I've written down lots of things that Madeline says, but I'll admit, I haven't been as good lately as I could be. So I'm starting out right here!
She's going to be 2 in less than a month, which is ridiculous. The second year has gone much faster than the first did. I was looking down at her still-kinda-fuzzy head the other day, and I suddenly thought, "AAaauauaaghghghhh... she's going to be twelve soon." It made me want to hold onto her tight.
She has starting saying "My Mommy" and "My Daddy," and it's completely adorable. (I'm pretty sure this is because I call her "my Madeline" a lot—as in, "How are you doing, my Madeline?" And when Josh asks her what she wants, she'll point to me and say, "My Mommy!") Not so adorable is the continuous "Mommy-Mommy-Mommy-Mommy-Mommy" (etc.) that she uses to call me from another room, or to tell Josh that she wants me to do something instead of him. She has recently started using "Daddy-Daddy-Daddy" too, though, which is kind of nice for me, lol.
Look—chickens!She has started to use "I" correctly at the beginning of first persons sentences. She still says "Did it!" sometimes, but more and more it's "I did it!" or "I got it!"
She has started demanding "More!" and she's been an expert with "No!" for a long time. It is really fun to hear her use new words; lately she talks about fish and sharks and bugs and cards (a pack of sight-word cards that she loves to take out of the box and then put back in a card or two at a time) and grass and going to the kark, which means park. Actually, anytime we go out the front door, she points out to the sidewalk and says, "Kark!!" She cries when we drive past it and don't stop, and no matter how long we stay, she cries when we leave. She loves the slide (both for sliding and for pushing things down), the swings (but she wants to sit on your lap to swing), the teeter-totter, and the little playhouse that both of our little neighborhood parks have. The bigger one also has a tunnel and a merry-go-round, and she's a fan of those, too.
Summer days in Alexandria—complete with sunglasses and a baby.When we're home, she asks to go on the deck (which sometimes sounds like she's asking for a duck, but then she says "Outside" and you realize what she means); she loves to throw helicopter leaves down from our balcony, but our landlord just had our big tree cut down, so there aren't any helicopter leaves on the deck anymore.
She still loves babies of all kinds, and airplanes (especially playing Lego airplanes with Daddy). She still has a love/fear relationship with Daddy's remote-control helicopter. She still labels anything and everything as a mommy, a daddy, or a baby. (For example, we've been at airports where there were mommy, daddy, and baby airplanes; however, every single plane at Heathrow was a mommy airplane.)
Disassembly is her favorite part (well, besides the little Lego mommy).Oh, the other thing she loves lately is playing tent; this means we go upstairs and climb under the covers on Mommy's and Daddy's bed. This is a favorite delaying tactic at bedtime—we head upstairs talking about pajamas, and suddenly she says excitedly, "A tett! A tett!"
She got a little plastic walker bike from our neighbors; she does ride it, but her favorite thing to do with it is to pull it around the house. Sometimes she calls it a bike, and sometimes she calls it a car. She's started pretending something with it, I'm not sure what, but she'll walk around talking to it, and she stops every few feet to tip it sideways, pat it a little, then help it back up and keep walking. The other day I walked into my bedroom to find them both lying down on the floor, taking a pretend nap (Madeline had a blanket over herself). I'm not sure if she's pretending it's an animal or if it's just alive (think Disney's Cars), but I think it's great!
It was so funny the other day... most of the time, when I ask her a question and she gives a response anywhere near the correct one, I say, "You're right!" We were looking at a picture of a cat, and I asked, "What does a cat say?" Madeline hasn't really meowed yet, and she didn't respond. So I said, "Does it say meow?" And she said brightly, "Wite!"
The more, the merrier.
Mom, it's Vaseline—you're supposed to put it on your face!She's such a character, and we just love her. She has such a quick mind; she's got a social, friendly personality; she's got some two-years-old starting to show, but overall, she's pretty obedient (or at least willing to compromise when something is important to us). As long as she's got her mommy and her daddy, she likes going anywhere (especially with stairs, and preferably not too long in a carseat). When she's watching something, she wants one of us to sit by her and hold her hand.
I'd like to hold her hand forever. :-)
