21 Months

I've had several sentimental moments this past month with realizing that Madilyn is growing up, and WAY too fast! As I've been looking through pictures and watching old videos of Madi, I've been feeling that I need to document more. She changes so fast and I feel like I'm already forgetting what she was like just last year at this time. So you'll have to forgive me for the EXTRA long post this month. I included LOTS of pictures for those of you in more of a "looking", rather than reading mood! 

As of last week, I am thrilled to report that Madi has been LOVING nursery! For 3 straight weeks in a row, Spencer would drop her off and she'd run right in to play with her friends. She was always happy and full of hugs after church. Every week her nursery leaders would report on how impressed they are with Madi and how she plays so well with all the kids and is so happy to be there. Well.... it was this past Sunday that we had a little set back that broke her record! I was SO bummed! I blame it on her FOUR canine teeth coming in AND the fact that there weren't any kids in the room when Spencer dropped her off (everyone's seemed to be sick lately)! She cried hysterically for 15 minutes, with both fists in her mouth, before I came to rescue her. I joined her in nursery for the remainder of second hour and then she joined me in YW's for third hour. Better luck this week! It does feel good that she's on her way to no more break downs though. 

This past month Madi started doing MY trick for getting her attention. Let me share. When Madi's fussy, whining about something, or refusing to get out of her bed, I'll usually let out a big GASP and whisper some random question to her. It's funny how the simplest things get her attention and distract her from what she was whining about. For example, "(GASP), Madi, where are the birds? Are they sleeping?" Madi immediately perks up and stops what she's doing. She then wants to look out the window and tell me all about the birds being awake or asleep. Well the other day,  I was busy going through clothes in her room (trying to make some room for #2) when Madi let's out a big GASP! I quickly look up to see what's wrong. Very seriously (in a whisper voice) she says, "airplane". So of course I went along with it. We sat and tried to hear the airplanes, and then ran to the window to see if we could see them! 

Listening to Madi talk is probably one of my favorite things of her growing up! I love that we can actually have conversations with each other. I love that she can answer my questions. I love that she can help me make decisions (this is VERY helpful for a mom who's terrible at making decisions on her own :)! I DON'T love how demanding she can be with her requests, but I do love that she's able to express herself with words and not just with screaming and crying! While Madi now says pretty much anything and everything we want her (and don't want her) to say, I had to make note of a couple particular phrases this month:

1) "You comin' mama?" This is Madi's question anytime she is walking ahead of me or when she wants me to go somewhere with her. Kinda hard not to love it when she turns around, checking on me every few steps, making sure that I'm still comin. 

2) "Wanna go to temple, RIGHT NOW!" Madilyn started insisting on doing stuff "RIGHT NOW" awhile back when I told her we were going over to her friends house. She kept insisting that we leave "right now". At that particular moment it wasn't the cutest thing to have my toddler screaming these words at me. However, I have to admit, it was SUPER cute when after talking about the temple one afternoon, she walked around the house the rest of the day telling me, "Wanna go to temple, RIGHT NOW!" Yep, Spencer and I scheduled a visit to go that weekend. 

Madilyn contemplating the purpose of life after visiting the temple.

3) "SO CUTE" and "That's SO pretty!" I'm always able to know the things Madi approves of by what she says when I show them to her. For example, she's VERY picky with the shoes she wears and I know the 2 or 3 pairs that she LOVES by how she responds when I go to put them on her. If she approves, she'll say "cute shoes". If she disapproves, depending on her mood, she will run away from me, freak out, or yell "NOOO!!" 

Then after putting on a necklace, she'll comment, "That's SO pretty!" She uses these phrases (referring to being "cute" and "pretty") particularly when looking at herself in the mirror after getting dressed, putting on hats, and/or wearing necklaces. Ya, we've got a daughter who's cute and sure knows it!

Being a good talker, Madi feels pretty confident when it comes to reading her books. She has all of her favorites memorized now and she's able to finish the sentences when we pause. Spencer and I both love being able to read with her, letting her fill in the words. But many times Madi just gets frustrated and wants to read the books alone! I've been making sure to read new (or not as familiar) books before bed now. It's the only way I can get her to sit back and actually enjoy the story without freaking out and wanting to read it herself. It is really cute listening to her read the story completely by herself though. While it's definitely a modified version, I'm able to tell exactly what page of the book she's on by what she's saying.

One thing I forgot to note last month when mentioning personality traits of Madi is that she is an incredible self regulator. Let me explain. I never thought I'd hear of any kid (let alone actually have one) that refuses cookies, ice cream, suckers, or even favorite snacks. Well, meet Madilyn. Her self control is amazing to me! On more than one occasion she'll have a sucker, suck on it for quite awhile, and then hand it to me saying either, "Here ya go" or "All done"! The first time it happened we were in Safeway doing some shopping. We always stop by the bakery counter first to get Madi a free cookie. She's such a slow eater that she'll usually eat the cookie for the majority of our shopping trip. Well, this particular time she finished about 3/4 of the cookie and then handed it to me, telling me she was done. I was shocked! What kid DOESN'T want to finish a cookie?? She's done it with many other treats as well. I was sharing ice cream with her the other day and after several bites she turns her head and when I ask if she wants more, she says, "no." Alright then! I guess I have finally found an area that Madi does NOT take after me! Oh how I wish I could be more like her though!

Every month I feel like I find more things that Madi DOES takes after me in. She really is a little Anie and I'm PROUD of it! One of these things happens to be her obsession with being clean. On her signing video (that we watch almost every day) there's a clip that teaches the signs for, "clean" and "dirty". Then there's a cute little song about their hands being clean or dirty. After watching this movie over and over, Madi now always checks out her hands. If they're the least bit dirty, she makes sure to tell me and then insists that they be washed. Since we DO wash hands so often, she usually just walks around, proudly telling me how clean her hands are. 

Madi being very concerned about her dirty hands after playing outside.

As I think I've mentioned before, Madi loves having "alone" time- in her own isolated space (another thing just like her mom). Before our most recent purchase of the new tent, Madi preferred getting into her pack-n-play to hang out, read books, look out the window, and just be alone. She'd stay and hang out in there for an hour at a time. Now, don't get me wrong, we NEVER force Madi to get into her pack-n-play. She actually asks to go into "pack-n-pay"! Then when she's ready, she'll ask to "git out!"

One thing I must include about this age is that Madilyn has started to hit. I am very much NOT ok with it and Spencer and I are still at a lost with how it started. So I'm including this in here as also a question to all you moms out there. What do you do about the hitting? She thinks it's so funny to give Spencer or I a playful slap on the face or the arm. Then when we reprimand her, insisting that she apologize (which thankfully she always does), she'll give us a few more playful taps, as if trying to show us she was just kidding around. However, I've seen her hit a random kid at the park because he was invading her space. This is not ok and I'm wondering what I can do to get her to stop.

While this is already a SUPER long post (and if you've even made it this far, I'm impressed), I wanted to include a video I took the other day. We started working on our colors at the beginning of the month and I was happy to see that she got them down a lot faster than I thought she would. She now knows her basic colors (black, brown, red, blue, green, yellow, orange, pink, and purple). I attribute it to daily drawing on her white board (telling me what color she's using and which one she wants next) as well as doing some serious Fruit Loop sorting and snacking! Yeah for yummy yummy Fruit Loops (a treat I only got because I was craving em. Thank goodness for pregnancy cravings)!!

 While she only demonstrates counting to 10 in the video, Madi can now count to 14 (I'm guessing because that's the number of stairs in our house). She's gotten up to 16 before, but usually when she gets to 14, she'll just keep saying 14 over and over again!  

How lucky I feel to be a mom and especially to be able to stay at home and hang out with Madilyn all day. I couldn't ask for a better job! Love you Madi!