House of Mad

Third Year

2009-01-25T09:12:00.001-08:00

2009-01-20T18:32:00.000-08:00

Things are not good in general right now: not with Mad, not with V, but all those outside annoying things that life brings. House woes, work stress, family strife, etc. I ran around all morning with the girls, attending to errands, jetted off to work in the afternoon, dealt with that, came home, made dinner, fed the girls, bathed them, tossed them in bed. And here we are.

Well, not exactly. Mad was in her room, calling for me, and normally this drives me batty. Sleep! It is time for you to sleep, and so you must! I normally have absolutely no patience for sleep issues.

But tonight, all tired and achy and beyond stressed and generally frustrated with life, I went back into her room and asked if she wanted me to lay down with her. "Okay, mama," she said happily, so I told her to scoot and laid down with her.

It was pitch dark, and she was holding her little Thomas the Tank Engine nightlight that changes colors, and talking softly. "Blue....green....red...." She told me a story about Halloween, and when we put the glowing purple skulls in her room. "Remember that, mama?" She asked.

"I remember," I told her.

"I'll get up when the sun is up," she told me.

"Yes," I confirmed.

"We can go get coffee and vanilla steamers!" She said.

(We have a Starbucks problem. Okay, me. I have a Starbucks problem.)

"Not tomorrow morning," I said. "I have to go to work."

"Remember we got vanilla steamers today? And I made a mess with the muffin?"

"I remember," I confirmed.

It went on like this for a few minutes, tiny conversations while we snuggled close in her new big girl bed, until I told her it was time for me to go. "No," she said. "I want you to sleep some more!"

"I'm going to sleep in my bed," I told her, "and you're going to sleep in your bed."

"Okay, mama," she said. "Remember you had to go to work today?"

"I remember," I told her, and gave her a kiss and a hug before I left.

Lesson learned: Make the effort to look beyond those moments of irritation, to take a look at the bigger picture. Stretched out on a bigger scale, all these moments are the same. Points of time that go by all too quickly, most of them easily forgotten. Looking past that regularly irritating not-sleeping thing and indulging Mad, if only for a few minutes, brought me the absolute best part of my day, and a seemingly mundane moment that I want to hold on to for as long as I can.

To Remember II

2008-11-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

A few days after the "She likes you," incident, Mad climbed into our bed, pulled the covers over her, and said, "Come on, Mama! Let's go to sleep." She closed her eyes and fake-snored. This is a frequent game. I crawled into bed next to her, and she snuggled up close to me, pressing her face to mine.

Then she bit my face, clamped down nice and hard. Then laughed and laughed and laughed.

It was a bit....deflating? Disenheartening?

Sucktacular?

So that's what parenting is, I guess. One day it's all sweetness and "I love you," the next, your kid is displaying cannibalistic tendencies.

PS I blame this video. She thinks it's hilarious and frequently recites it, complete with the accent.

To remember

2008-11-05T19:52:00.001-08:00

Our new(ish) cat, Sideswipe, will walk up to Madeleine and briefly press his nose to her face. "He likes you," we tell her when he does that. Today, Madeleine and I were playing on the floor when she crawled up to me and pressed her nose to my face. "She likes you, Mama!" she said. "Mad likes you."

And then I died from the cuteness.

Happy Vote Day!

2008-11-04T20:14:00.000-08:00

This morning, when we went to vote, Madeleine walked into the polling place and announced to the officials, "It's vote day!" I talked to her about it in simple terms. I told her: It's vote day, Mad. Election day! We're going to elect a new president!"

"Yeah," she said. "We're gonna get a new president. New president's gonna play in the water!"

Puzzling.

Later: "New president's gonna say 'Happy Birthday!' President's gonna play in the water. I take my pink shoes off!"

So I think in her head, "president" equals "present," and she was remembering the last birthday party we went to, where there was a water slide.

If I asked her who she would vote for if she could vote, it would depend on the order I asked her. If I said, "Do you want to vote for Barack Obama or John McCain?" She would say, "John uh-cane." If switched the names, she would say, "a rock o-mama!"

Her snake, though, would always vote for McCain. "Do you have Republican snake, Mad?" I asked. "Yeah!" She said. "Orange snake is a publican!"

That snake is going to be disappointed in the morning.

Halloween! Part 2.

2008-11-03T20:46:00.001-08:00

I am including this one because Oh My Gosh. What a big girl. We dressed up her snake as a cat, too. She really was thrilled, I swear. The picture would indicate otherwise; I know.

She bought into the "trick or treat" thing so much that when we were at Target the other day and I showed her the stockings and explained what they were for, she said, "Yeah! I'll say 'trick or treat' and Santa's gonna put candy in my boot!"

She really likes to "drive" the car. The best way to get a picture of Mad and V together is to tell Mad to kiss V, so we have a lot of pictures like this: Mad leaning in, V either looking pleased or cringing. Or both.In awe of the candy.

Halloween!

2008-11-03T20:38:00.001-08:00

Nov1 122
Originally uploaded by ambuhlynn

Mad was a black cat.
A cute little black cat.

She got into the whole thing, saying "trick or treat" at most every door and saying, "thank you." Though toward the end of the night, she started whispering the verbiage or not saying it at all.

Later, she got to try her first Halloween candy. She chose a York peppermint patty. Actually, she first chose a big square of caramel, which I nixed. Then a Tootsie pop, which I also nixed. But she did like the peppermind patty.

(Please try to ignore my voice on this one; it sounds SO obnoxious.)

2008-10-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

Guess who learned to ride her tricycle today?
Wayland did! It was a long time coming, but he did it, and we are so proud.

No, no. It was MADELEINE! She couldn't have been more disinterested in it until today, when she walked into the garage and said, "Wanna ride the tricycle, mama." I got it out, she sat on it, I gave her a little push, and then....WHOOSH! She went for it.

Then she rode all the way down our cul de sac and refused to ride back. She was tired. Demonic possession will do that to you.

No, really. The last few days with her have been....um. Trying.

I will spare you the details, but will give you this little tidbit: I told her to be nice to the cat. She stopped getting in his face and grabbing at his tail to look at me. "No, mama," she said, smiling sweetly. This particular "no, mama" was the 437th "no, mama," of the day. I told her it was time to take a break. Gave her the break. When I got her up, I sat her in my lap, facing me, so I could get her to tell me why I gave her the break. She responded by TRYING TO CHOKE ME. "NO, Madeleine," I told her. "That's not nice." She laughed and tried it again. "Madeleine!" I told her. "STOP IT. You're hurting me! If you keep it up, you're going to take another break." This was positively hysterical, and so she tried it again. I gave her another break.

And so on and so forth.

I really don't know what's going on with her. She's much more agreeable today, but just not herself. Alternately subdued and then wildly active. Very mood swingy.

But then this evening, jumping on that tricycle and then flashing a giant, excited smile over her shoulder at me as she figured it out....pedaling slowly and carefully down the street, head down as she watched her legs move....moments like those are worth all the utter crap she can dish out in 24 hours.

Lucky for her.

2008-10-17T16:26:00.000-07:00

Medley of Mad Tunes from amber on Vimeo.
Here is Madeleine singing her three of some of her favorite songs right now: "Moon Moon Moon" by Laurie Berkner, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and the ABC song.

And because I'm fully aware no one but her immediate family will be able to tell what she is actually singing, here are the lyrics (according to her in this video):

Moon Moon Moon
Shining bright
Moon Moon Moon
My night light
Moon Moon Moon
I can see
Moon Moon Moon
You're taking care of me
Look up, it's the moon
Look up, it's the moon
Look up, it's the moon up in the sky
It's big and round
And I have found
That it looks just like
A pizza pie

::::

Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are (Mama)
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are (Mama)
Like a diamond in the sky
Twinkle twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are (Mama)

::::

A B C D.....J K L M...O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Now I know my ABCs
Next time won't you sing with me

She does know her alphabet; I don't know why she skipped letters. Nonetheless: awesome kid.

PS Yeah - hi! We're still here! Doing good. I'd say there will be more to come, but there probably won't be. I'm not too good about updating these days, apparently.

What We've Been Up To

2008-09-06T10:34:00.001-07:00

What We've Been Up To from amber on Vimeo.

2008-07-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

We were driving home from somewhere when Madeleine suddenly started issuing proclamations, completely unbidden, from the backseat. "No take a nap," she kept saying. "No tired."

Except when I looked back at her, her head was sunk to one side of the carseat, eyes droopy. "No take a nap," she said again, flopping her head to the other side of the seat.

"Okay," I said, amused. "You don't have to take a nap."

"No take a nap," she repeated, already half-asleep.

Here's some of that.

She is NOT tired, okay? from amber on Vimeo.

SEAS ORSE

2008-05-26T18:31:00.001-07:00

In this video, Mad is reading a book called "Secret Seahorse," a gift from her Aunt Becky, to herself. Each page has different sea creatures, and the seahorse is hiding on each page. In the end, you find a whole seahorse family.

Mad's version of reading it: she flips through the pages, pointing out each animal, and then she says, "Where's the seahorse?" and then she calls for the seahorse, and then she finds it: "There's the seahorse!"

My favorite is the last time she says, "Where's the seahorse?" - complete with hand out to her side, shoulders shrugged, like, "Where did it go? It's a mystery."

SEAS ORSE from amber on Vimeo.

Madisms

2008-05-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

My favorite Mad word is "wack uh wee wee." Yes, that's one word. If you can guess what it is, I'll give you 100 bucks.

No, you'll never guess. It's how Mad says "ravioli." Awesome, right? The close second? "Thank you." Which is a phrase, yes. But when she says it, it sounds like this: "FACK YOU." Which sounds like something else. Which is funny. "Fack you mama!" Hee. And even better: instead of saying, "Thank you for the shoes," for example, she'll say, "Fack you shoes! Fack you shoes mama!" I can't wait for the day she puts my favorite word and phrase together: "Fack you wack uh wee wee!" Greatness.

Sweetness

2008-05-18T20:45:00.001-07:00

2008-05-12T16:54:00.000-07:00

The problem with keeping a blog like this is that wow, life, she gets in the way sometimes. And then you spend so long dealing with life and SO MUCH has happened and you hardly know where to begin with the update. So I'll just jump into a few of my favorite and least favorite developments.

1. The imagination. Oh, this girl. Once, after I denying her repeated requests to play in the water, she asked me to draw water on the driveway with "boo chawk." I drew some water drops and a swirly mass of blue and she jumped into the middle of it. "PAY!" She shouted. "Pay in the wah-er."

Another day, she lined her blocks side by side on the coffee table so they formed a long chain. She grabbed her little stuffed frog and her little stuffed duck, and they started talking to each other. Like so:

Duck: (gibberish gibberish gibberish)

Frog: (gibberish gibberish gibberish) disguise!

Both: (grunting as they climb up on the blocks)

Then they both jiggled around on top of the blocks together, and every now and then, one would say "disguise." I then realized that she was recreating her favorite scene in the Backyardigans episode, "Le Master of Disguise," in which Austin chases Pablo on top of the train, and then (of course) they sing and dance.

Another time, the duck and frog were chatting just after her bath, and the conversation went like this:

Duck: Frog?

Frog: YES?

Duck: (gibberish gibberish) bee-bing tee-peh? ("breathing treatment")

Frog: nope bee-being tee-peh. Nope.

Duck: (gibberish gibberish) YES bee-bing tee-peh.

Frog: (gibberish gibberish) bee-bing tee-peh OKAY.

And off they went.

2. She knows the alphabet; I think Sesame Street taught her. I caught her singing it one day to her stuffed dog. Her favorite letters seem to be H and X.

3. CANTANKEROUS. For serious. One day, we had entire conversations that went like this. All day long.

Her: Want some CAN-BEE? (candy)

Me: You want some candy?

Her: Nope. (screeching) No want some can-bee!

Me: Okay, okay. No candy.

Her: (unholy screeching) CAN-BEE! WANT SOME CAN-BEE! OKAAAY.

Which leads me to:

4. She manipulates conversations to bring them to the outcome she wants. Like this:

Me: Mad, it's time for your nap.

Her: No wap! No take a wap!

And then she answers for me: Okaaaaay.

5. She's very considerate of Violet, and it is the cutest thing. One day I went to leave the room and left Violet sitting on the floor. Violet, as is her way, started screeching at me because HOW DARE I WALK AWAY? I turned to grab her, but Mad was already over there, gently rubbing her hair. "It's okay, sister," she said. "It's okay." Then she hugged her. AWWWW.

6. On mother's day, she picked out my shoes. I was putting on one pair and she flipped out. "Nope," she said, shaking her head and trying to take the shoe off of my foot. "Nope." She brought me a pair of shoes. "Dees shoes," she said. "Brown shoes." My little fashion maven. CUH-YOOTIE.

Feeling much better!

2008-04-19T19:26:00.000-07:00

And, apropos of nothing at all, our new favorite kids' show songs:

You've been spared the "We're Knights That's Right" song from the Backyardigans, and that's only because I couldn't find a decent clip on You Tube.

2008-04-17T19:35:00.001-07:00

Mad has strep throat! I think she even looks sick in this picture, which I took yesterday. She also seems mostly calm and at peace, which is a LIE. Because she is wildly moody, very needy. Which is okay. I'll let her cling as much as she wants until she feels better. I'll hold her as close as she'll let me.

Because while she has strep throat, she also has some virus-y respiratory thing, and she coughs and coughs and coughs until she gags and then cries this sad, shrieky cry because it hurts her.

Poor Mad.

2008-04-09T20:33:00.001-07:00

Mad sings. She replaces lyrics in songs she knows, so that the Elmo's World theme becomes "La La La La La La La La ICE KEEM!" or (my favorite) "La La La La La La La La MAMA!" Her favorite song, "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You," is a constant. She climbs up in the computer chair and taps confidently on the keyboard and moves the mouse around like she knows how to get it to play. Then when she can't, she says, "Dance Dance Dance" all quickly like in the song, until we play it. AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN. My favorite song that she sings is "House by the Sea," by Iron & Wine.

She tries to rouse excitement for some initiative she's promoting. Like so: "Wanna wide the twain!" She looks at both of us, expectantly, then claps her hands. "Wide the twain. YAAAAAAY!" She shouts as she claps. Or if we're going to the store that is neighbored by a Baskin-Robbins: "Want some ice keem! Want some chaw-cut ice keem! YAAAAY!"

The other day, I walked into the living room to grab her for her bath. She was sitting on the coffee table, staring at me with crossed eyes. "TWO MAMAS!" she exclaimed with a smile.

She loves bugs. She also, in all her exuberant love of bugs, accidentally kills a lot of them. So now we try and keep her away from the bugs. She calls worms "worps." Ladybugs are "wahbugs," butterflies are "buh-sighs," and rolly-pollys are "woh wee poh wees." Caterpillars are "cah-pears."

Getting her to eat these days is generally not happening, but I invented a game that she really likes and it usually gets her to eat, though I think the charm is wearing off a bit. I'll hand her a piece of food and say, "Eat some..." (dramatic pause) "elephants!" She takes a bite. I hand her another piece of food, "Eat some..." (dramatic pause) "Elmo!" She takes another bite. And so on. A few days ago, she got in on the game. She'd pick up the food and say, "Eat some...." (dramatic pause) "CHOO CHOO TWAIN!" And then eat happily.

She's obsessed with my friend's son, Gabe, who is about a month older than her. We all went to the zoo one day, so now every time she talks about going to the zoo, she always throws in: "With Gabe. And Ebba." (Ebba = Gabe's sister Emma). The other day she was playing the food game and said, "Eat some...." (dramatic pause) "GABE."

Her one-track toddler mind is set on zoo pretty much all the time. First thing in the morning, she says, "Wanna go to the zoo." I'll reply, "You want to go to the zoo, huh?" And then she says: "And see the wah-goes (flamingos). And the baby ducks. And the wonkeys (monkeys). And the eh-fants (elephants)."

If it's not set on zoo, it's set on "pay in the wah-er" (play in the water). If she sees even the slightest hint of wet pavement, she wants to go play in it. "Big jump in the wah-er," she says, and just goes for it.

This, I think, is my favorite thing about her. The way she just goes for it, everything, in all her two-year-old exuberance, innocence, and her unwavering belief that ultimately, the world will always bend to her will. And when I look at the sweet little face I think I would do anything to help make that happen.

Made with real sugar!

2008-04-05T08:29:00.001-07:00

Made with real sugar! from amber on Vimeo.
Don't forget to brush your teeth.

Awesome new game

2008-03-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

New Game 2 from amber on Vimeo.
That's the closet where we keep our vacuum. Mad's love-hate relationship with the vacuum manifested itself today in a game where she had us remove the vacuum from the closet, and - well, you'll see the rest.

By the way, she's yelling "vacuum," and then later, "There's the vacuum!"

'Round these here parts, we ain't git much snow.

2008-03-12T20:18:00.000-07:00

Texas Snow Day from amber on Vimeo.
Except for last week, when we had this freak winter weather and every city and all the counties around us were getting three and four and EIGHT inches of snow. We got nothing. I was so disappointed because at first the stupid weathermen were all, "Everyone! Is! Getting! SO MUCH SNOW!" and proceeded to dedicate the next 24 hours to all-weather-all-the-time coverage, filled with ominous warnings of the "severe weather event" heading our way.

And the storm rolled in and I thought Madeleine was going to get to play in the snow for the first time. And then the weathermen, while showing videos of the CRAZY amounts of snow everyone was getting, started making jokes about how there was a snow party but someone forgot to invite my city.

But! Where Wayland works, they got like four inches of snow, and it covered his car. And so when he came home, there was snow in our front yard! Sort of.

And so Madeleine had her first chance to play in the snow. If you don't speak toddler, she is saying "SNOWBALL! UP HIGH!" Then there is some talk about the train. Always about the train.

Ni Hao Kai-lan

2008-03-08T07:46:00.000-08:00

Ni Hao Kai-lan! from amber on Vimeo.

Sweet and sour

2008-03-05T18:19:00.001-08:00

1. It's a Wednesday, and all day long, Madeleine has been wanting to "ride the train and see the elephants." It is pretty much all she talks about. It's the first thing she mentions when she wakes up from her nap, so I decided to take her and Violet. By myself. It's not too crowded and it's a beautiful day, and Madeleine is having an awesome time riding the train until the last time we get off the train. She says, "Uh uh train," so I say, "Okay, let's go see the elephants!" She's all about it until we are out of sight of the train station and she hears the train whistle in the distance. "Ride the train!" she calls out urgently, gesturing purposefully toward the train station.

So we go back to wait for the train. "Uh uh ride the train," she says. "Okay," I say. "We can go." We start to leave and she starts pleading, "TRAIN! TRAIN!" and gesturing for the train station. I tell her we can ride the train if that's what she wants, and we go back. "Uh uh uh uh TRAIN! TRAIN SCAWEE (scary)!" We go to leave. "Train! Ride the train!" She gestures back for the train station.

I finally realize she wants to 1) ride the train and 2) not ride the train AT THE SAME TIME. So I tell her we are going to leave since I haven't figured out how to manipulate space and time at will just yet.

She screams. SCREAMS AND SCREAMS. More screaming as I carry her away, all the while pushing Violet in the stroller. She is fighting me while I hold her. Violet, picking up on the drama, decides to contribute. Violet screams so hard she is choking.

I pull us over to a curb in an area that is fairly secluded and decide to feed Violet. I am trying not to flash the random passers-by and trying to keep Madeleine from running to the train station all on her own. I end up grabbing her by the back of her dress while Violet is attached to the breast. Madeleine strains away from me, trying to run away, tears and snot streaming down her face as she screams at parents and children walking happily by us.

I am the mother of two, I somehow realize for the first time. I wonder how bad it would be if I just left them there and ran screaming for my car.

2. Wayland is giving Violet her bath when Madeleine decides she's ready for her bath, too. I help her climb in and she looks at Violet with a little smile on her face. "Viwit," she says. Violet smiles and squeals with joy. "Sisser upset!" Madeleine exclaims. "No," I tell her. "Sister is happy!" Madeleine looks at her. "Sisser HAPPY. Viwit happy."

We spend the rest of the bath trying to force photo ops on them. Violet was all about it, but Mad wasn't really into it.

I am the mother of two, I think. It's much nicer to think about this time.

3. Violet is having a rough bedtime because she's overly tired. When I pick her up from the changing table, she turns her tear-stained face into my chest and quiets for the first time in about half an hour. When I feed her, she snuggles close and sighs softly, her sweet blue eyes closing almost instantly. She sighs throughout until suddenly she's sound asleep. When I pull her off the breast, her eyes flutter open and her mouth forms a sleepy O. I lay in her bed and she nestles into her blanket.

After reading Mad's bedtime book to her (The Very Hungry Caterpillar; she is OBSESSED with it), I tell her to give her dad a kiss. She leans in and plants one on his cheek: "MMMWAH." I tell her it's time for my kiss and she leans back (she is sitting in my lap) without really looking and finds my neck. She snuggles in close and stays there. She says "Mama" in a way that I know means "I love you."

I'm the mother of two, I think as I close her door a few minutes later. My heart could not be happier.

Please Thank You (We're working on it)

2008-02-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Today was One of Those Days. I believe that Violet is cutting her top teeth, based not on actual toothy evidence, but instead on the winged beast that comes crawling from her mouth spouting hellfire and brimstone periodically. I think it said something about a tooth last time. I don't know. I don't speak demon.

So when Violet's winged beasty friend (we call him D-Man) comes to visit, it doesn't sit well with Madeleine. Mad ousted her little winged demon long ago in favor of something better: TODDLERHOOD! So when D-Man comes out to play, TODDLERHOOD! feels threatened, and they must battle.

And in the end, they find victory together over the remnants of my shredded, bloody corpse.

As I was saying. Today was One of Those Days. Violet was crying for the 1,000,000,037th time; Mad was not taking it well and had just run screeching down the hall after me because I was trying to (gasp!) go to the bathroom (TODDLERHOOD! no like bathroom. TODDLERHOOD! wants you to explode with pee. TODDLERHOOD! kill you in your sleep! Ha!)

So I went back to comfort V, doing the little dancy dance of WHY WON'T THEY LET ME PEE, and in a moment of mommyspiration (that's inspiration, mommy-style, also kind of like persperation; they go hand-in-hand), I grabbed Mad's sunglasses and put them on V.

And lo, Violet was happy.
For the record: Mad hates sunglasses, or anything on her head or face. If I put her in the sunglasses, she will sometimes wear them long enough to "go look" in the mirror, and then she snatches them off and hands them to me, shaking her head. "Uh uh gasses," she says.

Until, of course, she sees her sister wearing them.

All of her please and thank you training out the window! Really, she's been so good about it lately. Any time she wants anything, she'll say "PEEEEEESE!" with this note of desperation in her voice. The first few times it was cute enough that if she had been asking for a razorblade and a canteen of salt, I would have given them to her.

A few seconds later she actually did say "peeese," so I told her, "Okay, Mad, you can have them but you have to wear them. If you don't wear them, V gets them back."

She was thrilled.
V got them back shortly and all was good. TODDLERHOOD! and D-Man retreated for a bit to rest for another day. Tomorrow probably. Send reinforcements. Tequila Man and Cupcake Kid would be good.

"Time for sleep"

2008-02-12T19:57:00.000-08:00

So, every night before Mad goes to bed her mom and her sing in unison the bedtime song, which simply enough goes—

(adagietto)
“naaaaap-time, naaaaaap-time,
time for sleep, time for sleep,”
(repeat lines 1 and 2)
On the flipside, I'm feeling pretty good in the daddy dept. –That’s a teaser, you have to read to the end to get the reason for that. Anyway, I usually chill out in the tub for a little while after Mad’s bath, but the bath ended a little early this evening when a little poop-popped out, so I sat in on bed-time.

Observation #1 –Keys.
I never noticed before tonight how readily recognizable the zookeeper’s keys are… on every page. "Keys!" Then later in the book when the lights turn off and the page is black, all you can see are the eyes of the zookeeper’s wife –her look of surprise,
“Puppies!”
Amber says, “two eyes”
“Puppies!”
–two eyes
PUP-PIES –she says, like Homer Simpson while shaking fist (or for those of you who don’t watch the cartoon, picture Frank Nitti: “When Madeleine says it’s a puppy… it’s a puppy”).
Then when the lights come on in the book, what is actually the back of zookeeper’s head is a ball. We don’t argue. Oh yes, and penguins are still ducks…

Observation #2 –A is for Apple
All letters are A. Opposite page 1 reads,
PANDA BEAR,
PANDA BEAR,
WHAT DO YOU SEE? –Mad points to the “P”
“A”
“That’s a ‘P’ Mad”
“A”
“That’s a ‘B’”
“A”
“’N’, Mad”
“A”
“Good job, Mad, that’s an A”
“A”
“No, Mad”… You get the gist.
On a side note, I’d also like to point out how this little girl can count to 8 (kind of). She always likes to skip number 5. There was going to be some clever post about how we’re changing mathematical laws, or how I came to decide 5 doesn’t count, etc. –didn’t pan out. Oh, wait, you already know that. Well maybe I should post more often. Anyway, so how are daddy-days good?

Observation #3 –"Time for sleep, Mad"
Almost nightly Mad has a mini-breakdown soon after we put her down for bed. Until recently I would try not to settle her because when dad walks in “it’s playtime!” But now I get the impression that she just wants her dad to say goodnight. Not to mention it’s my first glimpse of what could be an authoritative persona?

Mad screams her fake cry and when I come in she’s bouncing or wiggling or I get the “opps, pacifier” call (mouthpiece has been ejected out of the crib). I pick her up and say very softly but definite, “Mad, it’s time for sleep.” I lay her down and stroke her hair a few times, kiss her forehead, then leave. She fusses a little bit sometimes but it never lasts long. Then she sleeps and doesn't wake up.

Dad thinks he’s got the knack, and that feels great.

For your birthday

2008-02-03T17:52:00.000-08:00

Friday night, we got you out of the bath and I said, "Mad, tomorrow is a big day! We're having your birthday party!" And you looked at me and said, "birday pah-ee."

Saturday was the party. You were pretty quiet through the beginning, eyeing all of the strange people in your house warily. You clung to me and your dad. Then your boyfriend Gabe showed up with his football and you had a bunch of fun with that. Then he pulled all of the balloons out of the dining room into the living room and they all went floating up into our high ceilings. You were amazed: "Balloons up HIGH," you said according to various reports. I was trying to get your sister to take a nap.

I opened your presents for you while you sat in my lap. You were fascinated with the popple and the birthday card from Gabe and his family. When I squeezed the popple and it laughed, you imitated it: heh heh heh.

I figured you would dive right into the cupcake; I even sprinkled a few M&Ms on top to make sure. But this did not set well with you because the M&Ms were now covered in icing. You delicately picked one out and held it up for me: "Wash it," you said. You refused to eat any of it: the cupcake, the M&Ms, the icing. Then I brought out the brownie bites and you were all about it.

Gabe decided to help you with the cupcakes.

Everyone left and then you turned into a crazy person for the rest of the evening: running around the house all willy nilly, laughing, climbing on things, jumping. That night, as I got you out of the bath and turned off the Yo Gabba Gabba music, you waved at the CD player. "Bye bye Plex," you said in your funny high-pitched voice. "Bye bye Foofa!" As we walked through the living room, you spotted a pile of suckers left over from your party. I braced myself for the inevitable demands, but you waved and called merrily, "Bye bye suckers!" I read you some of your new books before bed, and on one of the last page of Panda Bear Panda Bear What Do You See? there is a "dreaming child" whose face is in the moon. "Baby," you said. "Bye bye baby," and then you tried to give it your pacifier.

This morning, the morning of your actual birthday, we went out for breakfast. Towards the end of the meal you and your sister were both being a little cranky, so I picked you up and let you count the lights above the tables on the way to the door. "Wah, two, wee, fah, fie, six, seh, EIGHT," you counted.

You kept up the cuteness all day long, chattering more than ever about the AIRPAYS, TWO AIRPAYS (airplanes), wahcopters (helicopters), and throwing balls around the house, then saying, "I getchoo bah," and doing that funny little run you do sometimes, legs kicking up behind you and wiggling your little bottom.

We went to the park and you flung yourself down the slide a lot, yelling, "Big jump!"

We had dinner at Jason's Deli. You ate a bunch of noodles, some sausage and drank a metric ton of apple juice.

When we got home, we kicked the ball around in the street. The sun was setting and it looked like this.

Then you had your bath, and then we went to bed. As we sang the bedtime song in front of the crib, my arms wrapped around you in a hug, you flung your head back and sang along. I put you in your bed and said "Goodnight, little two-year-old. I love you!" and kissed your forehead. "Bye bye," you said softly and ran your fingers over your blanket, back and forth.

You talked to yourself for about an hour before you fell asleep, chattering quietly like you were telling the stars outside all about your day.

Don't give up! Don't give up!

2008-02-01T19:20:00.001-08:00

Keep Trying from amber on Vimeo.

Someone's Turning 2 Soon....

2008-01-22T21:31:00.001-08:00

Madeleine's 2nd Year from amber on Vimeo.
Sob sob sniff sniff

The Pacifier Problem

2008-01-19T12:07:00.000-08:00

I thought I was doing a good thing by limiting pacifier time to the crib only, and then sometimes out of the crib when she wasn't feeling well or just seemed out of sorts for whatever reason. But what that did is make the pacifier this extra special thing, this bonus awesome thing right up there with "chah-cut" (chocolate) and "cuhcake" (cupcake) and "ice keep" (ice cream) and suckers. Plus, her dad taught her a song for just before bedtime that goes, "uh oh pacifier...and blanket!" So she grabs the pacifier when I give it to her and says, "OOoooh pass-es-sier...eh banket!" Plus, when we are looking for things that are lost, we walk around the house calling for it, like: "Duuuuuck! Oh DuuuuUuuuck!" And while we never did this with the pacifier, when she wants it, she walks around the house calling mournfully, just a hint of tears in her voice, "Pass-es-sier! PAAASSS-es-sier!" Now, when I try to take it from her in the morning, she immediately reaches out, ready to cry, saying sadly, urgently, a tad angrily, "Pass-es-sier! Back! Pass-es-sier!" And when confronted with a toddler-style meltdown at 6 in the morning, when I have just stumbled blearily out of bed, I am going to choose the path of least resistance.

All this to say: I think we have a problem.

Long time no posty post

2008-01-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

So it turns out there is something to that whole "two under two being hard" business. But! I continue to persevere. Onward!

Nearly-2 is kind of a tough age, but the negatives are by far overshadowed by the positives. For every UGH WHAT IS SHE DOING moment, we have about 20 OMG SHE IS AWESOME moments. It's nice how that works out.

The thing to know about Mad is that she is a very physical kid. She started jumping up and down around 14 months and jumping off of things shortly thereafter. "Big jumps," she calls them. There is a little dresser-like stand in Violet's room thad Mad likes to climb up and then jump off of. "One...two...WEEEE!" She'll shout before leaping off of it as high and as far as she can. She does flips, leans over on her hands and kicks both feet into the air, jumps up and spins mid-air, landing on her knees, and falls back on her bottom and says, "BOOM!"

She's brave. Hubs got free tickets to Six Flags, and since she is under two, she gets in free. So we took her. First, she rode the big carousel. "AGAIN!" She shouted when it was done. Then she rode this kiddy-ride that takes you up in the air, then drops you a little at a time, up and down, into one final big plunge. She LOVED it. "AGAIN!" she yelled. "AGAIN! AGAIN!" Gesturing at it as we tried to pull her away.

THEN I had my proud mommy moment when we put her on this swing ride - the swings just twirl around a center point, low to the ground - but unlike the previous rides, we couldn't ride it with her. I gave her a kiss and walked away. She whipped her head around, looking for me, but as the ride started, she just went with it and didn't get upset once. It as definitely her favorite - the "agains" were very very urgent.

She calls roller coasters "big slides."

She is a very sweet, go-with-the-flow kind of kid, and she rarely acts up. Ever, really. Though this month actually marked the beginning of real attempts at discipline. She thinks spilling her drinks is awesome. I understand that she's fascinated with pouring, but reasonable attempts to say, "Mad, no, we don't spill our drinks," just weren't working. I try and provide her other ways/times to pour - just a few days ago, we took various beans and grains outside in paper cups and poured them into tupperware containers. Still, she spills. Gleefully and on purpose.

So we did time out. The first time did NOT GO WELL. I put her in a chair in the dining room, segregated from the rest of the house. I crouched down with her, looked her in the eye and said, "Madeleine, you're in time out because you spilled your drink after I told you not to." She leaned in close to my face, then stuck a finger up my nose. "Booger," she said. I unsuccessfully tried to hide my laughter. So she laughed. "Booger!" she said again, laughing. "Mad," I said, getting it together, "No play. You're in time out." I walked away, and Mad stared after me. "Weeeee," she said softly. I made her stay until she realized she HAD to stay there, at which point she started crying. I let her cry for a minute, then I reiterated the time out yadda yadda, then I made her help me clean up her mess.

After a warning, she spilled her milk that night at dinner, so we did time out again. It took her less time to figure out we were not playing a game this time and she got very upset. We haven't had a spilled drink since, though I don't know if we can chalk that up to my discipline prowess or not. Probably not.

She's overall a big sweetie. She likes to snuggle when she wakes up in the morning, and when she's happy to see me, when I'm holding her, she pats my back and says softly, "mama," and it sounds like a confirmation when she says it, like she's affirming that I'm there and understanding how much I love her.

Holiday! Celebrate!

2007-12-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

That was this year's plan. Next year the plan is: Holiday! Get drunk and never leave the house!

To recap:

Mad was less than thrilled to find presents on Christmas morning, which was really Christmas Eve Eve.

Until we let her have some candy from her stocking.

And she opened up the BeeBop Band thing. Drums!

Violet woke a bit later and actually ripped the wrapping paper a bit on her own. She was pretty impressed with the proceedings, actually.

Then we went to my aunt's and didn't get any pictures because we left the camera behind.

Bright and early the next morning, we headed for West Texas. Six hours in the car with a toddler and a baby. I've been dreading this for the better part of the year.

It actually went far better than I could have hoped. There was a collective meltdown about 30 minutes before we reached our destination. That includes me and the hubs, too. Something about me not wearing my seatbelt so that I could reach into the backseat and comfort our screaming daughters. He did not appreciate the removal of the seatbelt and I did not appreciate the screaming. Agree to disagree, I told him, while bludgeoning him with my withering stare.

But then we got there, and the relatives have a SLIDE! in their backyard. Madeleine spent the better part of the day out there.

Violet spent some time there, too. She was ultra tired because she took a 20 minute nap when we got there (as opposed to the 1.5 hours or so she usually gets around that time). She held up pretty well for awhile.

Then Violet spent the rest of the time needing a nap and not napping -- there was just too much going on for her to wind down enough to get good sleep. Things got hairy and culminated in her crying inconsolably and then quieting down only to stare off into space, eyes red-rimmed, face miserable. In the end, I took her to the hotel to get some sleep while the hubs and Mad stayed behind to open presents with his family. It was not the way I envisioned my Christmas Eve, but there you go. At least V finally slept (all night long!)

The next morning we got up bright and early again to "do Santa" at the relatives' house. Then Mad passed out while I was holding her several hours later. Then we left.

Cue the horror music.

This is what most of the trip looked like, by the way.

After napping briefly in the car, Violet did not want to be in the car anymore. No amount of stopping and playing, comforting, feeding, diaper changing, leg stretching, McDonald's stops could help. She'd be fine when we stopped, but a few minutes after being on the road, she was miserable.

I don't blame her, the poor thing. It got to where the stops to comfort her screaming were just prolonging our trip even further and delaying our Get Home Quickly goal, so we just barrelled on while she cried.

Mad entertained herself plenty for awhile.

Until the trip and Violet's discontent started to wear thin. Mad started screeching a furious screech, and when I looked back to ask her what was wrong, she stopped screeching. "Sister upset," she said in a completely normal tone. "I know," I would tell her. I'd make another attempt at comforting Violet -- to no avail. This repeated about 1 billion times.

Later, in one of the rare moments that Violet quieted down, Mad started screeching again. "What's wrong now?" I asked her, and she held up the toy monkey she was holding. "Monkey," she said.

After a while, it was all I could do not to join in the screaming, and so, after ramming my head into the back of the seat a few times, I grabbed the camera for documentation. Warning: when it cuts to Violet, you will feel very bad for her and think I am a monster. But consider two things: 1. It was either film them or throw myself out of the car and 2. She actually quieted down a bit when she saw the camera. For about one minute. So it was a GOOD thing I did.

Next year I don't want to go anywhere except to my kitchen a few times so that I can make myself margaritas and consume many, many cookies. Like these.

(zombie gingerbread man! And victim!)

Maybe one day the award will be named after me!

2007-12-17T20:46:00.000-08:00

So I'm going to put a lot of random pictures in this post, and a video, and that will be that. EXCEPT. Except I am going to offer a parenting moment that occurred here this morning. It's my gift to all of you other parents out there. I hope it helps you on your quest to become a perfect parent; as you will soon see, I am already most of the way there. (And no, the pictures and the video have nothing to do with the written content - that would require a lot of brain power, and considering I just typed "reqire a lof bran powser," well, I just don't have it today).
We limit pacifier time around here - just in the crib for naps and bedtime. We've fudged on that a bit - when it's close to naptime and bedtime, we might let her have it. Sometimes she fights us on it, sometimes not. This morning was one of those fight us on it mornings (fight me on it, anyway. The hubs was at work).

It was about an hour or so after she woke up and she started asking for it. "Pass-ess-sigh," she said over and over. She went and found her blanket. "Banket," she said, clutching it to her chest. "Pass-ess-sigh, pass-ess-sigh, pass-ess-sigh," a chanted demand.
I tried to ignore it, hoping she'd give up, then I tried super measures of distraction. Still that chant. Finally, I had to say "no," a word I use as sparingly as possible. (And by that I don't mean that I give her whatever she wants; rather, when denying her what she wants I try to find other ways to let her know it's not gonna happen. "No" is very serious, and she knows I mean it). "No pacifier," I told her gently, looking her in the eye. "Not until naptime."

Cue the hysterics. Screaming screaming screaming. Screaming like I was poking her eyes out with a fork. SCUH REAMING. Tears streaming down her face.

This continued for a while, me holding her while she screamed, telling her it would be okay, and she just kept screaming. Finally, in exasperation, I told her: "If you want your pacifier, you have to take a nap." Surely that would derail her. But no. She ran into her room with her blanket, yelling, "PASS ESS SIGH! PASS ESS SIGH!" I handed it to her and she went willingly into her crib.
That's when V woke up, so I tried to be cunning and stood with V by the door. "Hi Violet," I said loud enough so I was sure Mad could hear. "Are you ready to go play? Do you want to watch Yo Gabba Gabba?"

Then Mad started screaming. Bingo, I thought. Now she'll give up the pacifier.

But no. More screaming. Screaming Screaming screaming screaming FOR THE LOVE OF PETE STOP SCREAMING. At this point, I just wanted her to have the damn thing, because is a pacifier really that big of a deal in the scheme of things? No!
But...yes. Yes. If I gave it to her then, I would be sending a powerful message. Screaming = get what I want! I will use this screaming thing more often!

So what did I do? Oh. Well. I endured the screaming for a few minutes more (probably about 45 minutes of screaming at this point) and then I looked at her. "Mad? Do you want...a sucker?" She whipped her head back and forth, indicating a negative. The tears were still pouring down her face. She sniffled. "Pass ess sigh," she said forlornly.

Here's where I really bring it home. "Mad?" I asked her as we walked to the closet where the suckers are stashed. "Do you want....TWO suckers?" Her head whipped back and forth for a second, then the light bulb went off. She regarded me and the two suckers I was holding very carefully. And I SWEAR I was fighting off the urge to offer her a THIRD sucker. I had her hooked! Time to bring her home!
But I held back, and suddenly her face cleared. "Suckers? TWO SUCKERS," she proclaimed, holding both hands out. As I unwrapped one, she even giggled and clapped a little. And that's how I stopped the screaming and made her forget about the pacifier.

Lesson she learned? Scream loud and long enough and you'll reap rewards the likes of which you never expected.

The End. I'll be sure to mention this in my Excellence in Parenting Award acceptance speech.

PS Did you know dressing a little girl up for cold weather is SO MUCH FUN? It is.
PSS Oh, right. The video. Here she is singing the "Backyardigans" theme while jumping up and down like a little spaz. It's kind of awesome.

So I can remember

2007-12-09T22:30:00.000-08:00

Mad says "bye bye" when she wants people to get away from her. It started when we were at the grocery store and she got overwhelmed by all the strangers paying attention to her. With anything they would say to her, the insistent refrain: "Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye."

Then she started saying it to me when she is pooping. I'll see her crouched and grunting, so I'll say, "Mad, are you pooping? Let's go to the potty." And she'll wave at me and say, "bye bye."

AND THEN the other day she was trying to stuff jack back into the jack-in-the-box and having some trouble with it. "Do you need some help?" I asked her, and she stared at me flatly. "Bye bye," she said very seriously, then went back to trying to stuff jack back in the box.

I have to say I LOVE IT, even when she's directing it at me - the little bit of independence, defining her own boundaries, working to control her environment...(perhaps I won't be saying this if she starts throwing temper tantrums, but for now...it's nice).

2007-11-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

One day Mad had a giant booger right there at the front of her nose. "Hold still," I told her, reaching for it. I picked it out. "You had a booger," I said. "Bug-ger," she said thoughtfully, reaching a hand up to her nose. Shortly after that, she started sticking her finger up her nose, pulling it out, and saying, "Bug-ger." And since I laughed when she did that, she kept doing it. Then, on the way to her grandma's house on Thanksgiving, she did the double finger thing. Guess what I did: laugh or say sternly, "Don't pick your nose, Madeleine." It's a tough one. Think about it while you admire the picture.

In other news, we had an incident. For the faint-hearted out there, pretend this is a picture of red food coloring that dripped all over the kitchen and then skip to the next picture. For the rest of you, you know what this is. It's her BLOOD! This is a lot of blood, people. This doesn't even show you what was coursing down her foot and all over my shirt and jeans. Holy crap. Long story short: she had a blister on her ankle that scabbed over. Then on this fateful day, she ran into the corner of the fridge and the scab broke open. This was the result. She was a little trooper, only getting upset when I tried to touch it directly as I was cleaning her up. Since then, she has taken to staring at that spot on her ankle, then studying the bug bite on the top of that same foot. "Eh, eh," she says pointing at each spot. "Twoooo owies."

She hugs now. If I say, "Can I have a hug?" And hold my arms out, she'll run into them willingly and let me hug her. Then she wraps her arms around herself and says "Ug." Today, though, I asked her for a hug and she ran to me, wrapped her arms around me, and then patted my back. And then I melted all over the floor. She'll also hug and kiss her sister and her dad. If I ask her for a kiss, she'll just kind of make an "mmmmwaaah" sound while leaning her head in my general direction.

We also had a sucker relapse, but I think the time without them did her good, as she doesn't flip out whenever I say she can't have them. Usually.

She continues to be exuberant, beautiful and amazing.

Sucker detox

2007-11-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned in the Halloween post, I let Madeleine have a sucker. I just wrote one little, teeny innocuous sentence about it. "She knows how to say 'sucker' now," I think is what I wrote. It was cute! Nothing big!
And then the next morning came. After getting over the bleary-eyed morning hump, she looked at me with a cute, hopeful smile. "Sucker?" She asked. "Aw," I said, reaching down and running my fingers through her hair. "No suckers right now," I said. "It's too early!" She was unfazed. "Sucker?" She asked. "Yum yummy."
I managed to make it through without giving her one until after lunch, but it was no easy feat. "Sucker?" She asked me for the zillionth time. "Okay," I said. "Let's get a sucker." Her face broke into an excited smile and she laughed. "Yummyyummyyum," she said. "Sucker!" Then she started running through the house with it, every now and then stopping to thrust it triumphantly into the air. "SUCKER!" she exclaimed as she brandished it for me to see. "SUCKER!" Then she hopped through every room in the house without stopping. Twice.

You can probably see where this going.

The next day, first thing in the morning, she asked for a sucker. "No suckers," I said. "All gone." She looked at me, the hopeful smile fading fast. "Yumyum yummy?" she asked. "Sucker?" I shook my head. "No," I said gently, looking her in the eye. "No sucker."
The lower lip curled and quivered. Her eyes welled with big fat tears. It was truly a spectacular display. "Suh..." she said, drawing in a gasping breath. "...cker. Sucker sucker sucker." The whole time crying big, gasping tears of sadness for the sucker she so desperately wanted. Then she ran to into my arms, trying to climb up me. "Mamamamama! SUCKER!" Still crying.

"Aw, Mad," I said, hugging her, pushing the hair out of her forehead. "It's okay." She looked at me hopefully, tears streaming down her face. "Sucker?" she asked hopefully but still very very sadly. "No," I said again, gently, and her the wailing continued.
We had a week or so break when we ran out of Halloween suckers, but then I (STUPIDLY) thought it would be a nice treat if I bought some to give them to her every now and then. I gave her one when we got home and she watched me put them in the pantry. I think she has said little else to me since I bought those suckers, and she only asks ME for them. "SUCKER? SUCKER? SUCKER?" If someone else is around and she wants a sucker, she will point at me. "Mama. Sucker." I think she is actually mocking me.

After several lousy morning of telling her no constantly and dealing with the tears until I finally give her one after lunch or actually caving and letting her have one at 10 a.m. (DON'T LOOK AT ME, I'M ASHAMED), I finally decided that these suckers? They no longer exist.

They are now hiding in our bedroom and whenever she asks, I tell her that they suckers are all gone. "No more suckers," I say, showing her that the spot they used to hold in the pantry is empty. "All gone!" She is not having meltdowns over them anymore, but she is still asking for them pretty much all the time. I am hoping that in a few days, she will forget about them. (She will, right?) But until then, well, BOO SUCKERS.
(Speaking of "suck," yesterday she was in the bath and something or other broke and I said, "Well, that sucks!" And she said, clear as day, "That sucks!" Oops).

2007-11-12T22:13:00.000-08:00

This Saturday, Mad helped her Dad rake and gather leaves in the yard. It was...I don't know how to put this without sounding redundant...um, cute? YES. SO CUTE.

Yes, she's my daughter

2007-11-05T19:51:00.001-08:00

No, I will never ask myself, "is this really my daughter?"

You know, sometimes when kids act weird the parents look at you and say, "I don't know where she gets it." -I won't say that. I mean, the people she comes from are pretty much the quirkiest people on the planet, so what should you expect? Well, here's what I get, and think I've said all this before...

She sings, real music. Kid music too, but real music -and good stuff. She picks her favorite line and celebrates it with a high-pitched yell while spinning around in circles and then following me with her dizzy eyes, head slightly tilted and turning. Jude's "King of Yesterday"...

Other songs she doesn't quite know the words to she might repeat "banket" over and over in different tonnage.

Words she says VERY well?

Bicycle. (by-sick-uh)

Sucker. (sucker)

Cookie. (cook-eeeee)

Mama. (muh-muh)

Airplane. (air-pay)
(Stay). (staaay!!!!!!)

Close to bedtime she'll walk around the house as if she were looking for a lost pet crying out "Pass-ess-sieh!" Later, in the tub she will try and feed the mouth-piece to the rubber duck. When that doesn't work she puts the duck's head in her mouth and says "back-back-back" before throwing it across the room. This must have been what the other ducks were talking about minutes later in their high-pitched, squeaky Mad-like voices.

Now these are things I know allot of kids do, but the way she does them clearly point to her parents.

"Say goodnight to your dad, Mad"

"Bye-bye"

"Will you give your dad a kiss?"

She puts her hand to her mouth and says

"mmmm-uh"

"Say, I love you dad!"

"Pass-ess-sieh!"

2007-11-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was trying to get some work done yesterday when I heard an unholy screech coming from the kitchen that caused the hairs to stand up on the back of my neck and the walls to bleed. When I went to check it out, I saw that Mad had positioned herself awkwardly in the Bumbo. "I STUT!" she screeched, which is Madspeak for "I'm stuck."

I helped her unstick herself and then helped her settle back in. "Duck," she said, gesturing for a toy duck a few feet away. I handed it to her. "Ehbow," she said, gesturing to an Elmo toy also a few feet away from her. I handed it to her.

And then she was happy.

Happy Halloween!

2007-10-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

From the rockin'est fairy you ever did see. Actually, screw that, she is not FAIRY, she is a Madbug. A Madbug is....really effing cute, and everyone wishes they had one. But they do not, I DO, SO THERE.

Forgive me, for I am tired and I don't really know what I'm saying. However, I do know this: Halloween was really fun this year.

For the last few days we've been coaching Mad on "trick or treat." The Halloween episode of Yo Gabba Gabba helped some, too. She picked up on the concept really quickly, and it's no wonder because when you say the magic words, POOF, candy appears. (We should probably trying this same method with "please," yes? Manners, anyone? No.)

So we'd go up to a door and I would let her ring the bell. "Say 'trick or treat,'" I would prompt her, and she would say, "DEH DEH DEH" as she lunged for the candy bowl. So it was good.

Also, she says "sucker" now.
(Note: Even though it says Wayland wrote this post, he DID NOT. He was already signed in when I started the post and I didn't notice until after I hit the publish button, and I have no idea how to change the author, if that's even possible. So, to sum it up: ME ME ME.)

Big Finish!

2007-10-24T22:41:00.000-07:00

You know what's scary these days? This little girl could very likely grow up to be more passionate about music than I am. Not kidding. I mean, she’s singing now. Not just the vocals (in her mumbling, babblish) but guitar solos and instrumentals too. She does tones. She may not know all the words, but I say that’s okay. Amber says she heard her singing the other day repeating “pass-ass-sigh” over and over to the tune of “Sky Blue Sky” –we already knew we had a Wilco fan.

My girl’s a punk. Come to think of it, that's not really scary at all. But this is... she jumps up and down in circles and on beat as if she were in a mosh-pit. She does stage dives off the hearth and off of chairs. Yesterday she jumped off the fireplace into a rolling summersault… Summersaults!

All of this while singing.

Current favorites include: “King of Yesterday” by Jude, and “Song 2” by Blur. Recent fav’s also include Maroon 5, Kanye West, and Fallout Boy.

We need to get this girl a high hat! Here’s one of the shorter videos of her drumming, complete with the big finish!

She does Beat Box too…

2007-10-10T22:17:00.000-07:00

Lately, when Mad is very excited to see you, she will throw whatever she is holding as hard and as exuberantly as she can. Like so:

Me: Is that Mad? HI, MAD! I MISSED YOU!

Her: (chunks the stuffed bunny at the floor)

Me: Oh, you threw your bunny.

Her: cah-ooom. (which means "vacuum")

She's so weird and wonderful.

---

Also sick. Poor girl. We had a visit to the doctor two days ago in which she had to have a breathing treatment. The whole visit was just poorly timed - they couldn't get her in at any other time than right in the middle of her nap. And she was just MISERABLE. I held her in my lap and had to force the mask for the breathing treatment machine-thingy over her face while she screamed and screamed and screamed. The nurse popped in to reassure me. "The crying will actually open up her airways some more," she told me.

I just kept alternately singing her favorite songs to her and telling her she was doing a good job, all while holding her so that her arms were pinned underneath mine and her body shuddered as fat tears poured down her face. Every now and then she would twist her body so that her face peered up at mine, her eyes all desperate and pleading, and she kept trying to grab my ear for some reason, then my cheek.

I got to "Either Way" by Wilco, and sang the first lines: "Maybe the sun will shine today/the clouds will blow away/maybe I won't feel so afraid," and then I felt my own eyes well up with tears, thinking about how overwhelmed and scared and tired she was, and the words clogged in my throat a little. I tried to sing the next line but a little sob threatened its way out, so I moved on to something else.

I was super-collected until I sang the song from Yo Gabba Gabba that goes: "nice and easy, nice and slow, it's nice to be quiet and listen you know," and her body gave one last deep heave and then her wet eyelashes drooped closed and then she was asleep. That's when the tears welled again - some relief, lots of sympathy for her, knowing how exhausted she was. I let her sleep against me for a minute until the treatment was done and I had to turn off the machine.

BOOM, she was wide awake and screaming again. She kept saying, "All done?" while I held her, waiting for the doctor to come back and listen to her lungs again. "All done," I would tell her. "We just have to wait for the doctor." Then the doctor confirmed she would need to take a breathing machine home, and we had to wait for the nurse to set us up with the machine. Mad would randomly cry and plead with me, "All done?" When we finally got to leave, I gave her a sucker from the checkout desk and then we took the stairs instead of the elevator, both of which are awesome treats for her. ("Step," she would say with each step, finally smiling. "Step!") All the way home, instead of sleeping, she sucked on her sucker and looked out the window. "All done?" she would ask with growing intensity until I confirmed that we were done, and then she would pop the sucker back in her mouth.

Now, a few days later, she still isn't feeling well. She just isn't herself, kind of low-energy and waaaay more clingy and irritable than I am used to seeing from her. She's still coughing, though it isn't nearly as bad as it was.

Get better soon, Bean.

2007-10-05T23:12:00.000-07:00

Mad, you are a sick baby right now. It's weird because you haven't been sick all that much in your life, so when I saw the symptoms setting in, I dismissed them. Persistent cough? Eh. She's acting fine, so it's probably nothing. A little more irritable than I am used to? Eh. She's a toddler, they get irritable, right? Clingy? Aw, she loves me! Hovering black clouds of doom following you throughout the house? Eh. Toddlers get those, too, right? At this rate, I will not ever realize you're getting sick until your kidney falls out of your ear.

You're coughing right now - I can hear you in the monitor. I am fighting the urge to go running in there to cuddle you. See, I would go cuddle you, but I tried that earlier and it ended like this: you poking me in the eye while saying, "eye," then moving to my mouth where you grabbed my bottom lip, pulled it down, said "teeth," then chuckled. It was insanely cute, but since the goal was sleep, I had to nip it in the bud.
That's you in a nutshell, lately. Insanely cute, profoundly irritating. I mean that with love, really, I do, because as irritating as you can be, you are leaps and bounds sweeter and cuter. I think the irritating thing goes with the being almost two thing. Plus, in all fairness, I think I irritate you probably even more than you ever could irritate me. And you've got all that charm to make up for any irritaiton. So it all balances out somehow.
As I was saying, sometimes you can be irritating. Like, okay. Here's how our mornings go usually (and this is pre-sickness, so we can't use that as an excuse): I get you out of your crib. "Good morning," I say cheerily as I open your blinds. "How did you sleep, sweetie?" You blearily rub your eyes and gesture to the door. "BAH," you say, which means you want a ball. Then, because I am SUCH AN IDIOT sometimes, I say, "Do you want your ball?" And you shoot me a look of scorn and point down at your mattress repeatedly. "Rye dare," you say, which means that you want a ball right there. "Okay, I'll get you a ball," I say, to which you laugh and wait expectantly. Which is cute. So I get you a ball. You take it, place it on the mattress. I think you will be happy, but you are not. You gesture toward the door. "BAH!" you exclaim excitedly. "You want another ball?" I (stupidly) ask, and you point at the mattress. "Rye dare," you say again. This continues until I get you all the balls in the house. When all of the balls have been delivered to your satisfaction, you will consent to be taken from the crib. But then all the balls have to be moved to the chair. Then you want to sit on the balls.
All of this is okay until I have to pee. "Mad, let's go to the bathroom," I say, trying to make it sound like the best time ever. "I have to pee!" I start walking down the hall, and what follows is not the pitter patter of your little feet, but an unholy screech of discontent. I look back and your face is all contorted: teeth grinding, eyes squinched, nostrils flaring. "Come on, " I say, making big gestures towards the bathroom. "YAY! We get to go to the bathroom!" You shake your head vehemently. "Uh uh," you say, and then for good measure, you issue that screech again.I've learned to go the bathroom before I get you out of the crib, by the way. Sometimes I am slow on the uptake.

But you know that already, like when you run the computer and yell, "PUPPY!" and try to climb up into the computer chair. "You want to see the video of the puppy?" I ask. You shake your head no. I settle into the chair with you and scroll through our usual favorites. "The bird? The cat? The baby? Yo Gabba Gabba?" I finally realize you want to watch the video of yourself doing something adorable. You know the one. Any of them.

I talked about it over here, but I'll say it here, too: sometimes I have a hard time with the parenting-of-two babies. Lately there is kind of a push and pull with us, Mad, and it kind of breaks my heart a little. Sometimes a lot. Some days you want nothing to do with me, and when I try to show you affection, you pull away, shake your head no, and (knife in the heart) run to your grandma. And that's okay - I understand that your grandma means a lot to you, and that when she's here it means that you are getting lots of one-on-one attention free of much discipline or rules. You get a bonafide playmate. And when it's just me around, you don't get that much of me, and definitely not as much as you are used to. Sometimes I pay more attention to Violet than you like, some days I am under the gun to get work done, some days the housework is piled so high that I can't see above it, and some days I am just so overwhelmed by it all that it seems like, at the end of the day, I didn't even stop to breathe.
But the thing I always stop to remember -- the one thing that I always do, without even thinking -- is how wonderful you are. You may be trekking down the hall behind me, screeching in dismay about how your efforts to do whatever have yet again been thwarted by the laws of physics, but I turn and there you are: this genuine little person, already kind of complicated, full of wants and needs that you are starting to communicate very effectively, and I am already just so proud of who you are that I can't stand it.
And two seconds after the screeching, you are sitting calmly in my lap, holding out your perfect little foot so I can put a shoe on it, or you're sitting trying so hard to lace up your shoe yourself.

Or you're singing along to "Walken," by Wilco in this cute little falsetto, or astounding me with a word I didn't know you knew ("air pay," you say when an airplane soars overhead. "skyyyy.") and already my day is filled with so much wonder that any irritation you throw at me suddenly seems kind of cute.

Usually.

In lieu of content

2007-10-03T22:40:00.000-07:00

Pictures! I don't know if you've heard this, but pictures can be worth 1,000 words -- so this post is actually burgeoning with content!

New Favorites

2007-09-18T20:36:00.000-07:00

Picture:

And video:

2007-09-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

It was this kind of day,

so we went to the park with Mad and Violet after dinner.

I'm telling you, she is a big girl now.

I almost can't stand it.

(Violet's take on an evening at the park is here).

2007-09-11T21:27:00.000-07:00

2007-09-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

Mad is quite the toddler these days. Today, for example, she threw her first toddler-sized tantrum, complete with high pitched screeching, tears, an arching back and a furiously shaking head. The problem? She wanted to continue being pushed in the swing as she had been for the past 30 minutes, and I decided it was time to go inside. Oh, the wailing. Then, once inside the house, she would wander around aimlessly, fine for one second, and then suddenly SCUH-REAMING again.

Another favorite pasttime of hers is to shake her head no and say "uh uh" at any and everything. The other day in the car, something was wrong with her (it wasn't obvious what, just that she was really, really discontent), and I was running through a list of options:

"Do you want a pretzel?"

"A drink?"

"Your ball?"

"A blanket?"

"To hear some tunes?"

"To shake your head no at everything I say?"

Each question was answered with a very definitive shaking of the head.

Thanks goodness there is a lot of awesomeness that comes with the toddler phase. Obviously, she dances a lot. This is a good, fun thing. Then, there is the counting. She COUNTS, people! I should probably put that in quotes: She "COUNTS," people!

It's with things that are similar. Say she has three balls in front of her. "Dee, dee, dee," she'll say, pointing at each one. Then she'll look at me. "Dee bahs!"

Yesterday she was sitting on the toilet, and I was showing her the pages of a magazine so she would sit longer. (No, we aren't potty training, really - she's just shown an interest in sitting on the toilet, so I oblige her when she wants that). She came across a picture of a watch. "Cocccccckhhh" she said, which is Mad-speak for "clock." Then her eyes lit up, and she pointed toward the door. "Coccccckhhh," she said again - she was referring to the clock on the wall in the bathroom, out of her field of vision. Then she looked down at the page. "Dee," she said, pointing at it. "Dee," she said again, pointing at the door. She looked at me. "Dee coccccckhhhs!"

She claps for us when we sit down on the toilet.

She tries to sing and moves her hands while she does it: "wahhh wahhh weeeee," she sang softly this morning, twisting her hand back and forth.

Today, when I took off her shoe to reveal the extremely dirty foot that was inside of it, she looked down at her foot and she LICKED IT. Where does that even come from?

When her sister cries, she says "uh oh" and goes to find the nearest adult.

Tonight in the bath, I said, "Oh, poor baby," in an exaggerated sympathetic tone, and in the exact same tone, she said, "oh puh baybeeeee"

She lets me grab her, press my cheek to hers and say, "I'm stuck!" and hold her there for as long as I can. I make a big show of getting her "unstuck," and she laughs.

Yesterday she wanted me to follow her into the other room, so she grabbed my leg and tried to pick me up.

There's so much more, but suffice it to say that my little toddler is about 100 times more sweet than she is sour. Now here's hoping that the 100 sweet/1 sour equation stays balanced for awhile.

She's only 19 months and she's out of control!

2007-09-04T19:41:00.000-07:00

DO THE PUPPET MASTER!

2007-08-28T22:00:00.000-07:00

It's a minute long, but you'll get the idea pretty quickly. In fact, you're probably good after the first 30 seconds.

Stuck.

2007-08-20T22:02:00.000-07:00

Mad's got an awesome new game. It stems from her getting various digits and limbs stuck in random places around the house. The digit or limb would get stuck in something, and she would try to remove herself. When she couldn't, she would emit a high pitched whine that clearly says, "Hey! Help! Frustrated over here!"

So I would walk up to her and say, "Are you stuck?" And unstick her.

A few days ago, she was playing the Collect Like Objects Around the House and Put Them in a Central Location, Then Remove the Objects One by One and Then Put Them All Back in the Chosen Central Location. Repeat. This time, the "central location" was our shower and she was putting balls in there. Suddenly, she sounded out The Whine and I turned to help.

"Are you stuck?" I asked her. She was standing by the shower door with a finger just near the hinge of the door. It look like she had closed her finger in the gap between the door and the shower tile. As I leaned down to remove her finger, she suddenly removed it - effortlessly - and stared at me with a blank expression. She held her hand up for me to see. When I looked, I saw that the gap where she had put her finger was so big there was no way her finger was stuck there.

I looked at her and laughed. "You weren't stuck, you little trickster!" And then she did her little snicker-laugh, the kind when she is very pleased with herself, and went about her business.

So now she does this all throughout the house, and today, she started saying "I stuck!" Her eyes are all wide when she does this, a big imperative behind them: help me! And then when I go to help her, she just calmly removes her hand.

Tonight she was fighting sleep at bedtime, talking and laughing to herself for a good 20 minutes before her happy noises changed to the "Get in here, something is terribly wrong" variety. When I went in there, she was laying down. I didn't immediately see the problem. "What's going on?" I asked her.

"I stuck," she said, and then I saw that she had lodged her foot between the rails - she was genuinely stuck this time. I helped her pull her foot out and she immediately started laughing. "Not stuck," I said to her, and she hugged her blanket close and dived into the mattress, giggling.

It was maybe the cutest I have ever seen her, and she was keeping me from dinner and "Greek," so that's saying a lot.

Mad takes her collection efforts to new heights, then loses her marbles over a puppy

2007-08-09T23:32:00.000-07:00

She's gone from collecting random things in one spot to collecting similar things in one spot. It started with ducks, removed one at a time and with much enthusiasm from the bathroom to her chair in the living room. Then she forgot about the ducks and now she's collecting balls. Watch for the careful placement of the pinkish-colored ball. Aw, my little OCD baby.

Then she hears the neighbor's dog bark and promptly forgets the balls, running to the back door and shouting "Puhpee! Eeees uh puhpee! Eh puhpee!" (Translated for the ear untrained in toddler-ese: "Puppy! It's a puppy! A puppy!") The tone as I interpret it: slightly pleading, wildly excited, a little conflicted. She loves the puppy, but how will she reach it and fully express her love? She just doesn't know.

She is one quirky kid

2007-08-07T22:12:00.000-07:00

When obsessions collide: the cat, ducks, the stuffed puppy and her need to collect things.More collection efforts. She was throwing a fit about that big beige-ish puppy not fitting how she wanted it to, so I wrapped its arms around the back and tied them together. She was pleased.
She's learned to climb up on the side of the bassinet and poke her sister in the eye while saying "eye." Then she waits for me to praise her. I do, but I also tell her to be gentle with her sister, which I'm sure she interprets as: "Next, Madeleine, you should try pulling her legs off."
She's teething, by the way, which I really don't need to ever announce because she is ALWAYS cutting a (expletive deleted) tooth. A few days ago I was wrestling with her in an attempt to get her to let me brush her teeth, and she bit down...and whoa, I won't be sticking my fingers into her reluctant maw anymore because you just never know where a tooth might be. (Hint: in the mouth. Shut up).
More obsessions collide: using the fork and the cat. It brought her great joy. We told her she couldn't eat the cat, which brought her even more joy.
A few days ago, I was doing laundry and she was playing in her sister's room, which is right next to the laundry room. I heard her chattering happily as she chased the cat around, then suddenly: silence. It took me awhile to figure out what she was up to:

Also: when did she get so big and grown? Look at her all walking up the driveway, all, hey, what's up, don't mind me, I'm just over here, walking up the driveway. I don't know.

Already with the attitude. The teen years are going to be AWESOME.

She wasn't happy

2007-07-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

I don't know, something about air molecules on her skin, OH THE AGONY.

Pictoral

2007-07-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

Earlier today, Mad and Violet were just hanging out. Mad was watching Baby Einstein and really enjoying it. See?

Violet was more interested in the grand spectacle that is her hand and the movement of her arm. Mad's like, "Wait. There's that squeaky thing again. I must go investigate."

And then she's like, "Wait. There's my puppy and a blanket and a duck over there."

And they all joined together in harmony.

Then Mad tried to step on Violet.

There was some disharmony then in which Mad cried and gestured to her sister repeatedly, making indecipherable noises. Then I figured it out that she wanted her sister GONE. I moved her. Harmony ensued.

Violet was replaced by balloons.

The puppy, blanket and duck were soon joined by a veritable treasure trove of crap. I kept trying to take a picture of the final pile of junk, but it just kept GROWING.

Until Mad joined the pile. Then she lost interest.

The end.

Changes

2007-07-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

Here's a big milestone: Mad is a big sister now! Her first introduction to her sister was marked with mild interest. She peered at her suspiciously, tried to poke her head and said "baby" very matter-of-factly.

The second time she met her, I was changing her diaper. Little sis didn't like it and sounded out a tiny, mewling cry. Mad meowed back at her, pointed at her and said "cat!"

She's still only mildly interested in the baby, peeking in on her every now and then and trying to poke her head or pat her softly, though I think the patting has more to do with the blanket covering her than anything else.

My preliminary hypothesis is that Mad is going to be an excellent big sister once she elevates the baby above "interesting object in the house" status. The baby is sort of the equivalent of a magazine with her, and nowhere near as cool as blueberries or cups. For example, this cup is maybe her favorite thing in the world right now:

If you'd like to meet Mad's new sister, of course we have started a blog for her. Meet Violet Elena.

AH HA HA HA HA

2007-07-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

I cannot look at this picture without cracking up. It was taken just after her delayed 15-month checkup (she's actually 17 months as of tomorrow), and she was very upset after three shots. The nurse asked if we're okay with her having a sucker, and I was like, "Uh....if you don't have a problem with it, then I don't."

I figured she could have it until she had forgotten about the shot trauma, but man, I'm stupid. She gnawed on that thing until it was gone, then she gnawed on the stick and then she cried when I took the stick away from her.

The receptionist gave her the sunglasses, and she actually left them on her face. I think she was in an altered state after the shots and all the sugar. She was probably seeing tracers.

And the technical details:

She is 33 inches long

And she weights 22 pounds, 10 ounces

And her head is still tiny, 17 inches. This puts her in the "less than 3rd percentile" for head circumferance.

The doc isn't worried about her tiny head since her dad has a tiny head and she is on target or well ahead of the developmental milestones they look for. She was particularly impressed with Mad's vocabulary, as am I considering I used to worry she would have language delays because she wasn't babbling like every other baby her age in the history of babies that were ever her age.

Today we were outside and she discovered caterpillars. "Caterpillar," I said, pointing to the fuzzy white things all over the neighbor's lawn. When she put it together that the fuzzy white thing was actually called "caterpillar," she would smile and chuckle when I pointed them out. After a minute, she crouched down and pointed. "Catpuhuh," she said. "Catpuhuh."

Then she solved some quadratic equations. The doc says that puts her in the 8th percentile for quadratic equation development. She's really lacking in the math department. (She gets that from me).

Late Father's Day Post

2007-06-19T20:00:00.000-07:00

A few nights ago, Madeleine woke up at about 3 in the morning, screaming her head off. This was a scary scream: kind of raw-edged and flatly terrified. Wayland and I woke up immediately. "Wow," he managed to say before she screamed again, and we both jumped out of bed.

Wayland is notoriously hard to get out of bed. Throw a copperhead next to him and he will snooze peacefully as though they were old bedfellows. This is an ongoing tiff between us almost every single morning. Me: GET UP. Him: ehhhh...??? ZZzzzZZZzzz Repeat infinitely, but add curse words and physical prodding on my part. I am nothing if not a sweetheart first thing in the morning.

But at the sound of Mad's second scream? He tore down the hall in his underwear, far more quickly than even I (the notorious pushover) thought was necessary and yelled out, "MADELEINE!" in a gentle, happy tone, as though they were playing a friendly game of hide and seek. A tone meant to reassure: Hey, no worries, I am here, and I'm trying to find you.

"SHHHHH!" I hissed loudly as I trailed behind him. "Keep it quiet so we can get her back down!"

He opened the door and scooped her up, and she quieted immediately. "It's okay," he whispered softly to her as she curled into his arms. "Little girl..."

I think Mad was having a bad dream, because we did not find any goblins lurking in her room, waiting eagerly to take her off to Goblin City, where the Goblin King would keep her forever and ever in his castle as he and the goblins sing "Dance Magic Dance" (though how much fun would THAT be?!)

After Mad was calm and we got her back into the crib, Wayland and I sat in bed, wide awake. "I think you were more freaked out by that scream than I was," I said, lightly teasing.

His eyes were wide. "I've just never heard her like that," he said. "I just wanted to make sure she was okay."

It's that, right there. The way he jumped out of bed and bolted down the hall in his underwear, the way he yelled her name before he opened the door, the way he scooped her into his arms and whispered softly to her: these aren't decisions he makes at 3 in the morning when he is jolted out of his beloved sleep by his daughter's screams. These decisions stem from one he made a long time ago, rested firmly in his heart: I love this girl and I will do anything to make sure she is okay. Every decision he has made for her since then is just instinct, love and devotion in action.

I told him this on Father's Day, and I meant it: I never had a relationship with my own father, and it wasn't really ever a big deal. How could it be? I didn't even know what I was missing. I didn't know what a father's role would be in a daughter's life, how important it could be. But seeing Wayland with Madeleine makes me realize that a father's role can be everything to a daughter. I know what I missed not having a dad around, but that's okay, because I see it and experience it every single day now.

Random Updates

2007-06-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

Mad is painting now, and this is her first masterpiece. Her technique is stellar. It involves dipping a single finger into the paint, delicately swirling it onto the paper, then eating the paint. There's another, larger print that she actually stepped on; she then tracked her footprints across it and the dining room floor. I think this was part of her artistic statement - railing against the confines of the established art world and the rules of society that dictate keeping floors clean.She's also been enjoying her Baby Einstein videos, particularly the numbers one. It has all of her favorite things to say these days: ducks (a crisp, clear "duck!"), apples ("ap ap"), puppies ("puh pay"), cats ("caaahtuh") and cows (she doesn't actually say "cow" because everything that isn't a duck is a cat in her world, but she does moo when she sees a cow).
Please note that she is wearing the cutest dress ever. Also, she is clutching a stuffed cow that was given to her by a random family at Six Flags because she charmed them by waving and laughing and yelling "BEH!" at them (because they had basketballs they won) and they just "wanted to give her something." I'm totally bragging here. Stop me. It's gross.

Please also note the stuffed animal (a puppy) wearing a diaper just to the right of her waistband in the picture. My Top Secret Evil Plan to Getting Madeleine to Do What I Want Her to Do is to do whatever it is to the puppy first. It totally works. Lately diaper changes have been roughly the equivalent, for me, of bathing a rabid squirrel (What? You haven't done this?), but when I change the puppy's diaper first, she's all about it. And last night she ate dinner, all because I fed dinner to the puppy first. I win a parenting award now, right? Yes?

And lastly, it appears Madeleine is allergic to mosquito bites. These things take a looooong time to heal, too. I tried to take a good picture of what the last bite has done to her (on her wrist), but it was hard. I couldn't quite get Madeleine, the camera, and the lighting in the kitchen to cooperate, but maybe these two pictures will give you an approximation of the size and angry redness.

And because I couldn't end on the mosquito bite note, here is one of her being really effing cute. Pardon my language. (Eff! I am so shocking).

Summer Lovin' Had Me a Blast

2007-06-06T20:49:00.000-07:00

It's just like the song, minus the star-crossed lovers plotline. So, you know, just the part about summer loving. But not, like, loving that happens during the summer, but actual love of summer. And...it's not technically summer yet, is it? So. Nothing like the song, really. Nonetheless!

Told you...

2007-06-05T07:53:00.000-07:00

"My Name is Jonas" is HUGE around here.

2007-05-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today was one of those days, you know the kind, when your toddler has decided that there are few things worse than actual existence on the planet and spends the entire day glued to your leg, tugging on your pants and uttering low moans of frustration when you don't pick her up within 2.2 seconds. This is a feat made all the more impossible when you are 30 weeks pregnant, if you didn't already know. I evaluate all my tasks based on how many times I will have to bend over or crouch down. If it is more than once? It is not worth doing.

And should you attempt to walk away to, you know, maybe use the bathroom because the incubating baby has decided that your bladder is Public Enemy #1 and is attempting to choke the life out of it, oh the wrath you will suffer. Which isn't really wrath, actually. More of a high pitched whine complete with fake tears and clenched fists.

The day was "trying," is the word I'm looking for. Trying.

Around 3:30 I gave up on the idea of getting any work done while Mad was awake and sat down with her on the floor. That's how much I love that girl, because you know what sitting on the floor means, don't you? It means getting back up again. "F-U-S-S-Y, you ain't got no alibi, you're FUSSY!" I sang to her. "Yeah, yeah, you're FUSSY!" She stared at me dubiously.

"Let's read a book," I tried. I grabbed the Tigger book, one of her favorites. "Tigger LOVES to bounce," I read. "He bounces to Pooh's house, where there is honey -- " I was cut short when Madeleine grabbed the book from my hand and closed it before tossing it to the side. She continued staring at me blankly.

"So," I said. "Um...what do you want to do?" I said this in a pleasant tone, like I was so excited to hear what she might say.

Blank stare.

"Uh...do you want a cookie?" I asked her. This usually gets her excited, complete with flapping arms and her version of the word "cookie," which is a gurgle full of "key" and "kuh" sounds.

"UUUUUUUUUUHHHHH," she grunted out, grasping desperately at my shirt in an attempt to get me to pick her up. I held her in my lap, but she wanted UP, and I was not getting up with her in my arms - my knees are bearing enough weight these days, thankyouverymuch.

"Well, Mad," I said. "Let's...let's go find a duck!" I said excitedly. She has a thing for ducks these days. "No? What about a song? Let's listen to a song!" I got up and played "My Name is Jonas," which has been her favorite song of late.

She stared at me for a minute and then scrunched up her face, getting ready to cry.

A change of pace was in order.

I put her in a swim diaper, slathered her in sunscreen, put her water shoes on her, grabbed some bath toys, and took her outside - where I proceeded to clean out our cheapie plastic kid's pool and fill it with cold water from the hose.

She was immediately fascinated, crouching down to splash her hands in the water.

Next door, the teenagers were in their actual, real swimming pool, listening to trendy music at full blast and being generally loud. When that long percussion intro to "My Love" by Justin Timberlake came on, Mad broke into a smile, laughed, and started dancing.

She climbed into the pool with no prompting from me, and was so excited when I threw a rubber duck in. "Duck!" she shrieked. "DUCK DUCK DUCK!" I aimed the water hose in a high arc above the pool and she held her hands high above her head, like she was trying to catch the water. She got out of the pool and ran to edge of the waterfall, where the drops were fatter and more forceful, and yell-babbled as they hit her. Then she ran back into the pool. And out again. She did this several times, her little feet slipping in the mud a few times. She got good and joyously dirty.

The neighbors behind us let their dogs out and they immediately came to the fence and started barking. Madeleine ran over to the fence where one of the dogs had its snout pressed through a small hole. "RUH RUH RUH RUH RUH," she yelled at them, barking back. When the dogs stopped barking, she stopped. When they started again, she started again. This made her very happy.

It was hot and I was sweating profusely, but it felt good. I raised my face to the sun and soaked the feeling in. I realized while we were out there that it had been a really long time since I remembered what summer is for: hot sun and music, being outside, the thrill of cold water, getting dirty, the joy of children. Thank you, Madeleine, for reminding me of that. It was a really good day.

I didn't take any pictures while we were out there, but here is one of her being insanely adorable. Because what would a post here be without the pictures? NO POST AT ALL.

2007-05-29T22:30:00.000-07:00

I was going to do a substantial post, something about Mad's first temper tantrum, but look at that, I have gone and let it get late and stuff! And I am tired. So instead you get pictures of Madeleine eating a peach. Quite a change from her first taste of peach.

Or maybe not quite so different.

Birth Story, v.2

2007-05-18T19:42:00.000-07:00

When I try to write Madeleine’s birth story, a real and proper birth story that is sentimental and touching and one that somehow adequately displays the enormity of the event – entire lives changing, the birth of one amazing human being – and not a story that makes the reader cringe in horror, I find myself with an embarrassing lack of words. Breath taking, amazing, incredible, beautiful, awe-inspiring, empowering: all of these words fit, but all of them seem too overdone to really work.
The truth is that I wasn’t really feeling those things on February 3, before, while or even after Madeleine was born. My mind was curiously blank and unable to grasp the enormity of what was happening to us: to me, my husband, my body, and to the little girl that was about to see the world for the first time, the little girl who was about to hear her first unfiltered sound. I couldn’t step back and appreciate the big picture because I was too mired in the details and concerned about getting it right. Too concerned with the next steps: Oh, wow, I’m contracting. Now what? I guess we time them. Okay, next? I guess we go to the hospital. Right! I am definitely in labor. This baby is coming today – what? Let’s shove that thought aside and focus on the next thing. Getting hooked up to monitors, calling family, nervous chatter, getting the blessed epidural. Oh, okay, time to push. I can do this. Push! Push! Push! For 45 minutes and then whoa, here she is. And then I wasn’t thinking about how to feel when I saw her; my brain was still stuck on autopilot. Okay, now I get to hold her. She’s pretty! I can’t believe this is my baby – oh, wait, get rid of that thought because now I have to figure out this breastfeeding thing. And so on and so on.
I really admire the women who have the sudden surge of emotion when the baby comes out, who cry when they see their little ones for the first time, great gasping sobs and fat tears as they cuddle their babies close and promise to love them forever. Does this only happen in movies? Certainly, if I had the perspective then to really appreciate what was happening, I would have cried like that. I would have instinctively held my baby close and touched her tiny face, whispered something to her, promised to love and protect her forever.
But just because I wasn’t cognizant of those feeling doesn’t mean they weren’t there. It’s just that my helpful little brain, I think, was holding me back from a great big, old- fashioned emotional meltdown. Even in the detachment, though, I still remember so clearly what it was like after they took her away from me for the first time. When she was being passed around the room from family member to family member, and they poured so much love on her – I was eyeing each person anxiously. Not because I thought they would hurt her, drop her or something, but because she wasn’t with me. It just wasn’t right.

And when the nurses took her from my arms to do nurse-y things with her, my arms felt strange and empty.
Later, after I was settled into the recovery room and they brought her to me, I held her in my arms, trying to get to know her. She started rooting around, moving her mouth in that suckling motion, so I thought I needed to feed her. And I couldn’t do it. She wouldn’t latch and she started to get upset – upset for her, which is to say she wasn’t really that upset. But to me, it was terrible. Every cell of my body was yelling, this is what you need to do, so DO it, and I just couldn’t make it work. I called the nurse’s station, fighting back tears, to ask for help. The nurse said she would send someone in.
So I waited and waited and then I started crying while Wayland tried to calm me down and tell me it was going to be fine. I think I choked out a sob, “But she needs me and I can’t give her what she needs and what am I supposed to do?” At that moment, it was the most terrifying feeling.

I buzzed the nurse again, but she said it would be awhile – shift change or something – so I gave a resigned sigh and sniffled some more and tried to feed her again. And she did it. Madeleine latched on like a champ and suddenly all that frustration, that creeping sense of desperation faded back, and it felt okay. She was nestled into my arms and eating contentedly, and I settled awkwardly back against the pillows. “It’s a weird feeling,” I said to my husband with a smile, and by “weird,” I meant that it was the strangest and most wonderful thing in the world. It meant everything to me to be able to provide her some measure of peace and calm, and right then I had my moment. It came to me all at once, a certainty that it was going to be this way from now on: strange and wonderful, everything that’s important in the universe wrapped up in this little body curled so trustingly against me.

It was the best and day of my life so far.

Madeleine and Danny = BFF

2007-05-11T22:25:00.000-07:00

"Danny," she says. "I tackle and climb you because I LOVE you. Just ACCEPT IT, okay? It will be much easier for all of us."

Danny seems reluctant to accept her affection, though.

When she's not gnawing on his head

2007-04-28T09:20:00.000-07:00

She's dancing to his music.

2007-04-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

Mad is 732 elephants of wonderful these days, even though her bottom incisors seem to be bothering way more than any of her other teeth did. She's....uh....displeased with these incisors, to say the least.

But the cuteness prevails. For example, she LOVES shoes. She finds them and crouches down and sets the shoes on top of her feet, or sits and kind of holds them up to her feet, trying to figure it out. Then, when she can't, she carries the shoes to me and hands them off, looking at me plaintively until I put them on her. Gah! It is the cutest thing! It kills! Just like this picture.

Awwwww. There's a lot more, really (of course), but there is a kitchen to be cleaned! Onward and upward! Or at least five feet to the left.

My kid is so awesome

2007-04-20T16:30:00.000-07:00

This cracks me up. If it doesn't crack YOU up, you may be dead inside. (Listen to the sound 'cos the whole thing is that she's DANCING! Dancing to music that is so cheesy and undeniably catchy that you have to love it, and if you don't love it, you may be dead inside again). (If you don't laugh, and you also don't love the music, do the deaths cancel themselves out so that you become ALIVE? Or are you just double-dead?)

(Holy crap, I'm going to write a screenplay RIGHT NOW called Double Dead, and if I can get Bruce Campbell to star in it, so much the better).

(I am full of good ideas).

Where was I? Oh right, the dancing baby. Good stuff.

Try to ignore my gasping, barely stifled laughter. I sound sort of like I'm dying, but I don't know what the cause would be...I'm certainly not double dead. (Note to self: dialogue for screenplay. This baby is writing itself).

Things my baby does that charm me

2007-04-06T17:00:00.000-07:00

1. If I ask her where the phone is, she goes to the charger and reaches up for it.

2. If I recite a line from one of her favorite books, she'll go find that book. Sometimes she'll open it up to the appropriate page and yell at it.

3. If I say "la" she says "la la la la la la" back.

4. She looks really cute all the time.

5. She says "bye" when she sees that someone is getting ready to leave the house or when she wants to go outside.

6. She says "kitty," (keekee) "turtle," (tuttuttut) "ball," (bah) and "yoda." (yodyodyod)

7. In the morning when we get her out of the crib, she likes to growl at us.

8. When I ask her if she wants down when I'm holding her, she immediately and eagerly tries to force her body downward.

9. At night just before her bath, she likes to go on this crazy, drunken tear through the house, rolling around on the floor and laughing for no reason at all. If I approach her, she slams her limbs down on the ground simultaneously and shrieks with laughter.

10. During that stupid talky part in "Oops I Did it Again," she stops what she's doing and starts yelling and babbling along with the talking. Or she just smiles a lot. Either way, it gets her attention.

11. In Jeff Tweedy's "The Thanks I Get," when we sing the "we can make it better" part, she smiles hugely and chuckles.

There are probably a million more, but I'll stop there. I just wanted to document some of them because...I dunno. It seemed like the thing to do.

(You can't tell because of the shadow by her head, but she's got the phone up to her ear as though she was chatting with someone. Also, do you love her outfit? I know I do. You'd think she dressed herself or something, or maybe her dad did, but no, it was me).

Poor JT

2007-04-05T20:07:00.000-07:00

Somewhere, Justin Timberlake is earnestly trying to explain the strange headache he's been having: "I'm telling you, man, it feels like someone is gnawing on my head!"

"Man, that is whack," his friend says. "You should see a doctor or something!"

And so he does, and the doctor tells him: "There's nothing wrong with you! All you crazy celebrities are the same! After the drugs. I would have thought more of you, JT. I would have thought more."

Then Justin goes home, feeling weird, like maybe he is crazy, and in a moment of self doubt, he calls up his pals from NSYNC and begs them to reunite. And then they do, and he loses all his new musical credibility. And it's all because of Madeleine.

Before and After

2007-03-29T20:01:00.000-07:00

I should dress her up more often, really

2007-03-21T18:22:00.000-07:00

2007-03-15T23:20:00.000-07:00

There's a great playground down the street from our house, but we hadn't taken Mad to it yet. First, because she was too young to really enjoy it, then because the weather was cold and yicky and maybe I'm just lazy. But lately the weather has been mostly sublime, and today, we hit that playground.

Mad loves it. The bigger kids ran like little heathens and she stared in awe, laughing and cackling at them while she clung to my legs. Then she loosened up and walked around, exploring. If something startled her, she'd bolt for my legs again and cling, still peering at whatever it was that startled her with great curiosity. Once her curiosity overcame her, she'd venture back out without even looking back.

She was also really excited about the birds outside. She'd stare and make her weird jabbering noises that make her sound kind of possessed and say, "BUH BUH BUH" a lot while clenching her little fists into my shirt. Two blackbirds were fighting (or perhaps...something else...) and it was quite the impressive display, all fluttering wings and squawking as they tumbled out of a tree and to the ground. Mad really really liked that.

Also, it turns out I am inept at befriending other moms. I'm supposed to do that, right? So Mad can have playdates? And I am not suffocated by the isolation of motherhood? Ah, but perhaps that is a topic for....well....not the internet.

We brought the camera because I thought there would be tons of photo ops, but it turns out I mostly just enjoyed the playground with her. We did get a few pics in just as she started to get really interested, though. First, the clinging, then hey, this is cool, then see ya!

Picture Extravaganza!

2007-03-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

2007-03-06T22:33:00.000-08:00

The sickness is almost gone! There is still a little coughing, a little nose crustiness, but with that little bit of no good there is a lot of good humor and fun, lots of Mad laughing and dancing again, lots of moments that make me grab her and squeeze her and say, "I LOVE HER SO MUCH," like an idiot. She's fun to squeeze and love.

Aww.

She gave that nastiness to me, though, and for that I am a little bitter.

Moving on. Did you know that the worst thing in the whole wide world, the most AWFUL thing you could do to your child in the history of awful things, is to place her on the changing table and clean feces from her bottom? It's true. See?

After about the 400th time of this happening, I took a picture. I was driven to document it and I'm not sure why. I'm sure it will come in handy some day.

Oh, but this is supposed to be the happy stuff. Well, she is a very quirky kid lately. Exhibit A:

There's no Exhibit B. I guess I haven't been taking enough pictures lately. But lots of videos. Videos forthcoming. In the interim, here is an AWWWW picture for you:

AWWWWW.

Talk of a sick baby ahead, read at your own risk

2007-02-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

This picture in no way adequately displays the misery of the last three days or so here in the House of Mad. I told myself all week, "she's getting a cold." And then when the cold came and it seemed maybe a little worse than a normal cold, I told myself I was being paranoid. Then, all day Sunday, Madeleine was extremely fussy and out-of-sorts, moaning softly to herself every few minutes, refusing to let go of me about 85 percent of the time, and crying with little provocation (Aaaa! I dropped my sippy cup! SOB! That ball rolled away from me! WOE! Mom put me down for .2 seconds so she could pour me some milk! MISERY SHALL REIN UPON THE EARTH!).

Monday brought awful coughing fits. And after each cough, she would grimace, then screech in pain. If it was really bad, she'd just cry, big fat tears pouring down her face. There was much snot and watery eyes and a faint red rim was forming around both of those cute little peepers. Oh, and the diarrhea! Lots of that!

Of course there has been little sleeping.

This morning brought a coughing fit that seemed to stretch on forever, during which she threw up great gobs of phlegm and other nastiness three different times. The rings around her eyes were deeply red and the dried snot and boogers had formed this permanent mask of crustiness that Madeleine seems very fond of, judging by her screams of protest as I tried to clean her cheeks and nose. She walked from the bathroom into the bedroom, all of about six feet, and began breathing heavily. Her chest rattled. "It's just a cold," I whimpered as I dialed the doctor's office to make an appointment.

All the way to doctor's office, I just knew he'd lecture us about how common colds are, and how she's going to get 100 more, and hey, did you try a humidifier? What about lots of fluids? The aspirator? YES, DOCTOR. I'M NOT GIVING YOU MONEY FOR THIS. (Did I mention we are without insurance until this Friday, when my husband's probationary period at his new job ends? Our sicknesses and pregnancies are awesomely timed).

After a brief and traumatizing visit, in which I held Madeleine's hands down and the doctor pinned her head to the side as he peered into her ears and pulled out wax and Madeleine screamed and screamed and screamed, peering up at me with this look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes, desperately ignoring my weak attempts at soothing her, we found that Madeleine has an upper respiratory infection as well as an ear infection and a red and inflamed throat from all the coughing.

All this to say that now we are equipped with some medicine and she should be well on the road to recovery. Tonight at dinner, I even managed to get her to eat more than a few bites AND she even smiled a bit when I sang to her. She is so cute and it is SO SAD when she is sick. I can't wait for my little girl to feel better.

(And also? If you are tempted to say something like, "Well, maybe your daughter wouldn't get so sick if you would stop LETTING HER PLAY IN THE TOILET, IDIOT," I'll have you know she was already sick when I let her do that. I think the sickness comes from the fact that I let her crawl around the floor at the back of Target last weekend. What? WHAT?!)

(And another thing? I have always been this level of awesome as a parent, and the last time Madeleine needed antibiotics was LAST MAY. That seems like a good stretch of not being too sick, yes? I thought so).

(Wow, I'm defensive, huh?)

Little known sign of potty training readiness

2007-02-24T08:11:00.000-08:00

Hee. See what I did there? It's the letter P. She P'd in the toilet! I didn't even set this up. We were both in the bathroom, and while I was trying to wrangle some sense into my new Tim Burton-esque hair, Madeleine toddled off into the toilet room. Then I heard her laughing hysterically. And lo, she had selected the letter P from the side of the bathtub and dropped it into toilet bowl.
I am an AWESOME mother because I let her pick it up and throw it back in several times, all the while laughing at her because she found the whole thing so darned funny, which made her think it was even funnier. So yes. I let my daughter play in the toilet this morning. Then I took pictures. And posted them on the internet.

2007-02-21T19:10:00.000-08:00

I'm a-walkin'

She's really getting the hang of it! Also, sound is good on this one, if only because she goes from very upset to really, really happy in about 3 seconds. Of course I'm biased, but I think it's...I don't want to overstate this...I think it is the CUTEST THING IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD EVER.

One year and four days

2007-02-07T20:25:00.000-08:00

The amount of growth and change my little baby has gone through this past year is incredible, but lately, it is downright astounding. I am apparently one of those sentimental mom-types who counts down the days to her daughter's first birthday by remembering her birth and thinking about how far we've all come since then. (Maybe we're all that way?)
She started out as this gorgeous little lump who slept and ate and pooped and already had the ability to take my breath away. I started out as a bewildered, confused and unsure parent who had a hard time breathing because the daughter, she was so beautiful and the reality of her was just so overwhelming.
Then I started to find my footing and so did she. She grew and every day brought a new joy. It was hard, but nothing seems that hard when you look at her innocent little face. I could be on the verge of crumbling, of slamming my fists into a wall and screaming, "I CAN'T DO THIS, I'M AWFUL AT THIS," but then I'd look at her sweet self and some of that frustration and fear and insecurity would just ease away because hey. I can pull myself together for this. She's worth it. She's worth everything.

Most recently, the joy is astounding; it knocks me off my feet every day, several times a day. Her very existence is like the first warm spring day after a long, cold and wet winter, and the perfect song playing and the house is clean and all your work is done and you've got enough money to go shop if you want, but it's so gorgeous you spend the day outside, playing in the grass. You can shop tomorrow. That is the feeling of Madeleine.
How could you not feel that way, being in the presence of someone who finds such utter delight and unabashed happiness at every little thing? Madeleine loves music, which I love to see. When I carry her to the computer to play a song in iTunes, she positively shrieks with excitement and she grabs my shirt in her little fists and pulls hard because she's just that thrilled with the prospect of music. Her first favorite song? "Sir Duke" by Stevie Wonder. Then "Dance to the Music" by Sly and the Family Stone. Her musical tastes have grown to include all sorts of music, and it is the best thing ever to watch the smile on her face as she bops her head up and down to the beat or does these repetitive squat-things (her version of dancing). But it's more than that: you'll be listening to an album, and any tune with a good beat gets her excited -- but when the song fades, she's equally excited. The music was here and now it's not. Then she gets to feel that anticipation all over again as she waits for the next song to start.

She gets it right now, what it means to enjoy life. She loves the moments that reach out and grab her, make her heart race and her body move, but she also loves the moments in between, the quiet little spaces that swell so big because you know the next great thing is coming up soon.
It's sad to think that we lose that at some point, that life knocks you down enough to where you stop looking for it, and just let it happen to you. It's a valuable lesson she's teaching me every day, and I am better for it. The least I can do is work to help her retain some sense of that as she grows. It's all I could want for her, really.

Happy Birthday to Mad

2007-02-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

Who knew that throwing a kid's first birthday party was something like running a marathon with 10 pound weights strapped to your ankles and a full grown man strapped to your back?
Yes. I'm very tired. But it was fun! [insert sappy stuff here, too tired for sentimental stuff. maybe tomorrow].

2007-01-29T16:49:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I parked Madeleine in front of the Baby Einstein video she loves so much so I could get a few things done in the kitchen. During one of my periodic peek-ins to make sure she was okay and not challenging the cat to another death match (he's got teeth, so she always loses, yet she just won't give up), I found her like so:
Standing up! By herself! In the middle of the floor! Though I have seen her stand on her own before, it's usually when she has pulled up on something and then let go for a tentative moment before she lurches to her knees or back into whatever was propping her up before. I grabbed the camera quickly and quietly, so she wouldn't be alerted to my presence and plop down to the floor again.

I snapped the above picture, and then, as the camera was...I don't know, thinking about keeping the picture or something, the little girl took a step forward. Then another. And one more!

My mouth dropped open, then I bolted out of the kitchen into the living room, at which point she fell to the floor and looked at me like, eh? What's the big deal?

It was awesome.

Madeleine and Pineapple

2007-01-25T21:11:00.000-08:00

I am working on a super-sappy impending first birthday post, but until that is done, here is something maybe even better. Madeleine eating a hunk of pineapple. I am all about the compelling blog content these days. I mean, really. Besides, you people only come here for the pictures anyway, right?

My first job is to entertain her...

2007-01-21T21:33:00.000-08:00

That's right. I have two full-time jobs. The second one is easy. I leave around 1 or 2 pm everyday, watch people work for a while, try and create a positive work environment while pretending to do important stuff, go home and waste time for a while before I crash.

But... I also get up every morning, ussually around 6 to 6:30 (whatever time the Bean gets up) to greet her. I make her bottle and take her in to her mom and we have a little family time. Sometimes I bring breakfast and we all eat. After the bottle I take her out of the bedroom for playtime, which usually entails my watching her crawl about the house saying Da-Da-Da-Da, and Ca-ie (which I think will eventually be Kitty) -she chases the cat, while I'm trying my best not to nodd off. After an hour and a half of this I put her down for nap and ussually go back to sleep.

When she wakes back we'll both greet her, do the change thing, and feed her breakfast. Then it's my job to watch her until its time for her second nap so her mom can get work done. I put her down again, eat lunch, then head off to my second job.

Payday at my second job comes every two weeks.
Payday at my first job comes everytime she laughs.

Wasn't that cheesy? Well I could have included lyrics to a particular 80's rock ballad, but I didn't. The truth is, it's not easy doing this every day, but I wouldn't have it any different. Some people think I'm wierd for perfering 2nd shift, but I love my schedule. I have the amazing opportunity to be with my daughter for several hours every day, and that makes my life near perfect. Plus... no traffic!

So, new letter to Madeleine:

Madeleine (I know you think your name is "Little Girl'), I was just thinking today about the days when we couldn't feed you peas. You'd give us a nasty face just before pushing it out. Today you're just bored.

You had just finished a large bottle, so maybe that was the reason. Tried to liven things up by playing your favorite songs, Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke," and "Dance to the Music," by Sly and the Family Stone, only to moderate success. I have to say though that you have turned into an awesome eater! You'll eat anything we'll through your way -it doesn't even have to be food. By the way, thank you for reminding me the child-proof device had broken under the sink... and for NOT ingesting the Comet cleanser that was spilled on the floor before I could get to you (and also for cleaning the kitchen floor you little helper).

This is you during lunch a few days ago. Just another one of those times where none of us are exactly sure whats so funny but nonetheless will not stop laughing over it. Or you could ask the question of who here is laughing at who?

Sometimes peas do that...

Once again, my first job is to entertain you. So we often have dinner theater. I should also mention lately how we cannot eat anything around you without giving you a bite -and you're pretty insistant, especially when there's people around. Baked potato, ice cream, soup; you can't wait to eat the same things we do... wait till you taste what REAL lasagna tastes like! But in the meantime, sleep well, and I'll see you in five hours.

Love, your dad

Madeleine teaches Yoda about the Force.

2007-01-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

Yes, we have a life-sized Yoda in our house.

No, I do not want to talk about it.

Lessons in No

2007-01-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

Madeleine is obsessed with the cat's water dish. She likes to crawl over to it, grab the bowl and flip it over. Water! All over the place! And boy does she love it.

I think part of what makes her love it is that any time she goes to the water dish, I tell her no. Firmly. She gets very focused on her target, though, and doesn't even register that she hears me. So I'll clap my hands together when I say no or say her name loudly, and sometimes all three. This has the effect of 1) startling her and 2) making her laugh.

Recently it hit her: Oh. She means business. And so now she doesn't laugh, but she gets this tentative smile on her face before she reaches for the bowl again.

Yesterday she was slyly making her way over to the water dish while I was trying to get some work done. I turned around just in time to do the NO triumverate. She pulled her hand away, then reached for the bowl again. Repeat. We repeated this process three times before she ignored the big NO altogether and quickly snatched the bowl, knocking it over.

Little stinker.

I went to her and looked her in the eyes, as much as her darting little gaze and flailing limbs would allow. "NO," I said firmly. "We don't play with the cat's water dish." She skittered out of my arms over to a toy near the water dish. I sat and watched her, waiting for the inevitable trek back to the water dish.

Two seconds later she was going for it again, without even a glance in my direction. As she reached, I clapped my hands. "NO, Madeleine," I said. Her hand hesitated. Wavered in the air. She kept reaching slowly, making this odd sound of torment the whole time, a big, "ehhhh uhhhh eeeeeeh" groaning of frustration. It was like she was compelled to reach for the dish even though she knew I didn't want her to. "MADELEINE," I said again as she began reaching for it with renewed vigor. She responded with the "eeeeeeeee uhhhhhh" noise.

THEN WHAT DID MY LITTLE PUMPKIN DO? She grabbed the dish and knocked it over again.

So. Lessons in No. Madeleine 1, Mom 0.

Super Duper-Sized Picture Post

2007-01-11T17:04:00.000-08:00

Christmas morning, thoroughly unimpressed with the proceedings:

We should have started with the rubber duck, I guess.Or with her very own pile of cheerios.

The day after Christmas, playing with a toy her grandma gave her.

Here she indulges in her favorite pasttime, tugging at my pants and making demanding "uuuuh" noises of frustration until I pick her up. It's charming. Truly.

If I chew gum and blow a bubble, Madeleine wants to put her mouth on the bubble. She gets very excited about this.

And then there is the deep, lasting love of the Baby Einstein video, Discovering Seasons-- especially the end where the puppets dance to the upbeat song.

And one more, from our outing to the yard yesterday. I'd post more, but you know, Ugly Betty is on.

Madeleine vs. any cat

2007-01-06T22:57:00.000-08:00

A post from Dad:

Mad's got the inside scoop on our cat. She knows he's been declawed, and that there's something missing between the hind legs (well, she might not know that). She knows that he generally stays in the same place all day long and sleeps more than she does. Yeah, he weighs like two of her, but soon enough that won't be the case -she’s got a good grip and a “grease lightning” crawl. So she knows she can hold her own with this tubbo. Of course this cat knew the night we brought the Bean home that he’d been demoted. However, I fear Danny has given our daughter a skewed perception of what a cat actually is. Hence the video. It’s a good thing we don’t keep guns in the house…

Madeleine yells at the cat

I can say she made a honest effort to try and make friends with the cat, but when the cat didn't respond things got pretty ugly. We had to cut the video short because of all the obscenities. She grabbed the heaviest thing she could find (a plastic suction) and demanded we open the back door so she could rush the feline. She counted to ten and cooled off, but I guess the cat got the message because it hasn't come back since. Then Madeleine put out a very Andy Kaufman-like announcement that in a cage match she'd take on any cat. It's probably my fault for showing her Rocky I instead of the "Baby Einstein" video she normally sees. No offers yet, but she's been beating up on Danny all week.

"how many cows does this farm have?"

2007-01-06T22:53:00.000-08:00

A post from Dad:

Madeleine... these days you are not really concerned about where things go, but removing things is another story. Really I see your point; what good are toys if they are put up on a shelf? And whouldn't it distort the natural balance of things in this house if there was nobody to mess things up after we clean? So as you make your way into every open door, the tables shelves must be entirely emptied of anything within reach.

Here we see you cycling through blocks; a game that could seemingly go on forever. The payoff is at the very end.

Madeleine and her incredible focus

Silly girl. So, thank you for restoring balance to our home! And keep working on that arm. Love, Dad.

Hey, look! It's the 100th post. That's some kind of milestone!

2007-01-06T07:38:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to show off Mad's new leg warmers. They are AWESOME.

Pardon the mess. We were dismantling Christmas.

2007-01-03T20:33:00.000-08:00

When babies are little, all you can really do is get pictures of them sleeping, right? Then they get older and they move around a lot and the last thing you want to do is take a picture of them sleeping because WHAT IF THEY WAKE UP? WHAT THEN?

But I realized that I hadn't documented Madeleine's preferred sleeping position, one she developed as she got older and learned that whole self-comforting thing. It's the fetal position, really, but stomach down. For a while she would sleep with her face straight down, too, which freaked me out to no end. She's mastered the whole turning-her-head-to-the-side thing now, though, so all is good.

I took a picture during her nap the other day:

If I have to go to her during the night, she tries to find that position in my arms, hiking her legs up underneath her and burying her head straight down into my chest. And when she's trying to get to sleep, if I peek at her through the door, she'll be silently rooting around in her crib, sitting up on her knees and then diving head-first into the mattress, all the while pulling her knees up underneath her as far as she can.

Something about this just kills me. In that mushy-tender-oh-my-god-she's-amazing way. I don't want to get all sentimental here, because that's totally not me (ha. ha ha ha. ha. riiight), but when I think about it, I just want to scoop her up into my arms and let her sleep against me all night. It's this overwhelming feeling of protectiveness. There's just something so innocent and a little sad about it, my little girl alone in her crib, learning how to be on her own, finding the position that gives her comfort.

I know it's all part of the parenting thing, kids gotta learn self-suffiency blah blah blah, but dang. She's only 11 months old (today!) and it's true what they say. This first year has been a single breath, a single blink. I can't believe how big she is, but when I peek at her during her naps and see her in that position, she's still so teeny and sweet. Gah.

One time she shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

2006-12-30T11:19:00.000-08:00

Sweet and Sour

2006-12-27T20:34:00.000-08:00

Madeleine, you are a mass of contradictions lately. One minute you are the sweetest, loveliest thing that ever graced the earth, and the next you are royally pissed because I just took something from you that you shouldn't have (like the lid to the Aquaphor bottle, fished out of your mouth as sudsy drool started pouring from your lips).

See, you have just started throwing temper tantrums. You actually had your first one today, and oh, it was a sight to behold. I was trying to call your grandma when you snatched the phone from my hands and started pressing buttons. When I took the phone from you, you let out this awful squawk, and your face crumpled. Your lower lip curved downward and twin fat tears came pouring out of both eyes and rested on your reddening cheeks. It was so dramatic and so cute that I just didn't know what to think. Laugh? Comfort you? Give you back the phone? Instead, I handed you my wallet to gnaw on, and this was okay until I grabbed a piece of chicken that you decided you wanted. You snatched it from my hand and brought it your mouth. Since it was nothing suitable for your two little teeth to chew, I took it back, and that was the last straw. Your face again crumpled, and out came the tears, and this horrid screeching sound of dismay came out of your mouth again and again. Unfortunately, I chose the "laugh at the upset baby" option this time, which was really not nice of me. You did not take that well. Then nothing I could do would comfort you, so I carried you down the hall as you kept making the squawking noise. I put you in the crib and you were immediately quiet, and then asleep about one minute later.
You've also started that squawking thing when I won't pick you up immediately or if I attempt to leave the room or thwart you from your constant attempts to rip tufts of fur from the cat's body.
It's all very trying, and today as your dad left for work, as you were somehow simultaneously trying to climb up me and also get away from me, making that squawking noise all the while, I said to him, "It's okay to shake babies, right? Sometimes?" Of course I was kidding; I would never ever do that to you, but lady. Listen to me. You have got to relax!

It's really okay, though. I know you are going through a lot. You've got all these synapses firing all the time, and you are learning so much that even clasping your hands together is an amazing feat that you have to repeat again and again as you stare at your hands in wonder. I can't imagine how taxing that is on your brain. Lesser babies would have been committed, I tell you. Good thing you are so awesome.
So, so awesome. Even though this weird temper-thing has started cropping up, you are still such a delight that not a day goes by that I don't stare at you in amazement. Sometimes I have whole conversations with your father that go something like this:

Me: Isn't she amazing?
Him: Yes, she's amazing!
Me: And cute. Can you believe how cute she is?
Him: I know! She's the cutest.
So we are totally fun to talk to these days, is what I'm saying.

In no short order, here are some amazingly cute things you have started doing:

1. Dancing! Especially when I have got you undressed for your bath. I turn on the radio in the bathroom and you pull up on the mirror and start rocking up and down to the beat, bopping your head and cackling at your reflection.
2. You also shake your fist in time to the music, and you are like this tiny punk rocker.

3. We play this game where I go behind the bedroom door, and you are on the other side of it. I shut the door while waving and saying, "Bye, Madeleine!" and you get this happy smile on your face. When I close the door, I call for you, and your crawl to the door. I can see you through this little crack in the door, and you have this grin on your face as you wait for the right time to push the door open. When you finally do push it open, I clap my hands and exclaim, "There she is!" as I reach out and grab you, and you smile and squeal with delight.
4. You are oddly enraptured by the refrigerator, and if I open the door while I am holding you, you immediately dive your head towards the floor, indicating that you want down. When I put you down, you grab the salad dressing from the bottom rack of the refrigerator door and gnaw on the lid.
5. Today I let you taste the grape popsicle I was eating, and you liked it so much you laughed out loud.

6. You have a mischevious streak, and sometimes when you are crawling in my general direction and I call for you, you get this devilish little grin on your face and go crawling full speed in the opposite direction, just so I will chase you.
7. When you get tired, you'll dive your head against my neck and nestle there for just a minute, or rest your head on my chest for a second before lurching off drunkenly for something else. It's one of those Tender Parenting Moments that are pretty much the reason people have babies. I am assuming a lot with that one, but it ranks way up there for me, at least.

Oh my gosh. I could go on and on, but oh how tiresome that could get. Suffice it to say that this mass of contradictions that is you? Is the best thing ever. The good and bad, the sweet and the sour...your very existence makes life absolutely perfect, each and every day.

Merry Happy Happy

2006-12-25T20:03:00.000-08:00

Peekaboo

2006-12-20T19:17:00.000-08:00

Where a Kid Can Be a Kid

2006-12-11T16:24:00.000-08:00

My cousin's kid turned 4 this weekend. The party was at Chuck E. Cheese. I was curious about how Mad would take the stimulation since our days are usually pretty quiet.

Turns out? She loves Chuck E. Cheese. In a psychotic-giddy-CRAZY way. It was extremely cute.

2006-12-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

I think Madeleine may have said her first word yesterday. I'm pretty sure she did. I think. I sat with her by the cat and I said, "Hi, kitty!" And she said "hi" very clearly. Then I said it again, and then she said it again, even more clearly.

I kind of shrugged it off, though, because "hi" seems like it would be easy to randomly say for a baby. It's just a few steps from normal vowel-babbling anyway, right?

But then this morning the hubs said, "I think she said 'hi' to me before I put her down for her nap."

And I got all excited because if he heard it, too, then maybe yes? She has learned a word?

It's exciting.

First word or no, my girl sure does love a good game of sudoku.

2006-12-06T21:14:00.000-08:00

I think Madeleine is teething again, though it's hard for me to say for sure considering that in the 1 hundred billion times I thought she was getting ready to cut a tooth, I have been right exactly twice. And she has two teeth. So. You do the entirely unnecessary math.

Lately she has been doing things like gnawing on her own arm, so either she has zombie-like aspirations or she has a desperate urge to clamp her gums down on something. It's hard to tell. She also has started threading her fingers in her hair and tugging really hard, then staring at me very seriously like "There's something up there, did you know that? What are we going to do?"

She's weird. Cute, yes, but weird. Very weird. To wit:

She keeps flopping down in front of this thing, holding her hands out to the side like she's in an eating contest and she's not allowed to use her hands, and gnawing ferociously on the leggo.

But see, it apparently tastes awful.

So she knocks it over. Then knocks it back over only to gnaw on the leggo again.

Then she comes at me with all this cuteness for the sole purpose of slaying me with it, then eating my brains.

2006-12-03T08:20:00.000-08:00

Madeleine ON THE GO part 2

Madeleine's First Snow Day

2006-11-30T19:40:00.000-08:00

Only my new favoritest picture of her.

2006-11-29T19:46:00.000-08:00

Madeleine v. Cat

That is the sound of dishes being done in the background.

Thanksgiving Weekend, in Pictures

2006-11-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving Day, we dressed Madeleine in impractical (but cute!) clothing.

It was something like 70 degrees, though it was a bit cooler when we took her outside. She was not too thrilled with the proceedings.
Then, of course, we had dinner. She was a little perplexed by the fare.
But then she liked it.
The next day, we took a walk and spent some time at the park.
On Saturday we just kind of sat around.
Played with the cat.
Had some fun.
Today we decorated for Christmas! Madeleine was in bed, though.
I think, in all, it is obvious what we are thankful for. Gangsta rap. (duh)