New Developments

in Madeline land.

We converted her crib to a toddler bed. now she can get in and out whenever she wants. But she doesn't. She still calls for us and waits for us to come and get her. She doesn't know any better and we haven't clued her in. Now she LOVES her bed, though. Much more than when it was a crib. Even when we go get her up, she'll lay for a while until she's ready. And she lays herself down when she's upset and has even gone to lay down when I made her wait too long for her nap. I'm sure the fact that she can only have her binki when she's in her bed is a giant factor in her bed love.


She is just starting to show a preference for particular clothes. As we walked around the mall the other day, she veto'd everything I picked up for her. Unfortunately, (for her because it's not going to happen) she only wants me to buy her outfits that have Hello Kitty on them.

She is also just starting to understand that everyone has a name. It's only been a couple of weeks since she understood the concept of her own name. She has always answered to Madeline, but for a long time, if asked her name, she'd answer, "Sister." It was really cute. But now she knows she's Madeline, and Mommy is Jessica, and Daddy is Thor. I told her that Daddy was crazy, for some reason or another, and she said, "No, Daddy Thor."

This is her new friend "Jack". He's the first thing she has named completely on her own. He's named after Jack the Pumpkin King:


She keeps him clean



And exercised

She asked me, "where's his butt?"


She's pretty scared of all of the Halloween stuff, so when Thor bought these skeletons, I decided it'd be better for her to play with them, than for her to just see them hanging in our tree on Halloween night. Now she won't leave them alone.

10 Month Maison

Maison, Maison, our little man. Everyone who knows you, and anyone who sees you, falls in love with your cuteness.

At 10 months old, you have the best smile we've ever seen (only your sister's is equal), and we are very lucky to get to see your smile often. You are very, very easy to smile, but you are just as easy to cry and fuss, and will move from one emotion to the other and back again without skipping a beat.



Your hair is growing and is long enough now that you wake up with mussed hair. It's too long to stick it up in the funny mohawk we loved so much, so I now push it all forward. Daddy says it looks "dorky" that way, so he still tries to spike it when he gives you your bath. The result is some pretty crazy hair.




You LOVE your sister and everything she does. And sometimes you get lucky and she comes within 5 feet of you, without trying to take whatever you're playing with out of your hands. When you're not lucky, and Mommy isn't looking, she grabs whatever you have, roars in your face, and possibly bonks you on your head.



Crawling has lessened your frustration, and has lessened your fussing by quite a bit. I love it when you "run" to me when you see me. When you get to my feet, you lift one arm to say pick me up. If I don't pick you up quick enough, you lose your balance and fall. you started pulling up and cruising the furniture nearly as soon as you learned to crawl. You will be walking before we know it.




It's been a while since you gagged to the point of puking on a single Cheerio. Which is a good development, since the past few days it seems that you are preferring non-pureed food to the completely mushed up stuff. You do good with cereal, small pieces of cheese, bananas, crackers (although there have been a few gags), sweet potatoes, and bread. You tried to swallow half of a teether biscuit the other day, so I have removed those from your menu for the time being. Tonight daddy noticed you intentionally throwing all of your Cheerios on the floor, (small) handful after handful. I thought I noticed you do it the other day, so now it has been confirmed.

You love to eat paper and you seek it out and find it and eat it whenever possible. You also like to chew on our tables and your crib rail, and lately my shoulder.


Our sleeping situation has spiraled down out of control since I last wrote about it. After our San Diego trip and cutting two teeth we have yet to get our groove back. I have been trying to sleep train you with as little crying as possible, and I thought we had compromised by you going to sleep while I stood at your crib. But, last night you pushed me to the point of very tired tears, with a 12:00am, 2 1/2 hour hold-fest. So, unfortunately, tonight I had to put my foot down. You cried very hard for 27 minutes. Then you went to sleep all by yourself. We'll see how tomorrow goes.

You are still a momma's boy and cling to me often. I don't mind it at all, but it does lead to you crawling after me and fussing when I can't hold you. And then fussing harder when you finally get to me and I turn around and walk the other way.

You give great hugs. Especially when I get you up from bed. You grab tightly around my neck and put your chin or your forehead to my shoulder.

You are much loved, little man.

Two strange conversations

#1
Me: Goodnight sweetie, I'll see you tomorrow.
Madeline: Mommy, more pee diaper.
Me: What?
Her: More pee diaper.
Me: More pee diaper? You peed more in your diaper?
Her: Yep
Me: We just put the diaper on. What do you mean more pee? Did you pee before in your diaper?
Her: No pee diaper, pee couch.
Me: You peed on the couch?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Really? You peed on the couch?
Her: Yep.
Me: Where? Out by daddy?
Her: Yeah.
Me: Why did you pee on the couch?
Her: (nothing)
Me: Honey, there's no peeing on the couch.
Her: Okay

Me: Thor, did Madeline pee on the couch out there?
Thor: No.
Me: She's crazy.

#2
Hairdresser lady: Is the haircut for her?
Me: Yes
Hairdresser lady: Does she wiggle?
Me: Well, she's two.
Hairdresser lady: Oh, well I can't cut it if she wiggles.
Me: (nothing...)
Hairdresser lady: I have a weird phobia of cutting hair on wiggley kids.
Me: Um, Okay...
Hairdresser Lady: You have to wait for (some guy who ran an errand) to get back.
Me: Um, okay, we'll just do it another time.

San Diego

I never posted about our San Diego trip nearly a whole month ago. It was wonderful and I think about it still almost every day. The weather was perfect, of course. We took Madeline to the zoo for a few hours one day to see the elephants and giraffes. She liked the person costumed as a lion the best and threw a fit when we wouldn't go back so she could give it a hug. We would have gone back if it hadn't been up a steep hill. Overall, she had a good time, plus it was some alone time with mommy & daddy, which she doesn't get much of. The outing made me realize how easy she is compared to lugging around a baby and all of the stuff that goes with him.

Thor had to fly home for one day and one night to tend to some business (which turned out to be a total waste of time, unfortunately). The day he was gone, mom & I took the kids to the Scripps Aquarium in La Jolla. It was lots smaller than I expected, and I'm not really a lover of fish (they make me go blehh..), but Madeline had a good time. She missed her nap and had a complete breakdown in the gift shop. It wasn't smart of us to overwhelm her with so many toys when she was sooooo tired. But we all survived and one of the toys she decided on was a light up shark which has saved us nearly every night since we've been home. She sleeps with it so she doesn't have to be afraid of the dark, and now I don't have to sneak into her room when she's asleep to turn off a flashlight that's wedged underneath her and 3 dolls.

Madeline love, love, loved the beach. She and Thor went down every day and played in the water and got completely soaked. I got in a little bit a couple of times, but I'm wimpy when it comes to cold water, so I just stayed on the beach. By the last day, I was finally able to get Maison to take his nap on the beach.

A Year Ago

Art in the Park

We went to Boulder City's Art in the Park yesterday. It amazes me how many really talented people there are in the world.

The weather was perfect. We're trying to enjoy it as much as we can while it's nice. We got a great parking spot, which is a miracle since there are no parking lots up there, and we were definitely not going to park in the remote lot and take the CAT bus in. And both kids were really, really good (except that Madeline wouldn't stop talking about all of the damn puppys that were there and how she wanted to touch them, and hold them and that they were hers and that she wants a puppy and on and on and on).





We bought a couple of Christmas gifts, I got a nice necklace, and Madeline ate a huge piece of pizza and had her first snow cone ($3 for a cup of ice- craziness). Thor got more than a few comments about our hugemongous stroller, especially since there was usually only one kid it.



Madeline thought these very strange bee sculptures were hilarious.


Here's her best impression of one.


One the way home I looked back and saw Madeline staring out the window and Maison asleep with his hand on her hand. It was really precious (especially since she rarely lets him touch her). I was happy to get the picture, although once M noticed the camera, she whipped her hand away.



It was a great outing.

Thanks Omi and Oma!

Dear Omi & Oma,

I love all of my new clothes and my brother likes his a lot too. He mostly chews and sucks on his, though. I tried to rip them out of his hands, but he cried, so mommy made me give them back.

I tried on my aqua (my favorite color, by the way) jacket that's all fuzzy soft inside and wore it around the house for a while. It'll be great for the wintertime. My favorite is the red and black puppy dress. Last week, I fell in LOVE with a great bracelet that I absolutely refused to leave at the store, but mommy said she wouldn't buy it because I didn't have anything to match it, whatever that means. In the end mommy won the argument, because, well, she's the one with the credit card. BUT, it was a red and black bracelet with puppy charms on it, so mommy said we might be able to go back and get it now that it matches my new dress. Yay!

After we received and opened your package I told mommy that we should go drive to see you, but I guess you're really far away. She said something about needing an airplane or something. Oh, well. We miss you and love you.

Love,
Madeline

PS. Here's a picture of me after I laid down all cute and smiled all pretty but my mom didn't have the camera ready fast enough, so I got up and ran away really fast, and mommy bribed me with a cookie to do it again, only I wouldn't smile this time.


PSS. My little brother sends his love, too.

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Boy, Leo has gotten pretty cute. :)

Wiggle Worm

This is how I found Maison in his crib this morning-

Silly boy.