This girl. I wish I could bottle her up and keep her this age forever. She is just the best. Her tiny, sweet voice, her sweet and happy disposition, her sweet smell and soft skin, her happy, sparkly, blue eyes, her kind spirit, her mothering tendencies, her caring heart, her curly, out of control hair, her sweet smile, her super curious mind that never seems to rest, her love of mommy and daddy and baby sister, her love of singing and art, her amazing memory, her beautiful face and spirit. I could go on and on. I just love her so much, I feel like my heart will explode every day. She is definitely at the age where she likes to test her limits and push my buttons and whine and complain about everything, but I know that’s her age and she is figuring things out. I will occasionally lose my patience with her, and she senses it immediately and asks, “Mommy frustrated?” And it makes me realize how in tune she is with emotions and how she reads it so well. It helps me take a moment and a breath and look at my sweet girl and treat her well. She really surprises me with how well she understands emotion. Nathan was gone for a week, and the first couple days were by far the hardest for me. I was extra emotional due to pregnancy, getting over being sick, dealing with a sick girl, and feeling alone. I tried my best to contain it, but when we were video chatting with Nathan, I started to cry and Madeline turned to me and asked, “You miss daddy?” And wrapped her arms around me and just held me. I was amazed that she understood that I was sad because I missed Daddy. That’s a different kind of sad and she knew to give me comfort and not look at me weird, or start crying herself. She’s very mature that way. Another thing she loves to do is pretend that I’m a baby. She’ll say, “You crying?” and I’ll fake cry and she will grab my head and bring it to her chest and she’ll hold me and sing a song. Or she’ll just have me lay my head on her lap and she will rub my head and sing me songs. She is such a sweetie pie and will be the BEST big sister.
Madeline still loves to “nuggle” my chest. If she’s sad or tired, she pulls my shirt down and rests on my chests. She’ll take a deep breath in and let out that comfort, nuzzle sound. I love it. I want her to love to snuggle my chest forever. She has a really hard time saying her “s” sound, so everything with an s is like, “nacks” “chool” “nuggle” But other times, her s sound has a slight lisp, “sthisthter”. She talks really well and really clearly. I love being able to communicate with her. She is so funny and so much fun. Talking is the best. She’s also very smart and has a really amazing memory. She remembers things from so long ago, and it’s great and not great at the same time. Sometimes I wish she would not remember certain things cause I threw it away and didn’t want to see it anymore, yet she keeps asking about it from 6 months ago! I’m like, “Oh it must be lost…” And she’s determined to find it.
She has a ton of primary songs memorized. At night, we end up singing her a million songs cause she’ll start crying and say “I’m sad…” and ask for one more song. She is rrrrreeeaally good at using the “I’m sad…” phrase throughout the day and night, in her most pitiful, pouty voice. It’s a bit overused these days. At night, we sing her a lot of primary songs, and she will usually sing them with me and I adore it. It is the cutest thing in the world. She will also walk around the house singing primary song after primary song.
She is using complete and full sentences. Some more frequent phrases, “I want to save it for tomorrow.” (any food she doesn’t want to eat) “What’s your doing-GAH?” (She used to say it like that all the time, but not anymore. But she still asks that question alllll day.) “All the things!” (She used to say that more closer to age 2, but not so much anymore), “You’re back from work!” (and a giant hug. She will say this a lot throughout the week, normally when she wakes up from a nap. Even though it’s Friday, she still gets happy that I’m home from work), “What’s that?” or “What are you doing?” she likes to ask these questions a lot even if she knows the answer, she also likes to ask all day over and over, “Where’s … ?” fill in the blank, normally everyone in our families, cousins, all the Swensons and the Holyoaks (even Dave and even Thayne), she likes to put on her watch and look at it and say, “It’s time for my run!” and then run down the hallway, if she hears one of us cough, she will yell out, “You okay, mom?”, she talks and sings NON STOP in the car, it is rarely silent in the car, and at home, she will just walk around be singing and talking.
For some reason, lately she’s been saying her “O” sounds as a hard, British sounding “o”, instead of the soft “ah” sound. I wish there was a better way to explain it… like with words long, off, or God we normally say it with an ah sound, she says it like she has an accent with a hard O. It’s so funny and I’m not sure where that came from!
Madeline is SUPER shy. If someone is giving her attention that she doesn’t know very well (basically anyone that’s not in my family, Nathan’s family, or Ashley and Riley) she will hide behind me or just put her head down and not make any eye contact. As soon as they are out of sight, she will continue talking non stop.
Madeline really loves going to see Dr. Huynh, my obgyn. She gets excited to hear baby’s heartbeat and see the Dr. The Dr adores Madeline, and tries talking to her, but Madeline just keeps her head down and focused on her drawing.
On 1/4/16 Madeline said the dinner prayer from beginning to end all by herself! She did such great job. Now when she says it, she says it so fast and mumbles it. And she always says the same things, “… grateful for this day, bless the food, bless daddy to make it home safely, in the name…” She says it so quiet and so fast, and every time right before she says it, I always tell her to say it slowly and clearly and loud so we can understand. But she still does it fast and quiet.
On 1/18/16 Madeline got to feel baby sister kick hello for the first time! Now she feels her constantly. She loves to feel baby sister. And she looooves to hug, and kiss, and snuggle baby sister (aka my tummy). Any timeshe sees my bare tummy, she says, “Awwwww!!” and runs up and hugs it and kisses it. Even if I’m going pee, she’ll be right in there while I’m going. She LOVES her baby sister. She always has to include her on things and always says good night to her. It is so sweet. Madeline loves talking about all the things she will do for baby. Like sing to her, read her books, give her milk, teach her how to blow her nose, take her for walks in her stroller, etc… I can’t wait for this baby to come out and have the two of them meet. <3 <3
Madeline loves her 3 babies, Baby Cam, Baby Ariel, and Baby Kitty. She will spend a good amount of time playing with them all on her own, and I love it. She will sit in the rocking chair and sing songs to them, give them milk, change their diapers, etc… she’s a pro mom.
Madeline loves to use tape, scissors, and glue. She is in an art class right now and she LOVES it. I’ll blog more about that later. I taught her how to write an “M” and she loves writing M’s. Madeline also LOVES to bake in the kitchen. She could spend all day mixing and creating in the kitchen. I still haven’t let her crack the eggs yet, even though she’s dying to.
She used to call me Grandma a lot. She would say, “Look Gwamma! I mean, mommy!” I think it was habit for her to say look grandma, whenever she did something cool or amazing. She normally has her Grandmas here on M/T so she likes to show off for them.
Madeline is obsessed with the Nutcracker ballet. She loves the music and she loves to watch the dancers. She will dress up in her tutu and watch them and try to follow them. It’s the cutest thing in the world. I love it! Sometimes I’ll just have the music on and she will close her eyes as she feels the music and dances slowly. And sometimes we’ll have fast, up beat music on and she just goes crazy. She especially loves to dance when Daddy is home, or when she has an audience, like when we are over at Grandma Donna’s house and all eyes are on her.
This girl loves to read. We could sit and read books all day. She has so many books memorized, it’s pretty amazing. A few she recently likes to quote word for word: From Bear Snores On, “You snuck in my lair and you had all the fun, but me, I’ve been asleep and I’ve had none!”, from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, “Skit skat skoodle doot, flip flop flee, everybody running to the coconut tree, mommas and papas and uncles and aunts, hug their little dears and dust their pants.”, and from Fancy Nancy, “What’s the word again? Oh yes… Accessories!” She loves Fancy Nancy. I like the original book, but we’ve borrowed a lot of the others from the library and they’re not my favorite.
I’m 39 weeks pregnant and I am officially DONE with work, for an undetermined amount of time. I have so many mixed emotions about this. Working two days has been so great and not so great at the same time. I love the people I work with, I love a lot of my patients, and I really enjoy my work. But it was a lot of stress making sure we had someone lined up to watch Madeline, getting everything ready for the next day, getting everything ready in the morning as I’m trying to get myself ready, and get Madeline out of her crib and going, and say bye to a sometimes crying child, getting Nathan’s and my lunches ready, trying to make dinner after a long day of work and wanting to spend time with my girl, etc… It was a lot of stress. So it’s nice to be done with that. But we will miss the little bit of extra income! But I am super happy to be home all the time with this sweet girl and soon her baby sis.
