Cornhusker

It's fun watching Madelyn try new foods.  Some she really likes (bananas), others not so much (ground beef).  At any rate, her palatte is developing.

On Sunday, we enjoyed turkey burgers, baked beans, and corn on the cob for dinner.  Madelyn helped Griff de-husk the corn and there was a discussion about this is "what they mean when they talk about Cornhuskers"...sort of.  Madelyn doesn't really like burgers yet so she had leftover chicken bites from the night before instead of burger.  She ate her chicken bites and baked beans well.  But, the corn?  No.  The few kernels that went in were promptly taken right out of her mouth.

As Griff and I ate our dinners, she looked longingly at our corn cobs.  So, Griff held his corn cob up to her mouth.  I wish I had a picture or video because it was the sweetest, cutest thing!  She ate corn on the cob!  When Griff's corn was finished, she looked at mine.  So, I ate what I wanted then gave the rest to her.

If only Madelyn's Nebraska relatives could have seen, they would have been so proud of our little Cornhusker!

Fish

The day we've been waiting for is finally here.  Swimming lessons started today!  For the next six weeks, we'll have our lesson at 1030A on Saturday at the Aviator Pool.  Below is a quick summary of today's outing.

Before -

During -

And, after -

Staycation - Day 3

Well, we didn't make it to Tiny Town as originally planned.  That outing is postponed until a later date.  We did, however, conclude our staycation in good fashion.  We went for a  l o n g  walk and ate our picnic lunch by the pond in Central Park.  Post nap, we went over to Grammy and Grandad's for some BBQ and backyard fun.

Madelyn played a little badminton,

Ran the community pool while Grammy supervised (and refilled the water, as needed),

 

And, after a change into dry clothes enjoyed sharing some blueberry pie with Aunt Shelley and Mom.  We headed home exhausted from a great Memorial Day weekend staycation.

Ready for Breakfast

Staycation

Last year we trekked to Grand Lake for Memorial Day weekend.  This year we're having a staycation.

Our stay-at-home vacation started on Saturday morning with a walk to the market in our town center and a trip to Central Park playground.  The fountains were running and a dozen or so kids happily played in the water.  Of course, our little one wanted to play in the water, too, but the swings plus promises of a post-nap pool outing satisfied her.

After a good nap and snack, we sunscreen-ed up and headed to the Aviator pool.  We went to the Puddle Jumper pool a few times last summer but Madelyn was much more in to the water and swimming this year.  I might be biased but she was cutest and best behaved little swimmer at the pool.  We only stayed for thirty to forty-five minutes but long enough to get our fill.  Madelyn went under (not entirely on purpose) two times!

The day was capped off by a visit from Grammy and Grandad while Griff and I went out for a staycation date -- sushi followed by beers and baseball.  Quite a combination!

Day two of our staycation included a trip to the zoo.  We saw the foxes, giraffes, sea lions, polar bears, elephants, and, of course, monkeys.  Madelyn's favorite were the giraffes.  She liked the baby giraffe running around the giraffe yard.  We also enjoyed a picnic lunch at the zoo.  We were unsuccessful in finding the lions today but I promised her we'd make sure to find them next time.

The scheduled activity for day three of our staycation is a trip to Tiny Town, Colorado, and some backyard fun at Grammy and Grandad's.  Stay tuned for pictures and an update of the rest of our "trip"!

Summer, summer, summertime...

...time to sit back and unwind.

I am Mommy

This afternoon, Team Anderson loaded into the family car and headed over to the SuperTarget.  We needed a few items for dinner this evening as well as our homemade Mother's Day brunch tomorrow morning.  I had run out of face lotion in the morning and convinced Griff to make a pit stop at the Aveda store close to the SuperTarget.  He and Madelyn decided to wait in the car for me.

When I finished my transaction and got back in the car, Griff told me a story of what happened while I was gone.  On a side note, Madelyn has, from time to time, freaked out when I've gotten out of the car to run in some place thinking she's been left behind even when Griff is still in the car with her.

At any rate, the following is a paraphrase of today's story as Griff told it to me -

I got out of the car.  Madelyn didn't freak out and actually waved bye-bye as I walked away.  She saw me walk into the store and maintained her focus and attention on it knowing I was inside.  At some point, she could even see me inside.  The whole time, while maintaining her focus, she repeated, "Mommy," "Mommy", "Mommy?".  When I walked back out, she was happy and greeted me with a friendly "Hi!"

The best part of the whole thing is that as Griff is telling me this, it didn't really register that she was saying "Mommy" and had made the connection that I am Mommy!  I wish I could have been there to see it but, at the same time, had I been there, it wouldn't have occurred.  Yay!  What a wonderful Mother's Day weekend!

I am Mommy!

Mother's Day 2010

Blue

I'm not sure what this year's Mother's Day arts and crafts project from school will be.  Last year, Madelyn made me a sweet coffee filter flower which is still displayed on the book shelf in her room.  What I do know is that this year's project will be blue.

Upon pick-up yesterday afternoon, Griff finished cleaning the blue off Madelyn's arms and hands.  They must have done arts and crafts in their skivvies as Madelyn came home in the same outfit from the morning...and it was not blue.

However, before bathtime last night, we discovered that even her ear canals were blue!  She must have had her fingers in her ears at some point before getting cleaned up.  The blue cotton swab during bath time was proof!

Stay tuned for more details on the mystery blue project...

Words

The time has come for censorship.  We've always watched what we say around Madelyn from the beginning.  Not that our language is that horrible but it's just easier to start early.  A friend of mine used to joke that her daughter was likely going to be the first child kicked out of pre-school for bad language due to her husband's lack of censorship.

At any rate, Madelyn is now repeating sounds and words.

Last night we read Love & Kisses before bed.  It's one of my bedtime favorites.  In the book, the little girl kisses her cat and then the cat kisses a frog, etc etc, until the kisses all come back to her.  At one point, a red-winged bird kisses a cow who laughs a great big "Moo!"  When we got to that part, I did the obligatory "Moo!" and Madelyn repeated.  She "Moo!-ed" a few more times until the book was done. It was really pretty sweet.

This afternoon, she and I were leaving the house to run errands.  We were at the steps putting on shoes when Felix hopped up on to the buffet in the dining room.  I yelled at him from across the room, "Felix, get down!" and Madelyn promptly followed up, "Get down."  I tried to get her to say it again but she wouldn't repeat it a second or third time.

I'm happy to have her mimic cow moo's and Felix disciplining.  Let's hope we continue down this path instead of the alternative.

On a side note, Madelyn's few words, that she says on her own, right now include: kitty, daddy, dog, all done, hi, and bye bye.  Dr Noah was pleased with her vocabulary at Thursday's 15-month check up.