked a lot of questions about what was all around her. the funniest part was that on the way there she kept pointing out when there was "car".
and of course, what holiday light display would be complete without dinosaurs? i mean what is christmas without a velociraptor and an erupting volcano? they actually had a lot of dinosaurs. madelyn made some growling noises when she saw the velociraptors. how is it that she knew that they were the dinosaurs that might growl? i guess they did have teeth showing. at least you can tell that there was a lot of variety to our drive through the lights.
once we parked and headed inside madelyn got to see the largest train table she had ever seen! and she has been really into trains lately. that was one of the first toys she showed me when i went to pick her up at jason's house. we had also stopped by barnes and noble at the mall today for her to play at the train table for a while so she was already riding a train high. madelyn is the little pink hat in the picture. it was pretty crowded inside, but madelyn would just work her way up to the gate to get a better look. she really liked that there were all different trains going in different directs one higher up than the last. there was also a little train workshop (the red part of the picture) with little elves working on trains.
our last stop before heading back to the car was to see the beautiful nativity display. the nativity figures have been bought one at a time by a local family and imported from italy (i think they are made at the vatican or blessed there - i didn't read the sign this year). they are almost life sized and really beautiful. madelyn really liked it because our nativity set at home is one of her favorite things. we have it set up on our dining room table and madelyn will go over there and call for me to come and sit down so that she can sit on my lap while i tell her about all the figures. her favorite pieces are the lamb, ox, and baby jesus.
by the time we left, madelyn was done and ready for bed. although she perked right up after getting home and had some silly fun in the kitchen with daddy before bedtime. love.
friday afternoon i got a call from my friend kate who wanted to know if we might be able to watch their two girls for a few hours while she and aaeron went to a christmas party. she was very apologetic for the last minute notice, but we don't ever have plans so it wasn't a big deal.
as soon as they got to the house, madelyn excitedly ran to the christmas tree pointing so that avery and tess would see the lit tree. and then she gave them a tour of the ornaments. the tree was quickly passed by for all the other toys available for exploration. after a little bit of playing, dinner was ready (mac and cheese, hot dogs, and broccoli). it occurred to me that this was madelyn's first dinner party. the girls were so excited to be entertaining each other. they were cracking matt and i up because there were almost no words spoken, but they were all hysterically laughing at each other. and then it would fall silent for a few moments.
i made it safely home on thrusday afternoon. and was really excited to see madelyn (and matt too). she obviously had a really great time playing with jason all week. she was excited to see me when i came to the door and let me pick her up for a hug. but then she wanted to get right back down and show me all the toys she was having fun with over the week.
i got to talk to madelyn a few times on the phone while i was gone. it is so nice that she can actually talk to me and answer my questions on the phone. it makes it that much easier (or is it harder) to be away. matt said that she called out for me during her bedtime routine which is a little weird since matt does bedtime, not me. anyway, i guess some night she was very sad that i wouldn't come when she called out "mommy". (she calls us "mommy" and "daddy" now. i love it!) he also had some trouble with getting her to take off her hippo pjs in the morning. something made her decide that she loves them and could not be away from them for even a moment. (she is wearing the top in the picture.)
i was so worn out and also trying to play catch up that i ran out to grab lunch so that i didn't have to figure out what was in the house (matt did the grocery shopping after i left last weekend). the closest place to the house is mcdonalds so madelyn had her very first happy meal. i went with chicken nuggets even though she almost never eats meat. for a while she just dipped them in the bbq sauce as a way of eating the sauce, but then she actually ended up eating most of them. she of course enjoyed her apple juice and a few french fries. the highlight of the happy meal, of course, was the toy. madelyn loves her my little pony figure - mainly because it came with a comb. madelyn loves that "pink comb".
here is some video matt took while i was gone of madelyn washing her hair. he puts the shampoo on her hand and lets her rub it around for a while before helping to make sure it really gets washed well. she also liked him to pour water above her so that she could put her head under the stream of water like she is in the shower but it was too much full body exposure to post to the blog.
here are a few other updates:
- madelyn says "cheese" when the camera is pointed at her. i don't know where she picked this up because i don't say it when taking her picture - or i didn't until she started doing it two weeks ago.
- i had mentioned in an earlier post that madelyn can say some of the letters in her name, well now she tries to say lots of other letters. she will say "a", "b", "c" when we get out her abc dr. suess book. and lately it has been as if she is spelling words - with random letters.
- she learned how to make kissing noises from staying with jason all week. so that was a nice treat to come home to.
- she has entered the repeating everything phase. usually i have to ask her, but it has been amazing how many words she really can say. i told matt that we really have to be on our toes now (not that we have any trouble with saying things we wouldn't want maddie to say) because you never know what she will repeat...
more to come. love.
as you can see, it has been snow, snow and more snow here (and there is lots more on the way next week). maddie and i were inside all week. except for our single outing in the snow on thrusday in search of internet access. for the average person a few days without internet access would not be the end of the world, but when you work from home and are on a very tight deadline it is devastating. always the resourceful girl, i came up with a plan to get a few hours of internet access in while keeping madelyn contained in a public place - food and coloring. even though the snow came earlier than expected, we still went out before it got too heavy. i had decided that panera would be the best option for internet access. the access was free and madelyn could sit with me in the booth. we ordered a few bagels when we got there which kept her busy for close to an hour. and then she colored for a while. as we neared lunch time we got back in line to get some soup and sandwiches. i felt like i was getting a few dirty looks for sitting there for so long with a small child and working so furiously on my computer the whole time. all and all it worked out really well during an 'emergency'.
the worst part of the outing was trying to get back into the car. i was struggling a little with my laptop case, diaper bag, holding maddie's hand, the falling snow (and the snow slush on the ground), and the limited mobility of being all bundled up. madelyn's hat refused to stay on correctly on the way out, so she was bare headed in the snow. now here is the worst part - we had just gotten to the car (after maddie had slipped and fallen in the wet slush and soaked her pants) when a lady came around the back of the car next to us and said "excuse me". her car was the one next to us and she had us step out of her way and wait while she slowly, very slowly, got into her car. i just kept wondering, who does that. who makes a mother loaded down with bags, with a small child wait in the snow while you take your sweet time getting into the car. and then she didn't even wait for me to get madelyn in the car before she started backing up. really it just makes me sad for her.
anyway, time-warner came out on friday morning and got us back up and running.
now back to the maddie updates. here are just a few of the latest happenings with maddie:
- when i count out numbers, she says "two" after i say "one". she also counts out "two, three" like she says "set, go" when she is about to do something.
- when i spell her name out with her alphabet blocks she points to and says the "m" and the "l". instead of "a" she says "ah"
- "apple" and "off" are the latest significant additions to her vocabulary.
- i was preparing broccoli (frozen) for dinner one night and maddie took a piece and started eating it. realizing that it wasn't as good frozen, she took her stool over to the toaster oven to "cook" it.
- i have shown how madelyn 'swims', but this week she has been laying down on the floor on her belly pushing herself backwards telling me that she is "swimming" or that she is going to "swim".
- madelyn fell asleep thrusday night on the way home from shopping (matt had a christmas party on friday night that we needed to find a gift for) so we decided to just put madelyn to bed without a bath. she actually did great getting out of her clothes and into her pjs without ever really waking up - in fact, she never made a peep. so since there was no bath, i had her take a shower with me in the morning. she was so funny. she has taken showers with me before, but she was really excited about it this time and kept running back and forth under the water giggling. she threw a little bit of a fit when it was time to turn the water off. but once out of the shower, instead of a towel madelyn headed straight for the next obvious choice - breakfast. i guess there is nothing like a shower to bring back your appetite. madelyn ran back to the table to finish off what was left of her cereal. i took pictures of madelyn sitting at the table eating dripping wet, but they were a little too racy for the blog.
- yesterday i was vacuuming and madelyn hides in the laundry room when i do (not that she is scared, it is more of a game), when i turned off the vacuum she started calling out "stuck". of course i thought that she meant herself, but then she came running out.
- madelyn's favorite game these days is "sleeping" and she likes for matt
and i to play too. especially matt. probably because matt does a leaping belly flop into the bed. tonight she was getting in the bed and covering herself up to "sleep". it was pretty funny because she was sleeping in her sunglasses (a compromise over her wanting to wear matt's glasses). she is starting to understand that she needs to close her eyes to really play "sleep", not just make the snoring noises. but she is just too excited to see what is going on to naturally close her eyes. her solution - pushing her eyelids closed with her pointer fingers. it is pretty funny because she is still trying to look. so she ends up with half her lid down and half open (like holding the outside corners of her eyes).
as you can see, lots of indoor entertainment here. i am headed to chicago tomorrow and will be there until thrusday (work conference), so there probably won't be any posts for a while. love.
we have been without internet service for the past few days and boy has that been fun (please note the heavy sarcasm). i will update on how we managed to survive tomorrow. for now, i am still playing catch-up.
i wasn't going to post tonight, but then madelyn was hysterical telling matt about her day at dinner. we were all cracking up. mainly because madelyn answered "a lot" without any prompting and without having ever said that before. in the video version she says "a bunch" first, but it was the "a lot" that had us all laughing very hard. especially since madelyn knew that it was funny (even if she didn't know why) and kept saying it over and over, louder and louder cracking herself up throughout the rest of dinner and bath time. it eventually became that she was saying "what" instead of "a lot", but she would come back to "a lot" as her original punchline.
when i came down to download the video i found that i also had some video from this morning as madelyn ate her first bowl of cereal with milk and a spoon. she did a lot better than the video shows and hardly spilled any milk, but you can get the general idea.
when she came out of her room this morning (around 8:30am and she had another 4 hour nap today) she went straight to the christmas tress saying "uh-oh" over and over as she examined it. it occurred to me that she was upset that the lights weren't on and thought that the tree was broken. i had to explain that we would turn the lights on when it got dark, but that the tree was okay. i just thought it was cute how concerned she was that the lights might not be working.
tonight she must have been missing daddy and wanting to go outside in the snow because she spent the evening trying to get me to put his snow clothes on her (they were out from him wearing them to shovel before work this morning). she could manage to get his gloves on by herself and was satisfied with that for a while, but then she wanted his pants and coat put on her. obviously the pants wouldn't work, but she did manage to keep his coat on for a while after i got it on her.
she also broke one of her toys tonight (on accident) and told us that it was "broken" and then said that it "broke". it was only a matter of time on this word since she has broken a lot of crayons recently in her zeal for coloring.
her runny nose continues, but it reminded me that she can blow her nose. granted she does it very softly when she does and blows through her mouth most of the time. but she will hold still when i ask her to blow her nose and makes the effort while i pinch and wipe. love.
