What We're Up To: Madeleine || Month 34

This month, things kind of get closer to being almost like normal…

BUTTONS
Madeleine has started buttoning and unbuttoning! She’s got a dress with big pink buttons down the front, and on October 15, she unbuttoned the whole thing. Within a few days, she was able to button them, too. She looked for other things she could button. So far, she can only do big buttons.

BOOKS
There’s a book we’ve had since before Madeleine was born called “In My Tree.” It’s very simple, but it’s got a little finger puppet on the last page, and you put your finger through it while reading. She always enjoyed the little owl and often kissed him, but this month, she discovered that there’s a finger in there! It was cool to see her make that connection for herself.

BIG
On October 25, we let Madeleine play outside by herself for the first time. I know it may seem like she’s a bit old for that milestone, but our back yard has huge holes in part of it and I’ve never before felt confident enough to leave her alone. But she did great, didn’t go near the holey part. She played on the swingset and with her clothesline, and all was well.

Speaking of BIG, look at this hair!

LINCOLN
Madeleine’s taken to wanting to help me unswaddle Lincoln when he wakes from his naps. I didn’t let her help whenever she (or he) was sick, but she really enjoyed it. As did he. If he was crying, he always calmed upon seeing her so close to him. It’s so neat how much he LOVES her.

On November 13, Matt asked Madeleine if she wanted to pray about anything, and she asked for him to thank God for Lincoln. **MELT**

QUESTIONS
“WHY?” has made it into Madeleine’s vocabulary.

I had often imagined that I would enjoy this phase, for the most part, thinking how cool it would be to answer her questions and help her learn.

For the most part, I am enjoying it, but certainly not all the time. I am not always in a (patient) teaching mood. Sometimes, when Lincoln is crying and he just won’t stop, I’m not in the best place to answer why Lamby has four feet.

I hope that I’m still able to have fun with it as we venture into this new phase of learning for her.

PRESCHOOL
We decided this month to pull Madeleine from preschool. I went to the school to hopefully talk to a teacher. I just wanted to get a sense from them about how Madeleine was doing with preschool because I just kept thinking she wasn’t enjoying it.

I talked to Miss Teisha and asked her how Madeleine was. She kind of looked at me and shrugged and said, “Well, you know, she doesn’t talk much.” That surprised me right away. “She is polite, she answers when we ask her a question, but she doesn’t talk.” I asked if she interacted with the other kids, and was told she doesn’t really. Miss Teisha asked if this was Madeleine’s first time in school, and I said yes. She told me it sometimes takes awhile for the kids to get used to school. I said okay, but I just left feeling like it wasn’t quite right.

If you’ve spent any time with Madeleine, you know that she TALKS. A lot. Nonstop. If she’s comfortable. When she’s in a new situation, she is mostly quiet until she warms up. So if she’s been at preschool for over a month and her teacher says she “never talks,” something isn’t right.

Matt and I debated it for a long while. One of us would want to pull her, the other would hem and haw. Finally, we were both on the same page, and Matt said something really great. “I’d rather pull her when she should stay than keep her there when she should leave.”

Amen. Rather to err on that side for our little introverted girl. There will be plenty of time yet for school and kids and socializing and learning. When the time is right, we can try again.

The preschool had a “Noah’s Ark” day this month, where the parents sent their kids to school dressed as an animal. Also this month, they had an event thing at the church where the preschool is for “Halloween” (I don’t think they called it that, maybe “fall festival or something??). Anyway, so we got a cow costume for Madeleine. She immediately loved him, named him “Cowie.”

The morning of the “Noah’s Ark” day, however, she didn’t want to go and didn’t want to wear the costume. So, *sigh*, she was probably the only kid not dressed up. Oh well. But she did wear the costume when we went to the fall event thing!! And a few other times during the month at home, just for fun.

Here she is behind the curtain wearing the cow costume! And look at those cow feet!

PICNIC
One day after a rough morning at preschool, we decided to have a little picnic in the back yard while Lincoln slept. It was super nice, and we got to spend time together with just Madeleine. [October 26]

ANOTHER FUN TIME WITH MAMA!
On Saturday, October 27, I got to have another great day with Madeleine. We started with breakfast together, then went home go I could feed Lincoln. The main exciting part of the day was a trip to Marietta Square to visit the farmer’s market, fountain and the play train.

We started by going through the market, and Madeleine said she wanted an apple. So we found a vendor selling apples. She picked a yellow, I took a red. We also looked for the awesome fresh squeezed lemonade, but no luck there.

We took our apples to the fountain and watched the water. There were a lot of kids gathered there, so Madeleine didn’t interact too much with the fountain. The play area is enclosed on three sides, so I could just sit and watch her play. She did that some, but we also ate our apples, sitting on the brick wall around the train. It was really nice. YAY for just-us time!

FUN PLAY

Baby doll all tucked in!

Madeleine adores the nap nanny! She wishes she could sleep in this like Lincoln.

She wants to do everything that Lincoln does. Here, she’s in the BebePod (like a Bumbo), reading “Dot.” Ironically, Lincoln wants to do everything SHE does.

Listening to some cool tunes

She’s a big fan of the sound machine we use for white noise where Lincoln sleeps. Every time we get Lincoln up, she goes for the sound machine. They’re good friends. :)

We spent some fun time in the back yard this month. Here she is on the slide.

Here are some pictures of Madeleine playing outside again. There was swinging, a leaf pile, raking, hiding in the foliage… Lincoln even made an appearance near the end of the day (that picture would be in his post).

GOODNIGHT MOON
For a time, “Goodnight Moon” was Madeleine’s FAVORITE book. She wanted to read it at every nap, she could quote it, she had a few copies and they all had separate names. Then Lincoln was born, and suddenly the book was taboo. She did NOT want anyone to read it to her, she didn’t look at it, quote it, nothing.

Okay, we moved on to other books and she had plenty of favorites.

This month, we went to Joanna’s house to have 3-month pictures taken of Lincoln. While there, Joanna gave Madeleine a gift (with the idea that she and Lincoln could share it). It was a “Goodnight Moon” Treasure Box, with 5 different books in it and a page of stickers. I snagged the stickers, knowing that she’d just put them all on the bathroom sink and not APPRECIATE them the “right way.” (Ahem.) I’d planned to give them to her when she was a bit older.

Anyway, the 5 books are: “Goodnight Moon,” “The Runaway Bunny,” “My World,” “Goodnight Moon A-B-C,” and “Goodnight Moon 1-2-3.” ALL of her Goodnight Moon fervor returned full force. She didn’t want us to read the original, since she already knew that book, but the other four? Yes, please, all the time and ALL of them. Every time. She would say, “Would you read to me the books that I don’t already know?” And we would go through them, one at a time.

(For those who don’t know, “Runaway Bunny” and “My World” are in the “Goodnight Moon” family of books. I did not know either.)

Well, so then all the old Goodnight Moon books were brought back and loved again. There was “Old Goodnight Moon,” “Library Copy Goodnight Moon,” (the board book), “New Goodnight Moon,” (the one sized about 8x10), and the Goodnight Moon from Miss Joanna. There’s also a recordable Goodnight Moon, but she can’t have that back until we lock the recording where she “reads” a whole page. But I think she’s forgotten about that one by now?

So yes, Goodnight Moon is BACK, people! And I am thinking I want to do a Goodnight Moon birthday party for her! Super thanks to Miss Joanna for the FABULOUS gift!