Moods of Madison

Mommy and Madison have been talking about different faces for different emotions: sad, happy, mad, surprised, and even "talk to the hand." The video above was a pop quiz Daddy gave Madison when he got home. She got an A+ when it came to surprised!

Today Madison had apples for breakfast. Rather than eat them straight away, she insisted on building a wall - the Great Wall of Apples. It must be in her heredity: give her materials, and she'll start making a wall. Next thing you know, we'll have a Forbidden City made out of carrots.

It's Raining, It's Pouring...

What to do on yet another rainy day? We start it out with a big breakfast, of course! Mommy cooked us all a great big meal to fill our tummies, and then we were ready to start our day with lots of energy!

Sort of! You see, when it is cold and wet outside (as it was today), you sort of have to fight that urge to stay indoors and under a blanket, snoring!

Anyway, Mommy and Madison colored in a coloring book for a while, and Daddy worked a bit on next month's big series "EXODUS." For a time, Madison even used her new video game system, learning with Elmo about letters in the alphabet. This is another one of those things that she just giggles and giggles about. She really enjoys the games, and knows how to plug in the system first thing in the morning too. We have to hold her back and say, whoa! We don't want to have another video game addict in the house!

We did take a drive today and even stopped to eat at the Cracker Barrel once again. We had to get more tinkle dots there, because we were running out! Madison has been very good lately on the potty. She's getting better and better, and has been earning more and more tinkle dots. I can't recommend the tinkle dot program enough!

Back to the Cracker Barrel: She loves to play with the peg game they have at each table, but she doesn't quite know the rules yet - instead she just categorizes the pegs. Today she was counting them in groups, one color at a time. One, two, three, four, five... she'd use her fingers to count along to make sure she was getting the number right. Madison is going to be a natural with math.

In fact, we'll be celebrating with π Day very soon. That's right, it's almost 3.14 again (that's March 14th), and there's only one way to celebrate: with a great big pie!

3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816 ...

Noah's Ark

Another day of downpours. Since the weather has been so wet as of late, we've begun constructing the ark you see above in our front yard. Sure, the neighbors are laughing now, but just wait until all those animals start lining up two by two. Especially the okapis!

This might be a good opportunity to refer to our popular Madison's Book Club section below:

MADISON'S BOOK CLUB

This is another telling of the story of Noah's Ark, but a pretty unusual one. Picture a hillbilly from Tennessee called to build a large ark - and then picture a small stray dog who befriends the man. This is "Little Scraggly Hair: A Dog on Noah's Ark." It's told with a serious country accent, which I don't recommend when teaching a young'n to talk, specially one of them-thar three-year olds. But, the pictures are cute, and it is yet another different way to tell the Bible story of Noah's Ark. Madison certainly likes the book - she's asked me to read it to her from time to time. Daddy mostly makes up the dialogue at this point, as the story tells itself: it rains and rains and rains.

Which is oddly enough what is happening now. Maybe we really are in the last days. Jesus did say "as in the days of Noah."

Just saying...

DEFCON 5

It was a sunny day - or at least that's what I heard! Daddy spent the day inside the office today, working and still rather sick. He's been fighting a little illness. Okay, it's a big illness. Still, Daddy doesn't get sick that often, so hopefully with another good night's rest things will get better.

Madison was at the office today too - and at the playground as well. Mommy made sure Madison got to have some extreme fun today doing a little rockwall climbing, and attacking the playground as if she drank six energy drinks. She was running around in circles, not knowing which thing in the playground to run to!

This morning we had another DEFCON 5 situation - that's our little code for the condition of Madison's diaper. DEFCON 1 is a minimal damage sort of situation, and DEFCON 5 is pretty rare. However, it does happen. Yes, I know DEFCON 5 is an "at peace" situation. In case you're wondering what exactly the number stands for in our house: it actually indicates the number of whipees needed for complete containment and stabilization. This morning was one of those very situations: DEFCON 5. Personnel scrambled throughout the base, as the alert mobilized everyone to their positions: that diaper was a DEFCON 5 if there ever was one! In fact, we started the bath immediately and the day was saved, thanks to a few alert noses. I know this just might qualify as "too much information," but we've always laughed at our little coding system.

DADDY: "How was the diaper?"

MOMMY: "It was a DEFCON 3."

DADDY: "Oh, that's not bad. Would you like to play a game?"

Let's Roll

This afternoon Madison was ready to try on her skates that we bought for her a few days ago. With a little help, she strapped on her kneepads and her helmet, and ventured outside! The weather was so much warmer today, and it was perfect to do a little skating. She's wearing her Disney Princess kneepads and skates, and doing it on her own back and forth between Mommy and Daddy. She was laughing just about the entire time as her feet slid beneath her - she fell only twice. Soon Ye-Ye and Nana were home, and together we strolled and rolled down towards the park a little bit. Nana and Mommy each held Madison's hand to keep her from falling, but she wasn't doing too bad when she was on her own. We'll try it again from time to time this month, but today was a perfect start: she had a great time rolling around and giggling.

And the Award Goes to...

It was another eventful night at the Academy Awards, as Madison won the treasured prize for "Best Supporting Actress," shocking Hollywood and the media, as until tonight, no one had actually realized she was even nominated. Madison's acceptance speech was short, and didn't contain many consonants. She closed out her speech with a gracious "dank doo" and ran off with the coveted statue in order to stuff it into her crib to go night-night with (alongside her other stuffed toys).

I promise you, some of the other Academy Award winners will be doing the very same thing tonight.

When asked what she would do with it, her parents said it would probably go inside her toy refrigerator or inside her big dollhouse nearby the sofa.

Madison won this award, no doubt, because of her supporting role around the house. Take today for instance: plenty of toys to play with in the driveway. But Madison wants to grab the broom and sweep. She's a little worker, and no doubt the Academy has been paying attention (which is somewhat disconcerting).

Abbie's Birthday Party

Today Madison got to go to one of her friend's birthday parties. It was Abbie Hitchcock, who Madison gets to see at church all the time. Abbie and her sister Rachel live in Forsyth County, but came up to Gainesville to have their party at a place called "ink." This place has all sorts of things to do for kids, from playgrounds to acting all grown up in pretend veterinary offices or courtrooms. Lots of sponsors set up small offices, so kids can pretend they run a grocery store, or shop there. Or they can pretend they're driving an old fashioned fire truck or a brand new police car. You can see in the photo here that Madison and Abbie were playing dress-up to perform on a mini-stage - they both had a great time today.

Madison kept busy all day, between playing at the party and having fun at the church as we set up for our new series. Daddy is still at work, taking a break from setting things up, but Madison had fun helping with skateboards and other Xtreme sport-related props. She's seen the new set before all the other kids and I'm happy to report that she give it two thumbs up.

It was a good day, and we were wanting to check out that place for the party today anyway. We'll certainly be back - Madison enjoyed it very much. She had a very happy day!

Here she is, going after that ice cream already!