Back out in the world

Well, THAT was a long week!? We were all recovered from the flu by Sunday and are excited to be back up and at it this week. After 6 days of being shut-ins, we were climbing the walls!? Here are a string of video clips that give you a peek into what Madelyn was up to between fevers... She's suspiciously quiet in these clips -she's been chattering away, starting to hear two words strung together more frequently, and hearing ourself parroted every other word:)

Flu arrives

Well, all three of us have been duking it out with the flu for the past few days. The fevers seem to come and go, so we're all over the place! Overall, I think we probably have mild cases. The roughest part has been sleeping, for all 3 of us. Here's a picture of M. this morning -she's using the boogie-sucker on her baby:)


Least you think she's down in the dumps, here's a picture of her shortly after breakfast -she was dancing around so much I could hardly catch her on camera!

insights into a 1.5 year old's mind

I was telling my mom today how fun it's been to watch Madelyn make some rather big discoveries and ask those big questions (in her own limited-language way of course!). Madelyn has been discovering the fact that there is something to that black scribbling that adults seem to read. She sees the letters on her waterbottle and says "name." And of course transfers that to a lot of other print... I have seen her starting to notice print in books as well.

Madelyn and I took a walk tonight, and thanks to daylight savings, we were watching the sun set at 5:00 (!?) We were noticing all of the beautiful colors and naming them. I said something like "the sunset colors happen when the sun goes night-night." And Madelyn thought about it for a minute and then asked with a shrug "go?? night-night sun. Go??" Which is her way of asking "where does the sun go when it goes away??" How fun to see those little wheels turning!

Other fun(ny) things:
Madelyn is pretending to drive the car in the back seat now and then, sound effects and steering wheel movements to boot.

She will loudly announce when she has "gas." In case we hadn't heard:)

Madelyn took one look at a picture I drew of her in her ladybug costume and quickly proclaimed "COW!" The black polka-dots and antennae must have thrown her off:)

She is enjoying "spicy." She does taste spicy now and then, but pretty much lumps anything with a strong flavor into the "spicy" category. Tonight she was enjoying dipping parts of dinner into a small blob of mustard and then telling us how spicy it was, along with the dramatic wave of a hand in front of her mouth and chugging water.

We were reading Goodnight Moon last night... the red balloon is prominent there on the first page, and then disappears from sight for a few pages. Madelyn asked where it went, and then answered her own question with "pop!!" and giggled to her self...

Lots of "2 year old moments," but along with the brief fits and overactive "wants" comes a lot of fun insights into the way the world works for such a young person:) So fun to be witness!

Our little ladybug

A friend loaned me this great little outfit for Maddie's Halloween costume...too cute! Madelyn still has no idea what candy is, so we kept a relatively low profile today. We visited our friends Anne and Pete and Leah so that Madelyn could have a reason to dress up, wore it around the house a few times, and called it good.

Madelyn did a great job decorating our pumpkin with marker over the past week. She was excited to see it carved and lit up tonight! We went out several times to check on it.

As for trick-or-treaters, we had FAR more visitors when we lived in Kelly! Mike had one neighbor kid come to the door with no costume on and ask for candy!? I'm proud to say Mike read him the riot act, but did cave a little and gave him some of our shwaggiest candy:)

Maddie reads and sings

Here's Madelyn reading a book (Thanks Wayne and Carol!) and singing a little song as she goes...

Adventures in potty training

Well, there has been quite a lot of discussion about underwear at our house lately, as you can see.... Today Madelyn got 6 pair of "big-girl" underwear (with a little extra padding, because we're not quite there yet!)! She was quite excited to put them on tonight and show Grandma Jude and Grandpa Jeff. So excited in fact, that she put on a 2nd pair over the first! David - the "undies on the head" picture is for you!:)

Madelyn is quite adept at the whole potty business, but seems to have taken a few weeks hiatus... these days she doesn't like to have it suggested that she sit on the potty, she won't except being put on the potty, it has to be entirely her own idea (hello 2's!). So, hopefully being able to feel when she's wet will be a quick motivator! We'll see how tomorrow goes!

Fun pic

Madelyn booted the geranium out of the window this evening so that she could reclaim her window-seat.