Placidly Down the Liquid Solution

Turing a Day Around

2012-03-05T19:29:00.000-06:00

Today was a rough day with Madelyn. She has a cold and she is hitting her "terrible twos" with defiance everywhere. After a bedtime that involved fighting a diaper change and putting pajamas on, throwing her toothbrush, and general uncooperativeness she ran to give us hugs before getting in her bed and for the first time said (with no prompting) "Love you!" Suddenly, the day was not so bad.

Thrills!

2012-02-18T21:37:00.000-06:00

This afternoon Justin, Madelyn, and I met up with some friends at Nickelodeon Universe at MOA today. Although I did take Madelyn on a couple of rides there without Justin a few weeks ago, this was his first chance to go on some rides with her. And, I had seriously overestimated the number of points we were going to need to go on rides when we went before, so we had plenty left on our ticket. However, unlike going during a day on a weekday, the place was CRAZY today and the lines were long. The girls did a great job waiting in line for their turn on the rides and had a great time.

Here are a couple snapshots from the day:

Birthday Celebration!

2012-02-03T22:18:00.000-06:00

This past weekend Madelyn and I, along with my mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and Aubrey went up to Fosston, MN to celebrate with my Grandma for her 83rd birthday. It was really great to be with family and have relaxed weekend spending time with Grandma, playing games, watching movies, and enjoying SNOW!

We haven't seen much snow this winter (it has been the complete opposite of last winter) and Madelyn has had very little opportunity to play in it which has been a bummer for her, although excellent for my commute to work. There actually was snow for this weekend in Fosston, so we went out and enjoyed it.

She's already taking my keys

2012-02-03T21:58:00.000-06:00

I got home from work tonight and after Madelyn told me hello and gave me a hug she took my keys and told me "Bye!" I asked her where she was going and she told me "Papa" which is what she calls my dad. I told her that she couldn't take my car to go see Grandpa, but that I would call him and see if he could talk to her. She seemed satisfied with that and willingly gave me my car keys back. I didn't think it would start so soon :)

Adrenaline Junkie Part 2

2012-01-29T21:04:00.000-06:00

An update: I met my mom, aunt, and cousin at the Mall of America on Thursday for lunch and then we took Madelyn to Nickelodeon Universe and it seemed like it would be fun to take Madelyn on a few rides. The people at the rides gave me funny looks and one mother said "don't you think she is a little young?" I just said that I thought she'd be fine, after all someone had to go with her and we are talking about little kid rides. She was a BIG fan!

Adrenaline Junkie

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000-06:00

Madelyn is an adrenaline junkie. I have no doubt. For instance, her reaction to a bumpy plane landing was to say "weee!" and then follow that with "more." She had a similar reaction to a steep plane bank to get a good view of Niagara Falls on Christmas Eve courtesy of our pilot (which was pretty great!).

Her new favorite game to play is hide and seek with daddy. She hides (predictably wherever she is standing by hiding her face) while daddy goes away and then he comes looking for her. When he says "there she is" she gets scared and screams, and then giggles and says "more?!"

I don't know where this will lead in the future. I am pretty sure that she is going to LOVE roller coasters though!

Merry (Belated) Christmas :)

2012-01-08T20:29:00.001-06:00

The last two weeks of December were a whirlwind of family and Christmas activities, which is my excuse for not posting anything new...I don't have one for the last week though. My camera battery and charger went missing right before Christmas and so until the very end of the week we were in NY when my dad had a battery shipped to my sister's apartment for me, I couldn't take any pictures. However, Justin has some on his phone that I will try and get posted at some later date.

We had a really good time seeing family this Christmas. On Christmas Eve we flew to Buffalo and made it to Bemus Point just in time to have Christmas Eve dinner with Justin's family. Last Christmas on Sunday we couldn't get ourselves together enough to get to church on time, but since this is the one time of the year when Justin's mom gets to show off Madelyn we went for the end of the church service. In keeping with that tradition (who knew it was going to become one) we attempted to do that again this year when it became apparent that once again we were not going to get our act together in time to make it for the start of church. We arrived at church an hour after the service started just in time for the scripture reading prior to the sermon...who knows what next year will bring.

Although there were a lot of highlights from our time with Justin's family, one of the biggest highlights was going to the fire hall and sitting in the fire trucks. Madelyn's Poppop is a volunteer fireman and so he gave her the exclusive behind the scenes tour. She thought that it was pretty great to pretend to drive the big trucks and was a huge fan of having the lights on.

On Wednesday we made the 6+ hour drive across New York from Bemus Point to Troy to spend the second half of the week with my sister, her husband, and my parents. Wednesday while we were driving was the only time we saw snow around Christmas. We took Madelyn ice skating for the first time, and although she couldn't actually skate she thought that having Aunt Becci take her around was a lot of fun. She also discovered that her Aunt Becci is a lot more fun than Mommy...and so it begins :)

Madelyn traveled really well. However, on our Christmas Eve flight there was a 4 year old in the seat in front of us who kept looking over the seat and talking to Madelyn, hanging her doll over the seat, and generally keeping herself entertained by watching what we were doing. Madelyn was trying to take a nap, but under those circumstances it was relatively easy to understand why she wasn't successful. The flight was less than two hours though, and Madelyn didn't get cranky, so while it made the flight seem longer to Justin and I it wasn't that big of a deal. On our drive back to the Buffalo airport we talked about how much easier it would be to have Madelyn take a nap on the flight back, she was tired and saying she wanted to nap, and we figured a New Year's Eve flight would be pretty quiet. After we got on the plane who should arrive in the same seat right in front of us...you guessed it, the same 4 year old. There was no napping.

We made it home with significantly more luggage than we started with (and although Madelyn was mostly to blame I did get the ice cream maker attachment for my KitchenAid which took up a lot of suitcase room too) and spent a quiet New Year's Eve in. After all, there was no sleeping on the flight :)

I'll try and get more pictures posted soon, but here are some I got before the battery was lost and then once the new camera battery arrived.

The World of Pooh

2011-12-19T20:42:00.000-06:00

I have fond memories of my childhood with the stories from the book "The World of Pooh" and I have been looking forward to when Madelyn is old enough to enjoy it with me.

I didn't expect her to latch onto it so early, but about a week ago she brought us the book at bedtime and said "Pooh!" To humor her I started reading the first story, figuring that a book with few pictures and many words was only going to last a minute or two. To my surprise she wanted to hear the whole story. She was restless, and she wanted to hold a different book, but when given the option to stop reading she wanted me to keep going.

So, for the last week it has become a bedtime pattern. I read a Pooh story while she is restless and moving around and looking at other things and then usually we read one or two of her other books. I don't think she is really following the story completely, but she likes to hear them and it is a nice change from "Goodnight Moon."

Tonight however Madelyn wanted to lay on the bed between Justin and I and she was very quiet while we were reading. When I finished the story we looked at her and she had fallen asleep. I don't think she has fallen asleep while we were reading stories for at least a year. Sometimes you just melt...

And so the Pooh stories will live on for at least one more generation :)

It's Here!

2011-12-18T17:10:00.002-06:00

I posted a few months that Madelyn did a photo shoot for a Target add, which came out today, check out page 17! We appreciate our neighbor dropping off a copy of the add for us yesterday - it is a lot of fun to see the end product :)

Target Weekly Add - December 18, 2011

Photo Card

2011-12-13T22:52:00.001-06:00

Scalloped Ribbon Christmas

Browse Shutterfly's unique Christmas card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Snapshots of This Fall

2011-12-09T20:02:00.000-06:00

We finally downloaded a bunch of pictures to the computer so I thought I would share them :)

getting ready for her first overseas flight!


No one told me I was going to be on the plane for this long...

playing in the leaves :)

Madelyn couldn't let me read a story with a different child in my lap without including her too...

At the Como Conservatory with Uncle Aaron

Thanks Aunt Lauren for the awesome t-shirt!

"Bye"

2011-12-09T19:34:00.000-06:00

It often seems that Madelyn's receptive verbal skills are increasing rapidly but her expressive verbal skills are progressing much more slowly. I have to remind myself not to be frustrated when my 20 month old isn't putting together sentences...after all, she is only 20 months old.

For a while it seemed that she wasn't really gaining any new words, but over the last couple of weeks she has been incorporating many more words into her vocabulary. For instance, she could say "up" and "down" before, but now she is using them in context to help us understand what she wants. She also has added a couple more names to her vocabulary of people "Wa-Ba" for Robin, and "Ro-Ro" for Ronan, two babysitters who she looks forward to playing with. We had cheeseburger pie for dinner tonight and Madelyn was very proud of herself when she managed "pie." I am not sure if she was expecting a different kind of pie for dinner, but she seemed to be happy enough when she found out what it was.

The new word that has been the most fun for me is "bye," because she says it to me every morning now when I am leaving for work. It's very clear and usually accompanied by a wave and if I'm lucky a kiss blown my way as well. Tonight, when Madelyn was skyping with her Mommom she demonstrated her thorough knowledge of the word. When Justin asked Madelyn to say goodbye she walked over to the computer, looked directly in the camera, said "bye!" and closed the computer. At least we know she understands the concept.

Listening

2011-12-03T21:50:00.000-06:00

Last Christmas Madelyn's Mommom and Poppop gave her recordable storybooks from Hallmark that they had recorded for her. It was a way for her to have them read her stories whenever she wanted to hear them, and to not have to wait until she saw them or until we could work out a time to skype.

You would think that these are pretty simple straightforward technology (which they actually are). However, Justin and I could not get them to work well and so Madelyn only listened to them off and on. It took my mom to figure out how they work (and we give her a hard time about technology...) - the pages are triggered by light. So when we were trying to read them in Madelyn's room dimly lit for bedtime it is no wonder that they didn't work well. Since my mom figured them out and showed Madelyn how to "read" them herself, she listens to them almost every day. She asks for them not by the story, but by who recorded it. "The Very First Christmas" is Mommom and "Frosty the Snowman" is Poppop.

She also has a favorite page...it's the last page of "Frosty" where Poppop reads "thumpty thump thump, thumpty thump thump..." it is an excellent rendition :)

Thanks Mommom and Poppop!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-28T20:10:00.006-06:00

This year Justin had to work Wednesday and Friday, so the trip up north 5 hours to spend Thanksgiving with my mom's family wasn't a practical option. Fortunately, some friends took pity on us and invited us to their family Thanksgiving (for which we are very grateful!). It was fun to spend time with them, and for Madelyn to get a chance to spend some time with kids her age.

And, since I last posted about crazy weather, it seems relevant to mention that on Thanksgiving Day we did not wear coats and the temperatures were once again in the mid-fifties. It was beautiful for the kids to play outside. We tried to teach them how to play football, but evidently 2 and under is a little young for the concept of organized sports. Maybe next year.

Suddenly, Winter...

2011-11-19T22:01:00.000-06:00

We live in a place with confusing weather. Last weekend I took Madelyn to the park on Saturday morning. I thought...it's November, it's cold, we should bundle up (at least a little). So I wore a sweatshirt and my fleece jacked and grabbed a pair of mittens. I had Madelyn in a long sleeved shirt, fleece jacket, puffy vest, mittens, and hat for good measure. The park is 4 blocks away. By the time we got there I had taken of her vest, her hat, and her mittens. I took off my mittens and wanted to take off my coat but was running out of places to carry things. My phone had indicated it was 45 degrees out. It was not. It was 60. Nonetheless the weather was lovely and it was nice to be outside.

One week later (exactly) the clothing choices of last weekend would not have been sufficient. We had our first snowfall today. Technically it was not Madelyn's first snowfall. In fact, Madelyn was fascinated by the snow last year and liked to watch it out the window. But, today was the first time Madelyn has ever really played in the snow, so I am counting it as a first. Also, it was the first time Madelyn has ever worn snowpants (thanks for the snowsuit Grandma!).

It brought back memories of bundling up as a kid - so many layers, so hard to move. Madelyn did not appreciate the bundling up process. However, Justin and I are rookies so I anticipate that next time it will go more smoothly. Also, cute mittens from Babies R Us are fine as long as you don't try to play in the snow with them...oh well, you live and learn.

Justin is much more fun than I am when it comes to playing outside. He and Madelyn made snow angels and threw snowballs...I took some pictures, although the snow angels happened after I put the camera back inside the house. Madelyn had a lot of fun and kept asking for "more." I think she just wanted Justin to keep playing with her in the snow.

Second Time's The Charm

2011-11-15T21:17:00.000-06:00

When we took Madelyn to get her first haircut she was not a big fan. However, we were impressed with the people who cut her hair since it is not easy to cut the hair of a one year old who does not want to sit still and really doesn't like all the noises in a salon.

So, after putting it off a lot, I finally took Madelyn to get her hair cut again at the same salon. This time she was much more cooperative and the haircut only took about 10 minutes. There were no tears, no accusing looks, no pleas for mama to save her. It was a great experience and her haircut looks great. Turns out all that anxiety was for nothing.

The Best Day of the Week

2011-11-10T22:44:00.000-06:00

For me Thursdays feel like a crazy rush of getting to places and a whirlwind until I finally get home at night and have to steel myself for one more day of work before the weekend. But I am pretty sure that for Madelyn Thursdays are the best day of the week.

For one thing, Madelyn sees a significant percentage of her favorite people on Thursdays. She sees Justin and I (not really very exciting but I am going to count us anyway) and also my mom, but that does not make Thursdays special. What makes them special is that she goes to my parent's house in the afternoon and gets to have dinner with Grandma and Grandpa. And then she gets to play with Emma while we are all at choir practice.

We have a new routine in the morning when Madelyn gets up - she asks me where Daddy is (he has usually gone to work), and where Grandma is (and I tell her that she is coming). Then she asks me about Grandpa and Emma. Every day but Thursday I have to tell her that she won't see them that day. But, on Thursdays I get to tell her that she'll see Grandpa and it is in fact "Emma Day."

A Story I Meant to Tell

2011-11-05T18:32:00.000-05:00

If we ever travel internationally with a child in diapers again (although I am not sure what circumstances would result in that happening) there are two things that I will definitely remember to do.

1) Bring a diaper changing pad - it should be on the list of things that must be packed. It should not be assumed that it is in the diaper bag. That is not a safe assumption.
2) When changing a child in a public restroom in another country it is best to bring someone for support if possible.

We realized at the MSP airport that the diaper changing pad was not in the diaper bag. It turns out that at no airport that we went to can you purchase one, and the only place we were where there were stores that might have had a changing pad was in Rome, but everything was closed on Sunday so we completely struck out on purchasing one on our trip. Fortunately, I brought my raincoat and so that was our makeshift changing pad for 10 days. Also fortunately it did not rain, and after several runs through the washing machine I am willing to use my coat again.

Unsurprisingly, outside of the airports and the Colosseum, none of the public restrooms that we went to had diaper changing stations. So, I become quite adept at changing Madelyn on the floor on my raincoat.

On our tour in Turkey we had a lovely lunch at a resturant overlooking olive groves. By the time we got to lunch we had been on the tour for 4 hours and Madelyn's diaper was not clean any longer, so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take her to get it changed. I followed the plan that I had used up to that point in the trip, which was to pick the biggest stall available and then use the floor. What I had not counted on was that the lights were motion sensitive and turned off every 30 seconds if motion did not continue. And, being on the floor I was out of the range of the sensor, wherever it was. There was almost no natural light in the bathroom so it was very, very dark when the lights turned off. Which, in addition to being a challenge for diaper changing when you can't see, also scared Madelyn, so she would cry every time the lights went out. At which point I would need to stand up and wave my arms until the lights turned back on. This is where the plan of bringing a support person comes in. That way, someone could have kept moving and kept the lights on while I changed the diaper. And, who knows what else could go wrong where it would be a good idea to have some help along.

Lessons learned :)

Still Rearranging...

2011-11-04T16:56:00.000-05:00

We made a quick trip to Ikea this past weekend after a friend gave me a tip that they had a kids table and chairs for $19.99. That is a good deal! We also picked up some organizational storage for Madelyn's toys. Suddenly, we have a playroom!

Before

After:

An Ever Expanding Vocabulary

2011-11-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

Although in general I have felt that Madelyn has sort of hit a plateau in her expressive language, I realized that over the last couple of weeks she has added a couple of new words/phrases to her vocabulary.

Last week she dumped a cup of water on my bed and promptly followed it up by saying "oh no!" I am pretty sure that I did not manage to keep from laughing, even though I was trying to get out the door to head to work and having to mop up the water was not on my morning agenda. She looked so serious when she said it. Since then she has been using "oh no" with some frequency, although it has not completely replaced "uh-oh."

I sing in the choir which practices on Thursday nights, and since Justin either participates in choir as well or is working we have a babysitter watch Madelyn at church whose name is Emma. A few weeks ago Madelyn surprised us all by saying "Emmie!" Now, every time we go to church Madelyn wants to know if she is going to see Grandpa and if she is going to see Emma.

Over the weekend Madelyn named one of her stuffed animals, a stuffed lamb that we gave her for Easter. The lamb has been christened "Mimi." I find it interesting that of all her toys, the lamb which she only plays with on an occasional basis, is the only toy that has a name.

Madelyn also often says "hmmm" in response to questions while she is "thinking" about her response. It makes me smile every time.

Halloween Fun

2011-11-02T21:55:00.001-05:00

We decided not to head out trick-or-treating for Halloween since Madelyn is so little and we didn't think she would really be that excited about it. However, I think it is in the cards for next year. My parents had dinner with us and got to see Madelyn all dressed up in her costume, and Madelyn helped hand out candy to all of the neighborhood kids.

I tried having Madelyn hold the bowl of candy, but she kept throwing it down and saying "oh no" (a new phrase she picked up last week). My next plan was to let Madelyn hand out the candy, but she thought that if she gave the kids something they should give her something back, so we quickly abandoned that plan I and just held the bowl and Madelyn and let the kids pick out their own candy.

We had more trick-or-treaters this year than we have had the past couple of years, so it was good that Justin talked me into getting two combo bags of candy and not just one. After all, you want to have some left over :)

And the Winner is...

2011-10-28T21:13:00.000-05:00

The long-sleeved pink onesie. It was just more comfortable and easier for diaper changes, plus warm enough for Minnesota fall.

We took a break in the middle of the day to get some pictures taken at Babies R Us since they had a free Halloween special where we got the sitting and a free sheet of pictures.

Here is the link to the pictures. No one can say she is camera shy :)

Phase 1

2011-10-27T16:13:00.000-05:00

Phase one of rearranging our living room/entry/playroom was moving the rug out and the furniture around. Here are a few pictures of what it looked like after we completed the initial moves.

More Costume Drama

2011-10-25T23:07:00.000-05:00

Seriously...I know, so much drama. Part of me thinks that it would have just been easier to use the Tinkerbell costume that I bought last year, but it wouldn't have been nearly so unique. I am confident that we won't run into any other kids wearing exactly the same costume as Madelyn this year.

When I went to JoAnn Fabrics last week I had already picked out the pattern online to save time and I didn't really read it that carefully, I just wanted to get the right amount of fabric and whatever else I needed and then get back to work. As a result, more modifications than I had planned on needed to happen.

First of all, although the pattern was for all sizes, the child sizes were actually 2-4T which is a little big for Madelyn, but considering the style of pant I figured I might have to shorten them a little but it should probably be fine.

Second, the pattern for the pants was a lot of layers and trims which I was skipping since all I needed was the basic pants, so I had to read through and figure out which steps I needed to do and which steps I could skip since they didn't apply. Unfortunately some of the steps that I was skipping were more needed than I originally anticipated.

My biggest obstacle was actually the waist of the pants, because although the pattern had designed elastic in the back, it was also designed to be flat in the front and required a zipper. I didn't want to put a zipper in, but I also hadn't left myself much extra room since I followed the pattern when I cut the pants out. Also, the waist was designed to be attached to the bottoms in two parts (front and back) and I needed a continuous loop to put elastic all the way through. I ended up sewing together and ripping out seams a couple of times since I thought I knew what I was doing, but as it turns out making it up was harder than expected. In the end though, I worked it out. Once I got the waist figured out the rest was actually as simple as I had hoped and went together easily.

The End Product:

Madelyn was not inclined to smile at me, nor stay in once place so getting a picture was hard, but she liked how the pants swished when she walked.

So now I am back to the question of what top will work. I have a hot pink long sleeved onesie, a black sleeveless leotard, and a black long sleeved t-shirt. Hopefully one of these options will work.

A Little Star

2011-10-24T19:43:00.000-05:00

Justin and I think Madelyn is adorable, of course, but it was nice when a few months ago our neighbor, who is an Art Director for Target, told us that she also thinks Madelyn is adorable and asked if we would be interested in having her in a Christmas photo shoot for Target. We said sure, and sent her a few photos, but nothing came of it - or so we thought.

Last week I got a call from one of the producers with Target asking if I could bring Madelyn in for a screening with a toy they were thinking about using her for. I said sure and got ready to arrange my schedule to accommodate. However, it turns out that the toy is actually one Madelyn has, so I got to take some pictures at home and send them to the producer. They decided to use Madelyn for the shoot so I brought her in on Friday morning. Although she thought it was a little strange to have her hair done and to have a little make-up put on her face, she was pretty easy going had happy, and ran right up to the toy to play with it with a big grin on her face. All in all we were there for less than an hour, and it was extremely stress free. When Madelyn was done playing we were done. And, we went home with a free pair of tights. They said they would send me some of the pictures to put in Madelyn's portfolio :)

Will we do it again...I don't know, but it was fun!

Custume Update

2011-10-19T23:13:00.001-05:00

My plan is to make the Turkish dancer costume for Madelyn work, it is just working out the details. Today over my lunch I ran to a ridiculously busy JoAnn Fabrics store and picked up a genie costume pattern to use for the pants (even though everything I read says they're so easy you don't need a pattern). I don't think I am competent enough to make this work without a pattern. I also picked up some hot pink satin to make the pants.

I ordered a dance leotard online, also pink, which came in the mail today. I probably should have waited to get the fabric for the pants until I had the leotard in hand along with the pieces we got in Turkey so that I could see all the colors together. But I didn't. And the leotard is really bubble gum pink, which was not exactly as advertised (but this is what happens sometimes when you order things online.

The more I think about the dance leotard the more I think it is going to be really hard to change Madelyn's diaper unless all pieces of the costume come off - and that just is not a good idea. I put the leotard on with the purple part of the costume and I thought it looked a little silly.

With this in mind I decided to tackle the pants (or at least start on them) tonight. I made some modifications to the pattern because:
1) I didn't want a really fitted pant that I would need to zip Madelyn into, so I am planning an elastic waist.
2) With the purple costume I think we have all the embellishments needed so I am skipping the over layers and other notions recommended by the pattern.

I made a good start on the pants - I just need to try them on Madelyn so that I can finish sewing them together. It wasn't as easy as I had hoped, but actually went more smoothly than I had expected.

However - I am back to the drawing board for a top.

Rearranging

2011-10-17T20:18:00.001-05:00

Justin and I have lived in our condo for longer than we have ever lived anywhere else since we moved out of our parents' houses. Moving every year or two was great for getting things cleaned out, re-assessing our space and our furniture, and getting our fill of change. I'm not saying I like moving. In fact, I don't like packing and unpacking and now with Madelyn I am sure it would not be that much fun. But, now that we've been here for four and half years we are starting to get tired of things. So, since we aren't moving we are rearranging, reconsidering, and hopefully updating :)

Over the last week and a half we have had the living room in 3 different arrangements with different furniture, gotten rid of a rug and ordered a new one, and put a bookshelf that was too much of a temptation for Madelyn into storage. When we have made some more of the planned changes I will post about that.

The other area that we have really started to give some attention to is the sunroom. The sunroom is one of the reasons that we bought this place - it is my favorite room in the house. We bought a piece of furniture, spent time picking out throw pillows and painting...anyway, there was a plan. But, plans change when you face the reality of a toddler who needs space to play. So, we are pulling furniture out and making the space half office for my mom and half playroom for Madelyn. It's not going to be quite the relaxing retreat room we were planning on when we bought the house, but it will be functional. The first step was getting out the couch we bought to go in there (which is now in our living room) and making space for Madelyn to play. Tonight I got a picture of Madelyn enjoying her new space.

More to come...

Costume Making

2011-10-14T22:11:00.000-05:00

When my sister and I were little, I remember my mom and often my grandmother making us the most fantastic costumes for Halloween. One year we were clowns, another we were ballerinas. I even had a Cinderella costume that my grandma and I made together based on several dress patterns and the movie. Now I have a little girl to dress up.

Last year after Halloween I bought a Tinkerbell costume on clearance that is cute and would be a fine costume, but while we were in Turkey I bought a little dancer costume for Madelyn. The picture of the little dancer costume didn't turn out that well, but at least it gets the idea across.

Madelyn also has her shoes that my dad got her in Turkey, which you can see in a past post. In order to make the dancer costume work Madelyn needs a pair of genie pants and also something to go under the top, since a sheer halter seems skimpy both for a toddler and for Minnesota in October.

The pants seem simple enough (although if I get them made I'll let you know if they really were) but they are just a pair of loose fitting pants with an elastic waist and elastic around both ankles. And, if I want to get one, there are patterns out there like the one pictured below, I would just need to take the waist in a little based on the pattern size.

It's the top that has me worried. I could get a long sleeved, a short sleeved, or a sleeveless leotard for Madelyn to wear under the top. I am not excited about having to sew something for the top, but I am open to ideas. Any thoughts, ideas, or suggestions out there? I could use some help!

Random Thoughts...

2011-10-12T21:02:00.002-05:00

Tonight as I was trying to figure out where Aubrey's leash was to take her out I wondered aloud where it was. Madelyn promptly went to the closet door and opened it (by turning the handle - she is getting very proficient at it) and pointed up to the hook that the leash is supposed to be on. Now, in my defense I had already checked there and wouldn't have been wondering where it was if it had been in that spot, but I was pretty impressed that Madelyn knew where it was supposed to be.

Madelyn seems to be trying to communicate more information by talking to us, although we often have no idea what she's saying, she mostly seems satisfied if we acknowledge that she is talking to us. Tonight in the car on the way home we carried on a conversation for several minutes, although I don't really know what it was about.

I was editing some photos tonight and found a couple more pictures from our apple picking day that I thought were cute, so here they are :)

October?

2011-10-09T22:47:00.000-05:00

Usually October in Minnesota heralds the true ending of warm weather until the next summer. I was recently resigning myself to the end of summer. However, today was the 8th straight day of temperatures in the 80s, which ties the record for most consecutive 80 degree days in October. I love this weather, but it is a little strange to be outside with leaves changing color and need to be wearing shorts and a t-shirt. Per the forecast fall will be upon us sometime in the next week, so these days of summer like weather look like they are coming to a close.

When I talked to my friend Elise on Friday and found out that she was planning on heading to a pumpkin patch/corn maze/hobby farm near their house on Saturday I invited Madelyn and myself along since Justin was working. It was a lot of fun to be outside and enjoy the beautiful weather, and to get some last uses out of Madelyn's summer clothes, but it was also strange to be doing a "fall" activity and feeling so hot. Elise posted some pictures of the fun that we all had on her blog. Elise's oldest daughter, Alethea, is 11 months older than Madelyn and did some explaining of things to Madelyn throughout the morning. All in all it was a really fun day, although we would have loved to have Justin with us as well.

The other thing that happened this weekend was a new milestone for Madelyn: she can now open doors by turning the handles. Up until this point, since every room in our house closes off with a door, we haven't worried too much about keeping her out of rooms since we could just shut the door. A new era dawned today...I am not sure if we are ready for it.

Apples!

2011-10-03T21:42:00.000-05:00

What is that on the ground? Apples? Don't they come from a store?

I love summer and I have a hard time letting it go, however this weekend I remembered a few things that I like about fall. I like apples, and I like picking apples. I like apple crisp, I like caramel apples...you get the idea. So, Mom, Dad, Madelyn, and I headed to Afton Apple on Saturday for Madelyn's first apple picking experience. Unfortunately (and fortunately I guess) it was a really nice day and also Apple Fest at Afton, so it was really crowded. I have picked apples there a few times before and never had such a crowded experience. However, we still had a good time and came home loaded with apples.

Madelyn did not think that she should have to relinquish her hold on any of the apples that she had picked - somehow that just didn't seem fair to her.

MMMM...so good!

When we got home, Mom and I made apple crisp with a recipe that my Grandma gave me when I got married which she attributed to my Aunt Linda.

Apple Crisp
Butter a 9x13 pan
1 cup brown sugar, packed
3/4 cup flour
3/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter
6-9 tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced (enough to mostly fill the pan)

Preheat oven to 350

Mix the first 5 ingredients and then add the butter by either cutting it in, or if you freeze the butter you can use a grater to grate it in which is a little easier I think. Mix the ingredients together with your fingers until you have a crumbly mixture. Place the sliced apples in the pan and then spread the crumbly mixture on top and pat it gently. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, or both. Enjoy!

Who Loves Shoes?

2011-09-30T20:20:00.000-05:00

Madelyn has inherited my love of shoes. She gets so excited when she gets a new pair of shoes that she insists on wearing them around the house.

A story that I left out from our visit to Turkey was from the market that we stopped and shopped in. I couldn't resist buying a hand embroidered top for Madelyn and also a little Turkish dancer costume. During the shopping my dad took Madelyn around for a little bit and he came back to Justin and I to let us know that Madelyn wanted a pair of shoes to match her little dancer costume. With delight he went and bought Madelyn the first gift that he has picked out on his own.

Madelyn was thrilled - she insisted on wearing them around even though they are a little difficult for her to walk in.

Of course we packed them away until we got back from our trip, and they were in the piles of things on the bed in Madelyn's room waiting to be put away until tonight when Madelyn found them. With delight she wanted to put them on and walk around the house. Although I was getting her ready for bed I couldn't resist letting her and capturing a few pictures.

What Kind of Dog?

2011-09-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

I love Aubrey. She's a great dog with only a few faults. Most importantly she loves people and she is great with Madelyn. However...

Tonight I made popcorn - over the stove and then topped with lots of butter and popcorn. However, when transferring the popcorn from the popper to the bowl I spilled some popcorn on the floor. Aubrey refused to eat the popcorn because it wasn't salted and buttered yet. I mean, really? What kind of dog needs her popcorn salted and buttered. Sigh.

Settling Back In

2011-09-26T20:47:00.000-05:00

Good news...Madelyn seems to finally be over her jet lag. It took her spending a night with her grandparents on Saturday for her to decide that she was ready to sleep when it is dark outside for the whole night. However, she came home and slept all night last night too...so we are feeling pretty successful. That being said, we are going to go easy on the travel for a little while.

Although Madelyn's vocabulary is not extremely extensive, she added two new very important words over the last week. Her first breakthrough word is "no." We knew it was coming...she's been saying "yes" for almost as long as she's been talking so it stands to reason that "no" would make an appearance sooner or later. In many ways this is a good breakthrough because now she can answer questions with a negative instead of screaming or throwing a tantrum. However, she is very expressive in her "no" answers. It involves head shaking and hand waving as well. It is often difficult not to laugh at her.

The second important word that Madelyn added to her vocabulary is "Aubrey." We have been encouraging her to learn Aubrey's name, or to say dog or puppy or something to refer to Aubrey other then shouting "ba!" and pointing. She didn't appear to be making progress, but the first time she saw Aubrey after we got back she started saying Aubrey's name and she hasn't stopped. She asks about Aubrey all the time, and wants to hold her and pet her all the time. Aubrey generally seems pretty happy to see Madelyn as well.

So, now that vacation is over we are settling into our fall groove. I'm sad to see summer go, but I know that fall and winter have good things in store for us.

Crete and Home Again

2011-09-20T19:58:00.002-05:00

CHANIA (SOUDA), GREECE (CRETE)

Our final port of call was one the island of Crete - at the main port in Chania. The first place that we went was up in the hills surrounding the port which made for some stunning pictures. The ruins of the wall were from back in Roman times, although there were a lot of ruins from different periods since the port has been overrun by several different empires in its history, and near our first stop was a current excavation site and so some of the information about which ruins were from which time period got a little jumbled for me. Crete engendered some good feelings for me because after several days in mid-90 degree temperatures the low 80s that we experienced on Crete were a relief! However, retrospectively 3 straight days of bus tours was pushing Madelyn's limits. The beaches (at which we were only able to stop for about 15 minutes) were amazing - the sand was soft, the water was clear...I could have easily spent a good long week vacationing there. Maybe another time...

We stopped in a village where Mom, Becci, Micah, and I had some coffee at a local cafe. Becky and Micah ordered Greek coffee, while Becci and I thought a Frappe sounded pretty safe (of course there weren't any descriptions so we really had no idea what we were ordering). Becci and I got sweet iced coffees with some sort of foam that were really good. Micah and Mom got very strong hot coffee that was sweetened as well...Becci and I were pretty happy with our choice. The tour ended with some shopping time in the main shopping area of Chania which our tour guide called the "Venice Without Water." With the narrow crowded streets and stalls and shops on top of each other Justin and I both agreed that we could see some resemblance. The port did undergo a period of rule under the Venetians, so it isn't surprising that some influence was evident. We did manage to buy some local olive oil in while we were in Crete - it is one of the four largest olive oil producers in the world. The others being Italy, Greece (mainland), and Turkey. Becci and Micah actually got olive oil in both Turkey and Crete, so it will be interesting to hear from them if they noticed any difference.

ENDINGS

This trip had a good mix of busyness and relaxation. We always were back on the ship for some relaxation time, and we had 2 at sea days that were a much more low key pace. One of the things that was nice was that we had formal dinners every evening in the main dining room. Although only two nights required actual formal attire, every night you "dressed" for dinner - something we don't really ever do at home. 2 hour formal dinners were a bit long for Madelyn, so Justin and I, but mostly my Dad, took turns walking around with Madelyn between courses. Dad and Madelyn met a significant number of other people that way (other cruisers and the majority of the waiters in the resturant). On the last night many of them stopped by to say goodbye to Madelyn. I think she really enjoyed those times with her Grandpa and was pretty sad the last few days when Grandpa wasn't around to take her places and explain everything to her. I think she misses everyone being together in general - she keeps asking me where everyone is :)

The last formal night I got a couple of pictures of my parents, dressed up to celebrate 30 fantastic years of marriage. Congrats Mom and Dad and thank you!

Jet Lag...

2011-09-19T20:27:00.000-05:00

I don't think I have ever truly appreciated the difficulties of jet lag until dealing with jet lag in a toddler. Usually coming back I have done pretty well, just sleeping an extra few hours the night that we get back and then getting back to a pretty regular routine, however Madelyn has had more struggles today than anticipated. We all crashed when we got back from the airport at about 8:30 last night and all was well until 2:30 am when Madelyn appeared to think "it's 9:30 am in Italy - isn't it time to get up?" After getting her to go back to sleep off and on I finally gave up at 6:30 when Justin left for work and figured we were probably both most awake in the morning so we should try to get laundry and grocery shopping done early before we crashed. I think in part her difficulty adjusting was because she slept so much of the flight home - she slept for about 5 hours, but I figured that it was easier to deal with her asleep on the plane and cranky and awake at home, and retrospectively I still think that was the best solution. As well as she handled the long flight on the way to Europe, she was even better on the way home. She was happy and engaged while she was awake and she slept for a lot of the flight. She had about a 5 minute meltdown about 7 hours into the flight but then decided to go back to sleep, and then again cried for about 5 minutes when we began our initial descent and her ears hurt. She was so tired that she wasn't accepting anything we gave her to swallow to help with her ears, but as she woke up she calmed down. Overall we had less then 20 minutes of real fussiness on the flight, which is pretty good for a nine hour flight. I let her go to bed about an hour early tonight - she wasn't really functioning any longer and just kept pointing to her room and saying "night night." She made her desires pretty clear.

To combat the very strong urge to go to sleep I thought I would post some of the other pictures from our trip. Hopefully this will help me reach my goal of making it until at least 8:30 before I crash tonight.

I only managed a post after Messina (in Sicily) and I will post pictures from our other stops, but with the time crunch this picture of Becci got left out and I thought that it captured her feelings on all of my picture taking well, besides having a nice glimpse of the area surrounding the port.

ATHENS, GREECE
After stopping in Messina (in Sicily) our next port was Athens, Greece. I was really looking forward to Athens - the Parthenon and the Acropolis are things you grow up seeing and learning about in history books and it was pretty amazing to actually see it in person. Madelyn had a somewhat rough morning in part due to the fact that we were up and off the ship by 7:30 for this tour and also in part because it was over 90 degrees and humid that day as well. Then, my parents were going to head back to the ship with Madelyn and Becci, Micah, Justin and I were going to get off the bus to do some shopping and exploring of Athens on our own, but somehow we missed the opportunity and ended up back at the ship with everyone else. It ended up being nice to spend the afternoon relaxing with a pool and air conditioning instead of out in the heat of the afternoon.

These two pictures are of Dad, Madelyn, and Micah on Mars Hill (which is incidentally actually a hill) where Paul gave his famous sermon where he referenced the idol to an unknown god. The guys and Madelyn took this side trip without Mom, Becci, and I. It was hot and a long way up...

EPHESUS, TURKEY
I had the fewest expectations about Ephesus I think, maybe because I didn't really know what to expect. However, it was definitely my favorite tour and made me very interested in getting back to Turkey some day. Fortunately, Justin is pretty sure that we need to go back as well. In the morning we saw the ancient ruins from the Ephesus of Biblical times (the city has actually been moved several times; it was near the sea when it was built but is now five miles away) Then we had lunch and went shopping in a village near Ephesus, and finally ended the day at a place where they make carpets by hand. We found out that for a mere $35,000 we could own a silk handmade Turkish carpet that would be big enough to cover the floor in a large room. We didn't come home with any carpets. That is also where we got to have Turkish coffee which was amazing. The day was a good mix of relaxing and sight seeing. Here are a few pictures from Ephesus.

This was a symbol that was used by Christians to signal houses where other Christians were welcome to gather.

In the upper left of this picture you can see what is left of the library of Celsus, which was one of the great ancient libraries.

The morning light made it tough to get a picture of the ampitheater, but hopefully this captures it a little bit.

This is already a pretty long post and my ability to keep my eyes open is rapidly dwindling. I will finish posting about the trip another night when my eyes aren't so heavy and hopefully we have all readjusted to Minnesota time :)

Ciao!

2011-09-13T04:47:00.000-05:00

Over the past 3 days in Italy we have come to realize how limited our understanding is of Italian. That being said we are having an excellent time. The flight from Amsterdam to Rome was relatively short and uneventful. Dad was asleep by the time we took off and Justin wasn't far behind him. Mom and I didn't get much sleep but we did manage to get Madelyn to sleep, which was good for her. Aside from a first night adjustment of being awake from 1:0-2:30 am, Madelyn seems to be adjusting to the time change better than I am. She slept all night last night and was not ready to get up in the morning.

On Saturday we attempted to visit the Colosseum since our desk clerk at the hotel told us it was open until 7:00 pm, but as it turns out it close at 6:00 pm. So, we walked around the outside and went around the outside of the Roman Forum, and then had dinner and went back to the hotel. The

only unfortunate event of the night was when we burned out the CD player that we brought with us so we are music-less for Madelyn's sleeping, but we seem to have done alright so far.

Sunday morning we got up early and went to the Colosseum – it was open this time. Madelyn appropriately oohed and ahhed, but also fell asleep in the backpack carrier Becci and Micah carried. Then it was back to the hotel and to the ship.

Today we had our first stop of the cruise in Messina, Sicily. Our excursion took us to a cathedral in Messina and the Astronomical Clock. Madelyn fell asleep while I was carrying her around the cathedral and attached museum, so I missed the noon show of the clock because I was sitting in the shade, however the clock was on the fritz so it sounded like I didn't miss too much. We also went to see Christ the King Cathedral which overlooks the Straight of Messina.

Becci, Micah, Justin and I also completed a little shopping around Messina not far from where the ship was. The weather has been beautiful, and Madelyn has been an outstanding traveler. However, the internet on the ship is pretty slow and expensive, so I am not sure when this post is going to make it up or if any of the related pictures will be uploaded. We will give this a try!

On our way!

2011-09-10T04:54:00.000-05:00

I'm writing a quick update from amsterdam while we wait to board our flight for Rome. Madelyn did sleep for about 3.5 hours of the flight so that was pretty good, but she was pretty sad when she woke up at 2 am not in her own bed. I can relate to that feeling. We're all pretty tired but happy to have made it this far. I can't get the flight picture to load right now but will try again later :)

Controversial Thursday

2011-09-01T20:51:00.006-05:00

Ok, I stole the idea of a controversial post from a friend's blog, but recently a co-worker and I talked about child harnesses or "leashes" and I am not really sure what I think about them. On the one hand, leashing your child seems a little uncomfortable, but on the other hand it allows safety and freedom for active toddlers. I think it would be hard to say they are never a good idea.

Here are some examples of a few of these harnesses I found on Amazon:

Monkey Harness

Mommy's Helper

I even found an "electronic child leash" which emits a signal instead of actually having a physical connection between parent and child:

Electronic Child Leash

I found an article in the NY Times from this past March about a Parenting Magazine article that caused a lot of controversy and many letters from upset readers. The article is titled "Are Leashes for Children?" and it also sparked a lot of heated debate. You can click on the link to go to the article if you are interested. What about you? What do you think?

State Fair

2011-08-30T12:34:00.001-05:00

Sunday we (Justin, Madelyn, and I) went to the State Fair with my parents. I love the State Fair - I like the exhibits, the people watching, and especially the food. We took Madelyn last year with some friends, but it was a very different experience taking her when she was 5 months old than now when she is 17 months old. She really wanted to walk around in all the crowds and to get into everything without paying any attention to what was going on around her. Last year she wasn't mobile so that was a little bit easier, but she also didn't get a lot out of the fair. This year she loved seeing the people, all of the food we let her eat, and especially the animals.

We took Madelyn to a horse show, which she was very excited about and wanted us to tell her about every horse that she saw. We also went to the miracle of birth barn when she got to see several baby animals and also pet a lamb who had been born the day before. She really loved the animals and was pretty distressed when it was time leave.

We also decided that it would be a good opportunity to take Madelyn on her first ride - the carousel at the fair in front of the Grandstand. As I have commented on previously, Madelyn is pretty fearless, so we thought she would like the ride, and after her first moment of "what is going on here" she had a great time and wanted to keep going, even when it was time to get off. We had a good time and Justin got a few pictures to commemorate the occasion.

Have Passport, Will Travel

2011-08-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

Justin and I thought that we got our passports when we were pretty young. I got mine when I was 14, Justin got his when he was 16. This weekend we got Madelyn's passport. It feels pretty crazy to have a passport for a 17 month old.

Nonetheless, Madelyn is now prepared to travel internationally. Her passport is good for 5 years. I don't think she'll look like her passport anymore by the time she is 6.

We leave for our Mediterranean cruise soon, and we are trying to make sure we have everything together. I am a little nervous about taking Madelyn on such a long flight and also how it will go when we try to adjust her to a different time zone. If anyone has any good ideas about how to make our trip go smoothly we are definitely open to suggestions. In any case, I am sure we will have a great time :)

A Day on the Lake

2011-08-23T20:51:00.000-05:00

On Saturday, to celebrate my birthday, we spent the afternoon on Lake Minnetonka with my parents, Justin's mom, and my aunt, uncle, and cousin. Madelyn's biggest frustration with being out on a boat is that she is not in the water. Her second biggest frustration is that we make her sit down while the boat is moving. Even with that, everyone had a really good time and Madelyn was a good sport.

For a while in the afternoon we beached the boat at a sandy cove on one of the islands in the southwest part of the lake. Here are a couple of pictures from our afternoon.

Madelyn and Daddy had a fun time swimming in the lake and blowing kisses.

Walking in the sand and in the water with Grandpa

Playing in the sand

This picture is my favorite from the day:

Being out on a boat encompasses so many of my favorite things about summer - sun, water, relaxation...but by the end of the night there was a definite chill in the air which reminded me of how my birthday signals the beginning of the end of summer.

Little Ears

2011-08-22T19:53:00.000-05:00

The expression "little ears are listening" has taken on new meaning for me recently. I know that Madelyn understands a lot, because if I tell her we are going somewhere she goes and gets shoes - sometimes, hers, sometimes mine, but she clearly understands that we wear shoes when we go out of the house. On Friday, when we went for a walk, I told her that if she wanted to walk she had to go where we were going, otherwise I would carry her. Whenever I reminded her of that she would start walking the way we were going until something else distracted her, but another reminder produced good results.

However, even with all of that, it surprises me how much she is paying attention when she is not being directly addressed. We were driving in the car listening to one of the toddler Pandora stations that I had set up when I song I didn't know about blowing kisses came on. When I looked at Madelyn in the mirror she was sitting in her carseat happily blowing kisses. I have chalked up clapping her hands when "If you're happy and you know it" comes on to learning and example - not so much listening to the song, but this was different. Another time a song came on about a cow jumping over the moon and Madelyn would "moo" every time the song said "cow." Now we definitely know that little ears are listening.

Eventually

2011-08-12T20:45:00.000-05:00

No one has ever accused me of being on the cutting edge of technology. I didn't have IM until I was in college. I didn't start a facebook page until after college when I was at the wedding of one of my college roomates and she and another friend threatened to stop keeping me up to date with their lives unless I got on facebook. My dad got a touchscreen phone before I did (but I do have one now). I still don't have cable, but at least we got a DVD player that streams Netflix. Clearly it took me a while to start a blog. I started using Pandora internet radio like 3 weeks ago.

I have to say that Pandora has been a huge revelation in my life...we now have created 6 different stations for Madelyn each of which can play great children's music in the car, at home through the DVD player or the computer, or on our phones when we are out somewhere. The most recent station we created for her is a lullaby station and from it we found a lullaby album that we really like by Jewel (Lullaby). One of Madelyn's favorite stations is "Row, Row, Row Your Boat Radio."

Every time I embrace a technology medium that most people I know have been using for a long time I think "this is so great, what took me so long?" I don't have an answer...but I do get there eventually.

Fun at the Lake

2011-08-08T20:46:00.001-05:00

On Saturday we took Madelyn up to the lake with some friends. She went for a ride in the boat and then got to play on the shore afterwards. She is a big fan of water and water related activities so she thought that the day was well spent. We didn't change her into her swimsuit for the time on the boat since she wasn't getting wet and we didn't want to go through too many swim diapers during the day. However, when we got in from boating Madelyn wanted to get in the water right away so we decided that it wasn't worth getting her changed. So, if you think in the pictures and video below it looks like she is in her clothes that is because she is. The video also highlights her difficulty with the concept of sharing :)

Roar

2011-08-04T20:02:00.000-05:00

Madelyn can identify a lot of animals. If we ask her to point out a sheep or a dog or a cow she gets it right most of the time. However, she is very selective about which animal noises she is willing to demonstrate. She will only give two sounds consistently "roar" and "baa baa." When in doubt she tells us that all animals say "roar." I am not sure why she latched onto "roar" but it is without a doubt her favorite animal sound. Tonight we managed to get a video of her showing off her repertoire.

Who Lives in the Computer?

2011-08-02T20:12:00.000-05:00

We live in the age of skype, which has been a fantastic way to keep in touch with family members. But sometimes I wonder what Madelyn thinks, and how she associates the people that she talks to on the computer with the people that she sees in person. I think she does on some level, but she also tries to hand things through the screen to the people she is talking to. She also knows that the person we skype with the most is her Mommom (Justin's mom), and so if we ask if she wants to talk to Mommom she runs to the computer and points at it.

Recently, when we were skyping with Mommom Madelyn was getting frustrated that Mommom was not taking the toys that she was presenting to the computer screen. I told Madelyn that Mommom was in the computer and so she couldn't take the toys, but that it was nice to show them to her. This seemed to satisfy Madelyn, however Mommom said "I'm not in the computer, I'm in New York" which was clearly true. I wonder, though, if Madelyn understands the difference, or if she thinks that Mommom lives in the computer, at least some of the time.

7 Years!

2011-08-01T20:24:00.001-05:00

Sunday was Justin and my 7th wedding anniversary. It is hard to believe it has been that long that we have been married and really seems to have flown by, although it also is a little hard to remember life before we were married...particularly life before Madelyn. In the past we have gone places for our anniversary, but this weekend we stayed home and mostly did things together as a family except for a date on Saturday. This summer it has been so much fun to do things with Madelyn because she gets so excited about them.

The weekend was filled with activities that might have been ok to do without Madelyn (at least some of them) but were a significantly better experience for taking her to do them. On Friday Madelyn and I met some friends and their 19 month old daughter at the Mall of America to go to the Minnesota Sea Life Aquarium. Although transitions are not Madelyn's biggest strength right now, she did pretty well moving from one place to another with only minor resistance at the different activities until it was time to leave when she pretty much had a full scale meltdown. She really liked the jellyfish and insisted on looking at each individual display although there were only 3 different kinds of jellyfish in about 9 displays. However, her favorite part was the underwater tunnels. Unlike some of the children who were scared or startled or at least concerned by the sharks and other large fish swimming right at/by their heads, when Madelyn was caught off guard she laughed. Huge rows of teeth a couple of feet from her face did not phase her in the least. There were "oohs" and of course "whoas" but not any fear. We have been saying for a while that she is a pretty fearless child which I think bodes for an exciting toddlerhood.

It was a good weekend for the beach and the wading pool, and although we were not the only ones who had those ideas it is fun to see how much change even a week brings. Last weekend when we played at the wading pool she would walk around and enjoyed any games or playing that we would initiate, but this weekend she initiated some water activities of her own, including splashing both of us and a new game where she jumped on top of me and pushed me into the water. She thought it was hilarious, and actually Justin thought it was pretty hilarious too. I tried to convince her several times to go play the game with daddy but each time she would just smile at me and then try to get me to go into the water again.

All in all it was a pretty fantastic way to spend our anniversary weekend.

Early Steps

2011-07-31T10:59:00.001-05:00

I said a while ago I would try and post the video that my dad took of some of Madelyn's first steps. In the weeks that have gone by since this video was taken Madelyn has considerably increased her balance and stability, and I have no doubt that she will be running soon.

Learning to be Gentle

2011-07-29T21:05:00.000-05:00

We have been focusing a lot with Madelyn on the concept of "gentle," particularly as she has become more and more mobile. It is a very difficult concept for her, which I understand, but I don't think my current techniques are effective.

She definitely isn't malicious in her intent, but she grabs noses, hair, ears, etc. The biggest concern we have is with other kids, since we can remind her to be gentle with adults and for the most part can fend for ourselves. For instance, today she was playing with another kid around her age and after hugging him she pushed him down.

The second biggest concern we have is that she be gentle with animals, and in particular with our dog. Aubrey is a 7.5 pound long haired miniature dachshund and while she is definitely capable of running and hiding from Madelyn, we also want them to be friends. However, recently she has become very aggressive with Aubrey - pulling her hair, grabbing at her, poking her face. Asking Madelyn to be gentle does not seem to phase her anymore. Aubrey, although often keeping at least a few feet of distance between herself and Madelyn, also wants to be near "her baby."

So, I am looking for ideas. If anyone has any good ideas on teaching a 16 month old to be gentle, please let me know!

Rapunzel?

2011-07-28T20:55:00.000-05:00

Ok...Rapunzel is an exaggeration. Madelyn's hair is not that long. However, she was born with long hair (for a newborn) and it has just kept on growing. By 7 months old it was not difficult to put her hair in pigtails.

It's been a lot of fun to play with Madelyn's hair, although now at 16 months old she is slightly less inclined to sit still for me to put pigtails in her hair than she was before she was walking.

It's funny the things that Madelyn picks up on. For instance, recently when Madelyn was asked if we should comb her hair she went and found her bottle of detangler spray. I would not have guessed that she would have made that association, but since we have been using the spray for more than half of her life almost every time we comb her hair, it makes sense.

Barrettes are great when they work. I really like the barrettes I have found at Petite Peppermint. Unlike many baby hair accessories these are actually designed to be functional. Now, when Madelyn's hair is in her eyes, she will try to find a barrette and either hand it to someone to put in her hair or try to do it herself. Of course, she is also now dexterous enough to take the barrettes out of her hair too, but most of the time she leaves them alone.

Here she is sporting the side barrette look (the one she is almost always wearing).

Someday I think I will be able to put her hair in pigtails again, but for now this is pretty much the look we are going with.

Favorite Summertime Dessert

2011-07-23T20:46:00.001-05:00

Like many others, I have a go-to cookbook - it is just that mine is a cookbook of decadent desserts. It might be better for my health if my go-to cookbook was "Healthy Meals in Under 30 minutes," but I love the recipes in Nigella Lawson's "How to Be a Domestic Goddess." I have not had a bad dessert from this book.

Tonight I made Strawberry Shortcakes, which is one of my favorite summertime desserts, and so I am sharing the recipe.

For the Shortcakes:
2 cups + 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp baking powder
5 Tbsp sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, frozen
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup light cream (or half and half)
1 large egg white, lightly beaten

Tools:
baking sheet - greased or lined with parchment paper
2 1/2 inch round cutter

Mix the flour, salt, baking powder, and 3 Tbsp of the sugar in a bowl. Grate the butter into these dry ingredients and use your fingers to finish crumbling the butter into the flour. Whisk the egg into the cream, and then pour it into the flour mixture a little at a time and mixing as you go. Add the eggy cream until the dough comes together.

Gently roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is about 3/4 of an inch thick. Cut out rounds - you should end up with 8 in all. You will need to cut some out, then put the dough back together and roll it out again. Place the shortcakes on the cookie sheet about an inch apart, then brush the tops with egg white and sprinkle with the remaining 2 Tbsp of sugar. These can be refrigerated for up to 2 hours.

These bake at 425 for 10-15 minutes (until the tops are golden brown). You will want to let them cook for 10-15 minutes before you put the toppings on them.

For the filling:
16 - 20 oz of Strawberries
2 Tbsp sugar
A few drops of balsamic vinegar
1 - 2 cups of heavy cream (I like a lot of whipped cream on my dessert)

Take about 1/3 of the strawberries, remove the tops, and then crush with 1 Tbsp sugar and balsamic vinegar. I use a potato masher, but a fork works as well. Quarter the rest of the strawberries and then mix with the crushed strawberries. Whip the heavy cream with the remaining sugar.

To put it all together:
Halve the shortcakes. Put strawberry filling on the bottom, add whipped cream, and then put the top back on. These are best when served still warm.

Enjoy!

Baby Book Guilt

2011-07-22T20:57:00.000-05:00

I think that a baby book is a good idea. In fact, right after Madelyn was born, in a fit of "have to be a perfect mom" anxiety, I was horrified to realize that I had not gotten a baby book to keep track of all of all of those things important milestones that seem to fly by. Of course I rushed right out to pick one up, only to be overwhelmed by the enormous selection of choices. Finally I settled on one, mostly because I liked the picture on the front. Once I got home the guilt started. There was a whole section I was supposed to fill out BEFORE she was born...already my book was doomed to be less then perfect. Also, we were supposed to have the hospital staff put the footprints and handprints right in the book. Sigh...I was determined to not let that ruin my book and I knew that I was absolutely going to keep track of things from there on out.

What I forgot to take into consideration was reality.

Over the last 15 months I have come to the conclusion that the true purpose of the baby book is to make me feel guilty for not keeping track of things that I should have. The big things were easier to remember to put in the book, like the first time Madelyn tried solid foods.

But, when I went to record this momentous occasion in the baby book what did I find? Not only was I supposed to record the story of Madelyn's first solid foods, but also her first finger foods, the first time she used a spoon, the first time she used a cup, foods she loves, food she hates, her favorite dishes, games we play at mealtimes...you get the idea.

Of course, there were some important things that this baby book forgot to include - such as the first time that Madelyn's hair actually laid down flat. I added that one in since it seemed like a pretty big deal. After all, she seems to have inherited Justin's hair which he likes to describe as gravity-defying in it's efforts to get as far away from his head as possible.

The problem is that I wish that I had recorded all of the things in the book - as ridiculous as some of them are, because I like things to be complete and I don't like there to be blank spaces. Thus - baby book guilt.

I console myself with the fact that most of the important firsts we got on camera. Here are a few of them.