We'll just call this Part 2

Pictures of my girl taken from her grandpa on July 2nd 2012. Instead of starting a new post, I thought I'd just add it to this one. :)

This is sort of a continuation of my last blog. I haven't wrote anything in a year, so naturally I have more to say and didn't want to put it all in one entry.

I noticed in my last post that I said Madison doesn't like to feed herself. Well, that's not the case now. She (most of the time) refuses to let us feed her! She does fairly well with a spoon, but could use more practice. Truthfully I think I hold her back in some ways because of my obsession with keeping her clean. How terrible is that? She gets messy enough eating with her hands, but a spoon? She likes to fling food with it and I've found food a good 5 feet from her tray because of this. Speaking of holding her back, I've been withholding on teaching her to drink with a straw because in my mind, she just "wasn't ready". She proved me completely wrong the other day when she learned how in about 2 minutes. Bad, bad mommy.

I've been working on her walking a bit more lately because I've set this goal for her to walk by her birthday which is two weeks away. She's SO close, but is terrified of falling. Just like her sitting up, she's very cautious and doesn't like taking risks. She can stand independently, but once she realizes that no one is holding her, down on her butt she goes. There are times that I catch her standing by the television holding onto nothing for 5 minutes at a time. But as soon as I praise her for it, she loses balance. She's also "walking" with her little push toys. Her car, her wooden walker, pretty much anything on wheels. I'm so proud of her progress and think she's a super hero, but man do I wish she'd master this in two weeks. I don't know why it's so important to me. I know that when the time passes and she's still not doing it that I'll just set the next goal and not get bothered by it. I guess it's just because I know she can if she'd just believe she can too. She's going to get there, and I'm proud of her for it. Whether it be tomorrow or 5 years from now.

Another thing I want to discuss is her speech. I really do believe she's saying more than we realize. When I give her kisses or a hug, or her sippy she'll say "thank you", but in her own way. It's very hard to make out. You may be asking yourself how I know it's a "thank you", and it's because she has this play kitchen that sings songs and at the end of one of the songs it says "thank you!" and each time, she says it back. The same thing, over and over. I wish I had a recording of it. It sounds sort of like "tank uh". Adorable? Yes. And this is the same thing she says to us after the things I've listed above. It's the same with a app on my phone that she plays. At the end it says "goodnight!" and she says it back to the game each time. I wish I could make out the words a little more, but I believe with time they'll get more clear. I feel a little guilty that I'm her mother and that I have a hard time understanding her attempt at communicating.

I'm sorry. These past few posts are all over the place... but so is my brain, so I guess that fits. ;)

No pictures this post, just wanted to go into a little more detail on my darling girl. I can't wait to update with pictures from her party as well as pictures on my crafts blog. Speaking of, you should follow it! You can find the link at the top of this blog on the left.

Enough is enough. Thanks for reading!

Forgive me?

"Sorry, my mom really stinks at this! We know everyone wants to see our cute faces!"

I'm terrible, lets face it. How many times have I wrote an entry saying "I'll do better about writing!" (I have said that, haven't I? I don't know. I don't even want to look back to see because it depresses me that I haven't kept this up all that well. If I haven't said it, I've thought it). I'm pretty sure my last entry was nearly a year ago, and now I can't be certain what I've said, what I haven't said. Madison is turning two next month on the 13th. I'm not ready for her to be two. I no longer have a baby. Kalen is out of school for the summer and successfully completed kindergarten. I'm also not so ready to have a 1st grader. Where does the time go?!

"In a year's time I've gone on a boat ride with my cousin Violet --

oh, and I learned how to pick my nose."

We'll be celebrating her birthday July 12th and I PROMISE to post pictures! I have to. Truthfully, we did away with internet for a while and it turns out that typing anything with length on my iPhone was not so favorable. But now it's back, and I really do want to do better about this little blog here. This entry is going to be all over the place, so please forgive me...

What haven't I written about Madison in this years absense? Truthfully there isn't much to report on. She's doing wonderful. She's saying a few words: "Mama", "Dada", "Thank you" (sounds more like "tank uh"), "Hi", "Hello", and truthfully I think she says more than we realize, she's just not being very clear with her pronunciation quite yet. She gives kisses galore and loves to snuggle her baby dolls and feed them. I actually caught her putting on "lipstick" in her mirror the other day which was by far the most adorable thing I've seen since first seeing her grab her baby and rock it while patting it's back. She's not walking yet, but so close. She does pull to stand on everything she can and cruises. Yesterday we got her to take one step unassisted. Baby steps (literally)! Her physical therapist says it'll be no time before she begins. She has AFO's for her ankles because they tend to "cave in" when she stands which have helped tremendously with her balance. She crawls at rocket speeds and gets around just fine without walking, and I think that's why she just doesn't bother with trying. Why risks falling and learning a new task when she gets around fine without it? If only she realized that if she starts walking she'll be able to run away from Mommy in public instead of being confined to a stroller. Wait... Maybe I like the crawling. :)

She's a terrible eater, which is the only real complaint I have. She only eats a tiny bit at a time, and it's never enough to be considered a meal. I give her Carnation Instant Breakfast daily to try and bump up her calorie intake, but I don't believe it's doing much. She weighs 20 lbs right now, but is proportionate. For now I suppose that'll do. Her nutritionist isn't wanting to explore a feeding tube at this point, but I'm not too sure I agree. I'm going to give it a little more time and see how things go.

Kalen is doing fantastic, as usual. He got perfect grades all year in kindergarten, and is growing so much and in so many ways. I'm so proud of my big boy. His birthday isn't until October, but we'll be going to Universal Studios to see The Wizarding World of Harry Potter (he's a big Harry Potter fan, as is his mom). We're both extremely excited. ;) I also PROMISE to post pictures from that trip. I really do!

Here we come, 1st grade!

Sorry for the extremely long update. I'm sure there's more I'm forgetting, and if so I'll just make this a two parter. I've been doing this really terrible thing where I use my iPhone for every picture I ever take, and I'm looking forward to whipping out my nicer camera and using it to document our lives through this blog. More exciting things to come!