Week 89: September 23 – 29

BIGGEST WIN OF THE YEAR: figuring out how to help Madeleine fall asleep quicker at bedtime!!! Seriously! One little tweak in the bedtime routine, and voila! Magic. At least, it feels like it! So what was this cure-all, you ask? :D

Bath before dinner.

I don't know why, or how, though I suspect it's that bathtime, especially when daddy's around, gets her amped. Which makes it hard for her to settle down at night. And, really, the proof is in the pudding, as they say. We just Since switching dinner-then-bath to bath-then-dinner, the longest it's taken Madeleine to fall asleep is 41 minutes, but most nights are closer to 15-20. A huge improvement from an hour! We've only got 6 nights of data for this, so I'm still half expecting for our good luck streak to end, but it looks amazing so far. Will keep you posted--because I KNOW you'll be on the edge of your seat, waiting to hear! :)

BIG ADVENTURES
First up was a trip to Kennesaw Mountain. We played in the grass a little bit, then headed up a trail. It was a long, low trail, not the one I've been on a couple of times. It was great because it was pretty empty, so we could let Madeleine just walk ahead of us. Which she did, because she's so big. She enjoyed looking around, but her favorite thing was all the rocks. Finding a biggish one in the middle of the trail that she could sit on was especially fantastic.

Next, Madeleine and I spent a couple of days at Teda's house. Madeleine got to play with Liberty and Scarlet and Adelaide a whole bunch! It was ... crazy being in charge of 3 little girls! One of Teda's friends from church came and got Liberty at about 2, and Adelaide got home from school at 2:40. Teda took a nap at 2:30 and was pretty much out for the rest of the time I was there. Which is great, that's why I was there. And her girls were very good, Adelaide a big help. But. Going from one baby to three in an afternoon! Yikes! :)

Actually, maybe it just sounds worse than it was. All the girls were super-well behaved and awesome. So it was not much extra work at all!

NOTES FROM THE WEEK
~ Madeleine recently discovered our elliptical machine. What does she do with it, you ask? Well, she wants daddy to get on and make it go! On Saturday, she indicated that she wanted him to make it go. So he did it for a few minutes and stopped. Then she stood next to the ottoman, picking her feet up one at a time like on the elliptical machine. Seriously, so cute. But then she wanted daddy to do it again, so he did, for a longer time this time. She just stood there, leaning against the ottoman, watching him. When he finally DID stop, she cried! Talk about slave driver--wonder where she gets that? ;)

~ Matt reported that dinner one night was tickle-fest. I wasn't there (at Teda's). Madeleine tickled everything--Dada, baby, her plate (which she calls bowl), her cup, her food.... It is hilarious to see her tickle things that make no reaction, unlike her parents, who fake-laugh (Matt is much better at this than me!). Yet she still continues to tickle inanimate objects. WHO DOES THAT?

~ I've reported that Madeleine is working on colors. One day this week, I was hanging clothes, and she learned the word for hanger. It sounds like "ongh-uhr". She likes to play with extra hangers, so I let her. Then she handed me one and said, "blue hanger." And it was a blue hanger!!

~ Madeleine has also learned the word "bug". And she pretty much wants to kiss every bug she sees.

~ One of my favorite Madeleine words is her "word" for steps/stairs. She says "ew-ihh ew-ihh" for stairs. Go figure!

~ Last but not least: Madeleine learned to blow bubbles in her drink through her straw this week! LOL!

SLIDESHOW