Maddleisms

Madeline's first shower! She still prefers her bath, but a shower will do, especially
when the water mysteriously stops running in the other tub.

Madeline just had her three year checkup and got a good report: 92nd percentile for weight (39 lbs), 95th for height, and can draw circles and lines to the doctor's satisfaction. She's doing very well at school. Her favorite activities are singing, dress-up shoes, and playing baby dolls. A music teacher now comes to Abra to do music class and Madeline loves it.  She also loves being one of the oldest kids, and we recently sorted out the fact that not all of her "babies" at school are toys. Ella is frequently coerced into calling Madeline "Mama," and when I led Madeline to the baby doll station at school one morning and asked her to show me the new baby she'd been talking about nonstop three toddlers pointed to a new hook on the wall with a smiling photo of an actual new munchkin.

Madeline has a language all her own. She likes us to "inside-out" her clothes when she takes them off at night, and have us "soft" her at at bedtime, which means we rub her back or tummy gently. After dinner she politely asks "please be may excused" and asks me to "pause it" when I'm reading a story and she needs to grab a new toy or conduct another pressing errand. If she wants to skip the commercial in a recorded show she'll ask us to "face forward". Anything breakable is "glassable" (a term picked up from her brother), and if you can't figure out how to put a toy together you need to consult the "constructions" (that's another Patrickism).

Sweet Heart: Madeline on a recent Mommy/Maddle trip to St. Elmo's,
where she insisted we also buy her brother a penguin cookie!

Madeline's newest trick is getting out of her crib, which she did dramatically one recent morning, exuberantly bursting into our room and announcing "I'm here!" She's done it a few more times, coming all the way downstairs on her own after nap on Thursday, which freaked us both out. She lasted a lot longer in the crib than her brother, but I guess a big girl bed is on our near future.