22 MONTHS

Where do I even begin… this girl just makes my heart want to burst. She is so sweet and so funny and she knows it. I love that she’s talking now. She’s even more hilarious now that she can talk. She says pretty much everything and is really good at remembering things. Madeline loves to be our little parrot. Some of her recent frequent phrases are, “Bess you.” after a sneeze, “scoo me” when I’m in the way, “thank yOU!” (with a down on thank and a high, up sound on you), “My try!” “I do it” “I get it” she wants to do everything on her own which is good and bad, “Yup”, “Come ehr”, “Righderr” (right there), “Makeups” (she’s obsessed with doing makeup with me and I never really know what kind of makeup I can give her to play with. Usually I give a blush brush and the blush and she looooves it.), all balls are “Baaketball”, “Tecking” (texting- she loves to just type away on my phone AND take lots of selfies “cheeeeese”), “Temple Song” eeeeeevery night and nap time (I just love hearing her tiny little voice say it), she also requests “Rainbow song” (When I Am Baptized) and “God” (I Am A Child of God), and my personal favorite “I ya you” <3 <3 <3

At night when she requests “Temple Song”, she always says, “One more.” and holds up her little pointer finger, because that’s what I always tell her. The other night I said, okay Madeline I’m going to sing it one more time. And she turned to me and said, “No. Free!(3)” and held up four fingers (she has a hard time doing 2 and 3 with her fingers). I just started laughing cause I’m just thinking, what! How did you learn to negotiate?? It was so funny.

This girl is obsessed with giving “hifi” and “knuckles”. If someone is leaving, she always has to give a high five and knuckles multiple times before they leave. Especially at night time with Daddy.

Madeline’s voice is so tender and sweet. I just adore it. But sometimes she goes Oprah on us and has such a deep, throaty voice. Her laugh has always been deep and throaty and I love it. Sometimes she’ll yet out someone’s name and it’s so deep “JOOOYYYY”. It is hilarious and I love it. She is pretty decent at pronouncing things well, but some things she has a hard time with. Like double L’s. She all of a sudden decides to speak Spanish and turn them into a Y. Balloon = bayoon. Pillow = peeyo.

Today I tripped over a toy and she said, “Careful!” It made me laugh. I love when things randomly come out of her that I didn’t know she knew or understood.

She always falls asleep sideways in her crib with her legs and feet either smashed in a weird angle or dangling through the bars. She loves playing with her mesh bumper and pulling it down with her feet. Madeline is still a great sleeper. Hallelujah! She goes to bed around 7:30 and sleeps until 6-6:30 am. Luckily she’s over her 5:30 am wake up time. We put a blanket over her window so it stays nice and dark in there. We really should get a black out curtain, but the blanket works for now. I was really hoping the blanket would make her sleep in later, buuuut no. Her body tells her to wake up at 6-6:30. She has been napping for about 2 hours lately, which has been really great. She will nap about 11-1. I love it. Every morning when she wakes up, she immediately asks for milk and show. I still give her cows milk in a bottle cause she loves it and it’s kinda soothing for her. She will not drink milk in a sippy cup to save her life. But she’ll have to sometime soon. She loves watching “Daniel”, “George”, and “Mickey Mouse”. I love this time in the morning because it gives me time to clean the kitchen (that I didn’t have the energy to do the night before) and make Nathan’s lunch, without her pestering me or telling her not to get into everything in the kitchen. So it’s usually tv babysitting time when I have to be in the kitchen (morning and dinner).

Madeline is definitely a girl of habit. Things HAVE to be the same or she gets really upset. A few examples, at dinner, Nathan and I have to sit in the same seats we usually do, and if we don’t she lets us know. When we are all out together as a family, mommy has to be the one driving, cause I usually am the one driving with her. At bedtime, she has a hard time if Nathan ever wants to sing to her and get her into bed. I’ve always been the one because of nursing and that’s just how she knows it. In the morning, I let her brush her own teeth and the first time I did that I told her to sit on the towel on the floor so that she wouldn’t be walking around with the toothbrush. So now every morning she has to sit on a towel to brush her teeth, and if there isn’t a towel she makes sure I get one out for her to sit on. Once you do something one way, it always has to be that way. Just like her morning routine- milk and show. I’m not really sure what to make of this. I don’t know if I should give in to some of her demands (like me always driving to make her happy) or just let her deal with the upset (let Nathan drive).

She looooooves Target. I don’t feel like I talk it up or anything, but I guess we do go pretty frequently. The other day we pulled up to Sprouts which is right across the street from Target, and without me saying anything she exclaimed, “Tahget!!” I was super impressed she recognized it! The other morning I was asking her, “Madeline what do you want to do today? Do you want to go to Costco? (Nooooo.) Do you want to make some lemon bars with mommy?” Her response, “Noooo. Tahget!”

She is still obsessed with airplanes, trucks, and trains. Airplanes the most. We hear lots of airplanes and she gasps and looks up and says “Airpane!” and has to find it.

If I’m ever humming, she will start humming and bob her head back and forth and smile and watch me.

She loves to be my helper. Especially with laundry. When I’m folding laundry at the dryer, I will give her a few items to put away and she will excitedly go and put them in a random drawer in her room. And then I’ll give her a few items to carry with me to our room. I let her help me bake cookies once and she was in heaven! I brought a chair into the kitchen and she loooooved being at my height and being able to see what was going on at the counter all on her own. She loved dumping things in and watching the mixer. That was when she first started to count! I was so amazed that she actually knew some numbers. She counted to ten almost all on her own! She forgot 5, but that’s okay. I love her little brain. She also will sing parts of the alphabet. When I’m singing the song, she will chime in with ABC and S,WXYZ and “next time won’t you sing with me”. I think that’s pretty good! She definitely recognizes M, W, S and kinda E. I love the way she says W, “dubbayou”.

Madeline still loves to color and “write”. She holds her pencil the exact same way that I do! It’s so funny. I hold it with my thumb and pointer and middle fingers, with it resting on my ring finger. I never showed her how to hold a pencil or crayon, she just did that all on her own. Her new obsession is painting, thanks to Aunt Rachel! She brought a canvas over and put tape in the shape of an M and let Madeline watercolor all over it. It’s really pretty! She left the watercolors here and I recently discovered them and let her paint. She could have painted all day if I let her. She started off using the paint brush, but at the end, she was all fingers. She loved getting messy, but she HATES getting messy. She will make a stink face and hold up her hands and say, “messy!”. Just like when she’s eating those cheese puffs, they get all over her hands and she just can’t handle it!

It’s been 3 months since the no nursing and she doesn’t ever ask for it, but she loooooves resting on my chest. Sometimes she’ll yell out “chest! chest!” She will pull my shirt down and tries to get to my boobs, but my boobs are not as big and plump as they once were so it’s harder for her to find a soft spot haha. But I love it. I love when she snuggles into my chest and breathes in deeply. Just the best.

Only occasionally is Madeline opinionated about what shoes she wants to wear. Luckily, she lets me dress her however I want and there’s not much of a battle there. Yet. She still loves her pockets. She loves getting dressed on Sundays, especially if her dress has pockets. You can tell she feels soooo beautiful in her dress. She stands up and spins a little and is just beaming.

I’m so curious to know what goes on her little mind. She will randomly just start saying people’s names. Mostly my family and Nathan’s family, all her cousins, and our favorite friends Riley and Ashley. She must think about family pretty frequently cause every day she shouts out their names. I know she definitely misses her cousins. Madeline has stranger danger. Any time someone new comes up to Madeline, she clings to me and nuzzles into me and has a hard time making eye contact. My friend Ashley’s little girl Riley was obsessed with me and especially with Nathan when she was Madeline’s age. So Ashley’s husband Dave, has been expecting that with Madeline, but she is so afraid of him. Every time we see him, we say, “Say hi to Uncle Dave!” and she won’t even look at him. The other day in the bath she was playing by herself and randomly started saying, “Uncle Dave. Uncle Dave.” over and over. It was hilarious.

Madeline loves to play in dirt. Any time we are out and she sees a pile of dirt, something in her draws her to it and she has to pick it up and carry a handful with her. She is also obsessed with our neighbors tiny dog that hangs out in the window. She just laughs and gets so giddy when we walk over to see the dog. She never wants to leave. I’ve been trying to exercise more and so I take her for runs at Lake Chabot and towards the end she’s dying to get out and “run” with me. It’s so cute. She gets out and takes off and makes sure I’m running with her. If I ever stop to walk along my run she yells out, “RUN!” haha. My little drill sergeant.

Madeline got to go to Children’s Fairyland with her two buddies, Gwen and June. We had a really good time. There’s a plastic key you can purchase for a few bucks that the kids can put into these little boxes that are all around Fairyland and they turn them and they play a little story. It’s pretty cute. I didn’t get Madeline a key at first, but June had one and Madeline was extremely envious. So I got her one and I’m glad I did because that was her favorite part. Aside from the train ride. She loved putting the key in and twisting it.

Madeline had her first “haircut” on June 20. It wasn’t a full on haircut, but I cut a little curl off on the right side. She has the most uneven hair and it drives me crazy. I wish it would all be the same length. I know it will eventually, but it’s growing so slow! On the right side she has pretty short hair, except for this one tiny, long section, that would sometimes have a cute curl, but most of the time it was just straight and fluffy and would stick out. It really bugged me so I trimmed it while she was in the bath. I do love her soft little curls in the back.

On July 10, she started to show real interest in going poop in the toilet. She was finishing up breakfast and she shouted, “Poop!” So I asked if she had poop and she nodded, so I said let’s go change your diaper. And she shouted, “No! I do it!” and was pointing to the bathroom. I asked, you want to go poop in the toilet? And excitedly said yes. So I put her on the toilet and she was soooooo happy! She let out a bunch of gas, but no poop. We sat there for maybe ten minutes and I was done holding her there, so I took her off and she got sooooo mad. Later on, I was going poop, and she comes in and says, “Ow do it too!” This love of the toilet is just so funny to me. When Aunt Rachel was watching her, she said she did the same thing and she let her sit on the toilet. She had a little poo nugget in her diaper so Rachel plopped that in the toilet without her knowing, so when she got off the toilet, she looked in and shouted, “I poop!!” and then she tried to flush the toilet with her foot. hahaha! My little germaphobe baby. So now I have to decide if I take advantage of this excitement and try to potty train or just wait until she really is ready. Mentally she doesn’t get the concept of feeling the urge to poop or pee or know how to hold it. I guess I should get some potty training books read asap.

Madeline also experienced her first nursemaid’s elbow. It was the worst thing ever. One Saturday morning, Nathan was playing around with Madeline and went to lift her up by hands/wrists and when he put her down she started saying Ow ow ow! and holding her arm. I was worried she had broken her arm or something, but Nathan wasn’t being rough so I wasn’t sure how it would have broken. She was holding onto her arm and crying so we figured something was up. We decided to just wait it out a little, but then called the kaiser advice nurse to see if there was a quick care, not the ER, but they only have a minor injury clinic and you have to make an appointment. The earliest they had was 11:00 and she hurt her arm at 8:30 that morning. So we just let her watch a bunch of tv and snuggled until it was time to go. She never left go of her arm that whole time. Poor girl was so sad and miserable. While we were waiting to go, Nathan googled it and found out it was nursemaid’s elbow and that it’s an easy fix. We got to the Doctor and he felt around a little and gave her an ice pack to put on it. He came back a little while later and felt around her arm and then popped it back into place. A few minutes later we handed her the phone with a show on it and she grabbed it with both hands and had a smile on her face. Easy peasy! All better! Whew. I was relieved that was all that it was. We stopped and got a cookie for her on the way home because she was such a good sport.

She has been very Dad obsessed lately, and we all love it. It melts me watching Nathan melt as she melts into him. She loves when he works from home, but then he doesn’t ever get any work done. It’s hard for me cause he will come out for a minute and say hello and then he goes back into our room to work, and she runs after him crying his name. Then she’s super upset and I have to deal with it. No fun. It’s hard living in such a small space.

We love our Madeline Mae so very much and she brings us so much joy. Life is good.

Grandma Donna’s birthday!

Madeline and her bff, Riley.

Madeline is obsessed with “jive!” She could drive all day.

I love when she stands like this.

Her favorite nook in the kitchen. Because there she can hideout AND pull everything out.