Forced Fun

Madelyn was very into Pierce this morning. She kept wanting to dance and play with him. As I took this picture, she was saying, "Here you go, Pierson. Hold this. Play, Pierson."

The "Park"

This past weekend confirmed for us that Madelyn is indeed a child of the suburbs. While visiting my family in rural southwest Virginia, Madelyn was walking around my parents neighborhood with my mom. As Madelyn looked over at the next-door-neighbor's yard, she exclaimed to my mom, "Look, Ma, park!" She was referring to the swing set that the neighbor has in her yard. The entire weekend, Madelyn referred to this as the park.

Oops, try again!

A couple of days ago, John David was making his lunch and Madelyn decided she would help. As they were finishing up, John David scooped up his sandwich to put it in his bag. The sandwich fell apart and a piece of bread fell onto his leg, mustard-side against his leg, and then plopped on the floor, spraying mustard all over the floor. As I stood there trying not to laugh at my befuddled husband, I look over at Madelyn who is taking all this in. Without missing a beat, Madelyn looks up at John David and says, "Oops, try again!" So much for trying not to laugh!

Play Date!

We went over to my friend, Shawna's, house for a play date yesterday. She has a son 3 months younger than Madelyn and twin girls 2 weeks older than Pierce. When I feel like I'm having a stressful day, I try to think of Shawna and how much busier things could be. She handles it amazingly well, and Miles and Madelyn are becoming good friends. It really is fun to seem them starting to play together instead of playing around each other. Here's a picture of the 5 kids. From left to right, you have Miles, Emily, Pierce, Kate, and Madelyn.

Pierce update

As you can see from this picture, the mullet is gone. I didn't shave it off. I just cut it, so there's still some dark hair there. Also, although, I've only SEEN him do it once, it appears that Pierce can roll over both ways now. A couple of times last week, I checked on him during his nap, and he was sleeping on his stomach. When he woke up, he was on his back. So, either someone besides me flipped him over, or he has figured out how to do it himself.

Suckers

Madelyn was rummaging through our junk drawer in the kitchen today and found two suckers...a blue one and a green one. For some reason, these were a great source of fasination. She played with them all day. While watching Barney, she really had trouble focusing on the show because she was trying to decide how she should display the suckers---should she lay them on the floor, should she put them in a bowl, should she make Mommy hold them in her lap, etc. She even took them to the grocery store. She kept asking to eat them, and I always responded with, "You can't eat them while you're inside the house." (I did not want to have to deal with the sticky clean up.) After afternoon naps, we went on the stroll around the neighborhood and I let her eat the blue one. It was "yummylicious." (She really does say that. I'm not making that up!) She then carried the green one around--seriously did not want to put it down--until bedtime.

Sure Can!

Madelyn's newest phrase is "sure can!". For example, yesterday she decided to tear several pages of paper off of a notepad and distribute them around my room. After a few minutes of this, I say, "Madelyn, can you pick up your paper and put it all in the trash?" She replies with, "Sure can!" If you change your question to say "Will you..." , she sometimes replies with, "Yep, sure will!"

Good Friends

I thought this was a sweet shot. Madelyn laid down beside Pierce and said, "I love Pierson." I hope she's always this infatuated with him.

To Shave or Not to Shave...

As you can see, Pierce has a huge bald spot on the back of his head. He also has some really dark hair below the bald spot. John David calls this a mullet. John David says we should shave the mullet off, that way the blond hair that's coming in will show up sooner. I was indifferent, but now I'm starting to think we should shave it. What do you think?

Doctor Story

I'm still not sure if this was a mistake or not. A few weeks ago, I somehow figured out that Madelyn was trying to get me to tell her a story of when I was a little girl. So, I told her about passing out at the grocery store when I was 8 years old. I won't go into all of the details (if you're really interested, let me know), but it involves me going to the hospital and seeing a doctor. She loves that story. She loves it so much that she wanted JD to tell her a "doctor story" that took place in his childhood.

Now before naps and bedtime, we hear, "Mommy doctor story please." We then proceed to tell her the story, but now she fills in some of the words for us. For example, I say "When Mommy was a..." and Madelyn fills in "little girl." And so it goes. Same thing for JD's "doctor story." After we've finished with mine, we hear "Daddy doctor story."

The funny thing is this is the only story we can tell her. JD tried telling her a story about fishing when he was a little boy, but as soon as he started, Madelyn said, "Umm, doctor story please."

4 Month Check-up

Pierce had his 4 month check up today. He's a whopper of a boy! 17 lbs. 3 oz. and 27 inches long--90th and 95th percentile respectively. He also got 4 shots! YUCK! But he was a trooper and only cried for a couple of minutes. He's napping now--hopefully the shots will help him sleep well!

Oh, Great Idea!

I get at least one chuckle a day because of something Madelyn says. Her newest phrase is "Great idea!". For example, while making JD's lunch on Monday, Madelyn says, "What you doing, Mommy?". I reply, "I'm making Daddy's lunch." Her response, "Oh, great idea!" It caught me completely off-guard, and JD and I both got a kick out of it.

Yesterday, after she woke up from her nap, I gave her a snack and turned on a Barney video. Within a few minutes, Pierce started crying. I head up the steps, and I hear, "Where you going, Mommy?" I say, "I'm going to get Pierce." Then I hear, "Oh, great idea!" Too funny!

Singing and Dancing Girl

Madelyn now enjoys singing a lot! She has memorized most of the Elmo's World theme song as well as Barney's theme song. I'm not sure what that says about our TV watching habits, but that's another worry for another day. She also tries to do the choreography when watching Barney, and that is pretty cute! She knows the ABC song (well, she can mimic most of the sounds--doesn't quite get all the letters yet), Jesus Loves Me, Johnny Appleseed, and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. She also knows the jingle to the Christian radio station we always listen to in the car. In this picture she is dancing around to a Barney song.

4 months old!

It's hard to believe Pierce is 4 months old today. I feel like all I did was blink to get to this point. Time seems to be moving much faster with baby number 2, and I also feel like he is mastering things faster than Madelyn did. Of course, that could be because I'm not watching the "milestone charts" all the time...who has time for that with two kids????

He started sleeping through the night earlier and he seems to have found his toes much sooner than Madelyn did. They are now his favorite toys--toes make great toys since they're always there with you. He can also roll over from his back to his tummy. He can't go the other way, though, and we'll all be happy when he can do that. He doesn't seem to like laying on his belly and it can make naptimes very frustrating when he wakes up mad that he's flipped himself over.

Open/Close

I'll spare you a picture for this little anecdote. So, while drying Madelyn off from her bath this evening, she decides to pull up my shirt ever so slightly and rub my belly. It seemed really sweet at first, but then I feel a bit of a tug and she starts saying, "open, close, open, close." I look down and she is pinching the "I've had two kids" roll around my belly button, making it look like my belly button is opening and closing. Just when I was feeling decent about my body again, she slams me back to reality.

Traveling to the in-laws

We went to my in-laws to celebrate Independence Day. My husband's grandmother has a house on the Rappahannock River and hosts a cookout every 4th of July. Madelyn had a great time swimming in the river with Daddy and Pierce had a great time sleeping and getting passed around from person to person. Before going to the river, Madelyn was able to help Grandaddy drive the tractor and plant soybeans.

Traveling with kids is always an adventure. For our family, it usually involves a night or two of not getting enough sleep. Madelyn has finally realized that things continue to happen while she is napping or sleeping at night. This was first an issue last weekend when my parents were visiting us. She woke up at 6:00 am very distressed. I too was distressed because I was counting on at least another hour of sleep. She said she wanted to go downstairs to see Ma (Grandma) and Grandad. We tried explaining that everyone was asleep, but it didn't matter. So, we were up at 6:00. This morning (still at the in-laws) she woke up around 6:00 again. She again was distressed. I decided that she would just come to our bed and lay down. When I checked on her, she wanted to know about Nana. She looked down the hall to Nana's room and saw the door closed, she looked across the hall to Pierce's room and saw the door closed, she came into our room and saw Daddy trying to sleep. She then asked to go back to bed.

In other news, Pierce has found his voice. He was awake at 4:30 this morning happily talking, or shall I say yelling, to himself. We finally decided at 5:00 that the only way to get him quiet again was to feed him. So, we fed him at 5:00 and were okay with that, knowing that we would still probably get another 1.5 hours of sleep...and then Madelyn awoke.

Just Starting

My friend, Emily, started a blog to help us keep up with her adorable kids. I thought it was a great idea, so here I am. We'll see how well I do at keeping my posts up to date.