So Many Words

Mads is really talking. I am not sure that the boys talked so well so early, but she tries to repeat everything. Her vocabulary builds daily! Here are some of the things she says regularly:

momma
daddy
Gingee (Ginger...her bunny that Daddy made her on Valentines Day at Build a Bear)
bye bye (as she waves)
uh-oh
no
Baboo (Andrew....not to be confused with a baboon)
Cabub (Caleb)
Icee (Isaac)
ByBy (Bryce)
deek do (peek-a-boo)
Beaux (all dogs are Beaux)
tank-du (thank you)
bu-deeee (baby)

Now, here is my least favorite:
Bu (bugs))she LOVES chasing them! She spent quite a while the other night chasing a butterfly. By the time I thought to go in and get the camera the butterfly was gone :(

But that is okay, because the same day she was running around outside saying bugs and chasing them, she also started saying:

boooo: shoes
pu-ssssss: purse

That is right, she is already saying purse and shoes. Momma is so proud!! She has also been picking out her clothes for quite a while now. I will either pick her up in her closet and she will look and pick something or I will get three or four outfits out and she will study them and pick one.

When she gets mad or irritated with her brothers she just screams at the top of her lungs. Not a crying scream, a get-away-from-me-now-before-major-girl-drama-begins type of squealy scream! It works too! The boys are still so used to the brother they are annoying just hauling off and hitting them when they have had enough, that the squealy scream still startles them and they back off! Therefore, I only see this getting worse before it gets better.

Another thing (not related to her talking), I get comments a lot about the fact that she will walk up to an older boy and get right in front of him like she is having a stand off. People are amazed that she is so bold around boys. Until, they learn that she has four brothers! We were playing with a little girl the other day, a few months older than Mads, and she was taking everything the girl had, pulling her bow out of her hair, etc. She needs some girlfriends....NOW!!!

Oh yeah, I forgot.....she doesn't say milk, but if you tell her to go get her milk, she will find her cup, bring it to you and say "tank du" (which is the hint that she NEEDS a drink!!)

Daddy Out of Town

Daddy went out of town today and won't be home until Thursday. This is the first time he has been out of town since she become aware of things like that. She was asleep when we dropped him off at the airport and slept for several hours. When she got up, she walked around the house looking for Dada. She finally got side-tracked with something else and quit searching.

Everytime an outside door opens or a dog barks, she goes running to the door yelling DADA!! Of course, there is no Dada. So, she has been disappointed many times today :)

I texted Daddy this evening after he got checked in to his hotel and told him what she was doing. He said it was sad, but made him smile! He said he would call when he was done with dinner and talk to her. She has never talked on the phone (and I am now thinking it is not something she should do often).

When he called I put the phone on speaker phone. Between hearing his voice and seeing his picture on the phone she had the BIGGEST smile on her face and kept pointing at the phone. She was very excited! She kept putting her hand over her ear while she talked (like she was holding a phone).

THey had a good conversation, kinda one-sided with the talking, but there was continual babbling (although quiet and hard for him to hear some of it) and a LOT of giggling on this end! When it was time to hang up and Daddy told her night night, she kept kissing his picture on the phone and waving while saying bye bye.

I am guessing there will be many phone calls this week. They both need to hear each other I think!

My Water Baby

Andrew never really (and still doesn't much) care for sprinklers or rain or showers of any sort. Mady can't get enough of them. When we are on our nightly walks she tries to get in to EVERY sprinkler that is on down our street. Put, her love doesn't stop at the sprinkler. She will take water of any sort.

In a pool:


Puddles:




Sprinklers:






the pictures with her face down at the water...she likes to drink out of the hose. I have no idea where she learned that, but she has done it since the first time she was around water coming out of a hose.

or rain:






She could also spend forever in the tub. She likes to just sit in the water and play with her toys. She, however, is not fond of the getting out part.

She does a great job of entertaining herself when we are outside. She would prefer to live outside, I think. If she hears a door open, she RUNS to the door. If she doesn't make it before the door closes, she will scream until someone lets her out. But, once she is out, you don't really have to do much with her (especially if we are in the fenced in area). We had some friends over last night and spent a couple of hours outside with the sprinkler on and sandbox open. She was content to do her own thing the entire time.

The Dirt Princess

Yesterday morning I was painting my fingernails and Mads walked up. She got SOOO excited when she saw the fingernail polish and started putting her fingers and feet up at my hands all the while just a SQUEALING!!! Of course, it very much excited this mom of four boys to see her little girl so excited about nail polish already. She has always done good at sitting still and letting me paint her toenails letting them dry, but she has never "asked" (or demanded) to have hers done.

So, I painted her toenails and then for the first time did her fingernails since she was so excited (getting her to sit still for twenty nails and then drying was a bit of a stretch). She looked so cute in her girly, ruffly outfit, her earrings and her pink toes and fingers.

THEN, she went outside with her brothers. Well, let's just say the girl knows how to get as dirty as they do. Although, I do believe that when she came in she was in a close second for dirtiest (right behind Andrew). She IMMEDIATELY found a planter that was full of potting soil (but no plants). She decided to see how potting soil tasted.


Daddy was drinking a bottle of water, so of course Mads wanted some. After he shared with the dirt princess, Daddy decided he was no longer thirsty and gave her the bottle. She started off with the lid on:



Then he decided "what the heck" and opened it for her:



So much for the cute ruffly girly outfit (as water dripped out of her mouth and all over her)! :) But, she knows how to work a crowd, she starts blowing kisses:



Then she decides to see what happens when you turn an open bottle upside down:


Then she thought she would have a seat and turn it upside down:
She quickly learned that water from the refrigerator is
C-O-L-D!!

The conclusion we came to at the end is that we have the CUTEST wet, DIRT PRINCESS that ever toddled the land:

(she was kissing the whole time I was taking pictures - that is why her lips are puckered in a lot of the pictures)


On another note: she has enough hair (barely) for a clip with no headband :)

Appreciation

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Yesterday was an exceptionally bad day! Sometimes the monotony of life as a stay-at-home mom gets the best of you. While I LOVE my job, it is hard to spend every day cleaning and doing, yet have it look like you haven't done anything. Add on top of that the fact that I had made some curtains for one of the boys rooms (that they had been nagging me about), and they got pulled down within a couple of days of being put up. So, I was feeling a little under-appreciated as well.

I did not handle it well. I did not want the one day of "fake" over-appreciation that they wanted to give. I was very un-accepting. But, after everyone went to bed last night I was thinking of the way I behaved. I was being very self-absorbed and feeling sorry for myself.

See, children - probably especially boys - show appreciation in a different way. It isn't always a "I-really-appreciate-everything-you-do-for-me obvious appreciation. With boys you have to take what you can get. Sometimes, it is Caleb asking if I need any help with anything. Or, Isaac giving hundreds of hugs. Maybe it is Bryce asking if he can be my foot rest as he crawls under my legs (and he will sit their for as long as I want him to), or giving me a hand massage. Andrew is continuously giving hugs and kisses and telling me "I wuv you Mommy"!

As a mom, instead of feeling sorry for myself, I have to LOOK for the different ways I am shown appreciation. Beyond LOOKING for signs of appreciation, I have to ACCEPT the way the boys show the appreciation as if they WERE saying the words out loud to me.

Part of my job as a Mom is to do what I need to do whether I feel appreciated or not. It isn't always easy and it isn't always fun. It might be one of the hardest things about being a mother. But, I love that I have been blessed with a hard working and dedicated husband that does what he has to do so I have been able to stay home for the last 8 1/2 years and raise my children.

Boys are strange little creatures and they have their own way of doing EVERYTHING! No matter how hard I try to teach them to make their emotions a little more transparent, they apparently just are not built that way. So, instead of feeling sorry for myself and expecting something that I know I am not going to get (and then getting disappointed) I need to accept what I am given and appreciate that I am given it!

I have enjoyed so much getting to be there and watch my children grow up (much too fast I might add). They are the most precious gift I have ever been given and I don't want to miss any of it.

I love you Caleb, Isaac, Bryce, Andrew and Madeleine!!

Obsession

Mady's obsession for shoes took a new turn yesterday. There were no shoes around the house (my guess is she had already taken and hidden them all), so she decided to make her own. She took our newspaper and wadded it up and put it on her feet. She was quite proud of herself.

Kudos for the creativity! It is nice to know, if need be, she can make shoes from anything!