please give me a diaper!

tonight while i was preparing madelyn for bath time she started to do a little dance and demanding a diaper. she has been sitting on her potty reading a book while the tub is filling and we were doing just that tonight. once the tub was full, i put her in and she started crying for a diaper and crisscrossing her legs. i asked her if she had to go potty and she said yes. i took her out and she sat on the potty crying for a diaper and doing a little dance. after a few minutes of this i decided to go put a diaper on her. once she had the diaper on she ran back to sit on the potty and read her book. after a few minutes i told her that it was time to take her bath. when i took off her diaper is was very wet!

while i don't think this is a great sign about what we have to come with potty training, i do see two positives - one - she knows when she has to go - two - she can hold it successfully. she also came to get me after lights out because she had gone "potty" and wanted a new diaper. again, her diaper was very wet. this is really exciting for me because i normally have to beg madelyn to change her diaper. she usually couldn't care less about her diaper being dirty and it has been several months since she was consistently asking to be changed at dinner time so i am taking this as progress towards the possibility of potty training.

we also said good-bye to grandma this evening. madelyn gets a little nervous when we go to the airport with me in the car. she worries that it means that i am leaving. she was sad to see grandma go, but was happy to see that i was getting back in the car and leaving with her.

before we left the house for the airport, grandma reminded us that we needed to get a picture of her with madelyn. madelyn had just woken up from her nap and was not in a hugging (or touching) and smiling mood. it took a while to get her to come sit on grandma's lap for a quick picture, but we got one.

and - for the record - i am not ignoring the fact that i turned thirty yesterday. i haven't posted about my day because i want to get some video of the most beautiful version of "happy birthday" i have ever heard on my birthday. not only that but she has a wonderful answer when i ask her about how old i am. i love her. love.

easter bunny

we were at the mall today and while we were walking upstairs madelyn looked down and saw the easter bunny set up for pictures. she was really excited! she kept saying "hi, easter bunny" and waving. luckily, the bunny looked up and waved at her too. she just kept talking about that the easter bunny waved at her and she wanted to hug him. so grandma suggested that we go down to say "hi".

we had a little fight about what madelyn was going to wear this morning and she ended up wearing jeans and her pajama top. i didn't think that she was exactly dressed for bought pictures and that we should come back another day. but grandma had another idea - why don't we dress madelyn in one of the spring dresses we just bought for the picture. okay. i gave in. we striped her down in the mall and put her in dress.

as excited as she was to see the bunny, she froze up once she was on his lap. it actually looked like she might cry one or two times. thankfully, there was no one waiting behind us and the staff worked really hard to get her to smile and didn't rush us. here one of the pictures i was able to take with my camera:

surprisingly, the real photo came out pretty well (different from the one shown here) and overall it went better than santa did at christmas time. and madelyn got off his lap and waved "bye, easter bunny!" like the whole experience had been great.

not only did she enjoy the experience enough to talk about it the whole way home, but grandma told me that it was her first time getting to do holiday pictures with a grandchild at the mall. i am glad that i gave in to the impromptu photo shoot. love.

baby shower for baby boy

today was the baby shower for baby boy. grandma has been working hard on the shower since she got here because she couldn't stand the idea that i wasn't going to have one. she brought a suitcase and a half of supplies with her too!


last night we prepared the house (cleaning and decoration) and food so that all we would have to do after church was pick up the cake and put everything out.


madelyn likes to help and last night she was helping me vacuum. i ran for the camera when she was pulling it back and forth like i was but she had gotten herself a little stuck up against the door by the time i got back. here is a little clip because she was just trying so hard.




we had expected 7-11 inches of snow last night because of the weather forecast, but were glad to see that we only had a few (maybe 2 inches) when we got up this morning. granted, it took matt a long time to shovel the driveway before church this morning.

matt tried to get madelyn down before the shower started at 1, but the allure of cake and the sound of voices brought her out to peek around the corner to see if she could come out too. i let her come out and she ended up not taking a nap at all today. she did so well during the shower! i was actually proud of her, there was no begging or crying. this was surprising because she was obviously tired when daddy tried to put her down.

after the shower she could barely keep her eyes open while eating her dinner (3 packets of oatmeal, a plum, and some dried mango). it was so funny to watch her try to stay awake that i told matt he needed to take a break from painting the nursery to sit and watch for a while. we were all laughing so hard (as quietly as possible) watching her shovel in oatmeal with her eyes closed. she would throw a fit when the camera came on because she wants to see "maddie". to get this video i had to go into the other room to turn it on, but she saw me pointing it at her and that is why she is saying her name over and over. she was almost asleep so she is just saying her name with her eyes closed. grandma didn't realize that i was taking video and wakes her up out of this when she tries to pull the table cloth up like a "sheet". enjoy!



everyone had a very nice time at the shower and you will get to see the great onsies and bibs they made for baby boy when he gets to wear them (there are some really good ones!). surprisingly, madelyn made it all the way to her normal bed time without any major meltdowns. i just don't want her to get used to not napping... love.

sticker fun

as most kids her age, madelyn loves stickers. she loves getting them from the doctors' offices, grocery store, etc. and since we have set up the playroom i moved my sticker collection (dating back to at least middle school) in for her to use. she loves sticking them to her clothes and as of yesterday, her nose and checks. now that she has more variety in her sticker choices, she likes to stick them on a sheet of paper to hang on the wall.

(the outfit is a combo of her pj top that she didn't want to take off with her pants for today. and her bow was red and green - christmas style. she was quite a sight. its a good thing that we weren't leaving the house today.)

in the past month or so she has gotten really good (and confident) about removing the stickers off the sheet herself. she can even handle the really small ones. today i got brave and gave her the entire collection of stickers and went about my work while she played quietly by herself. the funny thing is that she was most interested in the labels, name tags, and hole reinforcers.

we spent a lot of crafty time because madelyn was in a horrible screaming mood this morning - like when i was trying to have phone meetings... even though she slept until 7:20 this morning she was tired. she even came to get me and said that it was "nap time" at 11:30 (she normally goes down closer to 1).

we also spent some time playing with play-doh. i added chopsticks to her 'tools' today. i made the mistake of rolling a ball to put on the end of one and said that it was a lollipop. of course that went straight into her mouth! i told her that it was pretend and then made a ball for the other and told her that they were drum mallets since she had used some in music class yesterday. she loved that! she was drumming with her play-doh mallets while i drummed along with my fingers. and she kept telling me that she was drumming like music class and we repeated "hand, hand, fingers, thumb" from dr. seuss. and when i got the camera it took a lot, i mean a lot, of persuasion to get her to do anything but try and watch "maddie" on the camera. it was also the only time she drummed with the stick end and not the play-doh end.

madelyn pulled out our baby viewing mirror for the car today and insisted on listening to and watching it throughout the day. here is just a quick piece of her doing a cute little dance to the music before she went over to get some more play-doh.

this morning matt dropped something out of the refrigerator and madelyn exclaimed, "oh shoot!" although we thought that she had said the four letter version. it was one of those horrifying moments of "please don't ever say that again." needless to say, it got our attention more than the food falling from the refrigerator.

tomorrow we get grandma from the "port" for her visit. madelyn isn't going to know what to do with herself after all this spoiling from the grandmas! love.

where do they live?

okay. this really happened - matt is my witness. we were having dinner a week ago and telling madelyn about nana coming on monday night. here was the conversation:

mommy: "who's coming tomorrow?"

madelyn: "nana. nana. nana."

mommy: "where do papa and nana live?"

madelyn: "kansas."

daddy: "who lives in florida?"

madelyn: "grandma and pop."

mommy: "where does uncle derek live?"

madelyn: "georgia."

mommy: "where does madelyn live?"

madelyn: "wisconsin" (said "scon-sin")

really. that is almost the conversation exactly. we went through it twice because i was so shocked (and daddy was even more surprised because he doesn't review the map with her) before i got the camera. and, of course, she just kept saying that everyone was from wisconsin so it was useless in proving that she can do it.

for the record, i don't quiz her on the maps. she brings it to me and asks me to tell her about it so i tell her about where all her family lives. i had no idea she was retaining so much of it because we have maybe done this 5 - 10 times. i was really surprised at our dinner conversation. love.

baby brother

we went and bought paint for the nursery this weekend. madelyn was really, really excited to help daddy paint. i don't think that daddy was that excited about it, but he did let her pretend to help while he did his prep work. (the paint on the walls is the old paint job, not the nursery colors.) here is some video for the sake of video because she wasn't as talkative as i was trying to catch in the first place. she was talking about her paint brush all day. she has been telling me all day today that she is going to "paint today". i told her that she has to wait for daddy for painting...

she is starting to talk more and more about her "brother". although when you ask her what's in my belly she says a "baby girl" and will not change this answer even when corrected.

i had ordered some spring/summer maternity clothes and threw in a little boy outfit too a few days ago. when it arrived on monday i opened it with madelyn and she grabbed the boy outfit out of the box and said "brother". then she took it to his room and put it in the closet. i did not give her any idea that there was anything in there for her or her brother so she surprised me here again. love.

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.