Baby Girl

I've found myself a little sad lately. Sometimes I'm hanging out with Maddux and I hear her say something, or see her do something that is new, or cute, or funny. And I laugh, but I don't take nearly the pause I did when it was Eli doing that same thing. Boo. For example, the other night we were in my bedroom. Wrapping presents and whatnot was on the docket, and then Lehr came home. He took the kids out and I stayed to finish. Maddux was lagging behind, so she left my room when Lehr and Eli were already downstairs. She walked out of the room and I heard her loud footsteps stop a minute later: "Whoh...das a weally pwetty Christmas tee!" And then she continued on. Adorable! She's seen the tree a million times in the last two weeks, but for some reason its beauty caught her eye that night. And her verbalization of that beauty was oh-so cute. I smiled and chuckled to myself, but I'm sure when Eli did something similar, I rushed to the computer and blogged it. And I'm not getting around to it until four days later...just by chance!

I do come to blogger and type a draft post with little Maddie-sayings fairly often though. (She has a lot of them!) From this last week we have the following gems:

• "Das God!!" We typically read from the Children's Bible each night before bed. The kids know several of the stories now, and they love to flip through the Book on their own during the day. The other day Maddie was doing just that when she came upon a story from the new testament which included a grown up, resurrected Jesus. She pointed and told me, "Das God!!" She was so excited to recognize someone on her own!
  
• "No room!!" We have a really cool pop-up Christmas book, depicting the story of Jesus' birth. The kids LOVE this book. When we got to the page where Mary and Joseph were seeking shelter, Maddux started chanting, "NO ROOM! ALL FULL!" When you pull back the door in that book, you see the animals in the stable, and it DOES looks quite full (of animals).
  
• "Tank you for makin' dinneh, Mommy!" The other day when Eli was at Lunch Bunch, Maddie and I were eating together at the kitchen table. We had just prayed and were starting our sandwiches when she looked up at me and thanked me. (For making dinner, but I knew what she meant.) I LOVE that she is understanding the importance of thanking the person who prepares meals for you! She is a crazy one, but such a sweetheart!
  

Sisters

Video Time!

Maddux gave a short and sweet performance at MOPS this morning. The young pre-schoolers sang "Jingle Bells" and "Away in a Manger" for all of the mommies. No dresses to lift this time!! Of course, her singing reminded me of this.

2009 12 Maddux sing from Nicole Eliason on Vimeo.

What A Sucker

Total cave. During room time if Eli opens his door, or knocks on his door to get out, there are consequences. So when I hear a knock just now (only about 20 minutes into it), I went upstairs prepared to deliver. But when I opened his door, he pushed up a lego sculpture with a lego man inside towards my face: "Look, Mommy! I made Baby Jesus in his manger with my legos!" How can I reprimand for that?!?

Potty Like A Rock Star!

So I still haven't 'formally' started training Maddux, meaning I've not spent a whole day (or even more than a few hours) in the process. We offer it to her all of the time, and she sits on it before her bath every night... Besides that, one day last week we had a few hours before gymnastics, so I put real underwear on her and fed her lots and lots of water, setting the timer to sit on the toilet every five minutes or so. She didn't have any success that day, but something obviously stuck!!

Over the weekend Maddux got out of her bath and went (naked) into her bedroom to get her diaper and pj's. Less than a minute later she ran out, saying, "I gotta go potty!" She sat, but nothing happened. So we resumed our nighttime ritual. She got lotioned up and then said it again: "I gotta go PO-tty!" She ran in and nothing. By this time, we are realizing that she probably really has to go, so we try to delay putting on her diaper for a little longer. It worked! A few short minutes later, Maddux returned and pooped on the potty...totally initiated by her! We made a BIG deal about it, of course. The best part was how excited Eli was. He happened to be standing by the sink, brushing his teeth when the celebration took place and he joined right in, congratulating her and telling her how proud he was. "Good job, Maddux! You're a big girl!!"

Fast forward to this afternoon when the kids and I are at Eli's appointment with the orthodist. Maddux looks at me and says something about 'potty' and 'treat' and 'big girl'. This is not unusual as she has talked about it (very proudly) since she had her success a few days ago. (In fact, she is so proud that she tells EVERYONE, "I poop on the potty!!") It sounded to me like she was informing me she was going to repeat her performance that night. I assured her she would, and went about doing whatever I was doing. She ran to the other side of the doctor bench and started to bear down. I jumped up and asked her if she needed to go NOW, to which she nodded. Thankfully, the bathroom was right across the hall...I could even leave the door open so I could see Eli (the doc wasn't in the room). She sat down and did the deed like it was no big deal. Fireworks. Fanfare. Applause. This girl is on a roll!! Once again, Eli was SOO the proud big brother. The whole ride home he told her, "Maddie, YOU get to pick a treat out of the bag!"

New Shoes

Eli has been resisting 'the shoes' at night for several months now. Before his last visit with Dr. Schrader over the summer, we were confident that he would no longer be required to wear them, so we were on a more lenient schedule (off one or two nights each week). This is a far cry from anything we've done before with his treatment, but he only started complaining a few weeks before the appointment, so we didn't think it would really harm. Unfortunately Dr. Schrader saw some slight relapse tendencies and ordered another year of nighttime wear. The problem was, Eli was (and still is) able to get the shoes off, so short of gluing them to his feet, we found it hard to guarantee 10-12 hours of wear each night.

In the last month or so we've started to question if maybe the shoes were too small, causing discomfort. I was finally able to get in to the orthodist this afternoon to get a new pair of shoes. Eli got his first pair of Mitchell boots at this appointment. Dr. Schrader is a big fan of them, and they are Ponseti-sanctioned, so we approve as well. They are made of a softer plastic, which makes for a more comfortable fit for kids. Also, the leather straps that go over Eli's feet are softer and more pliable, so (again) less discomfort. Eli was all excited to get the shoes today, but when I put them on tonight, I was met with some hesitation. I hope that after a few nights he realizes how comfortable these shoes are compared to the other ones and it becomes a non-issue.

Crazy Hat Day

Eli's class has been having dress-up days a few times a month recently. We had 'Crazy Sock Day' earlier in November; Eli wore a pair of very tame argyle-style socks. Not very 'crazy', but it's what he wanted. Last week was 'Crazy Hat Day'. I figured we'd end up with a baseball cap, but instead Eli opted for a Santa hat. LOVED it, since he's not too much for the 'crazy'. Of course Maddux had to join in. Once she saw him don a Santa hat, she had to pull hers on too. And of course that lead to Mommy pulling out the camera and getting as many shots of the two of them as possible. It was one of those "..if you give a mouse a cookie...." moments:

"...if you get Eli to put on a Santa hat, his sister will surely want to do the same. And if Maddux puts on a Santa hat, she will surely dance around like a mad woman. And if Maddux dances around, Eli will get crazy also. And if both kids are crazy, they end up being nice to each other, in the spirit of being goofy. And if both kids are wearing a matching 'prop', and hugging each other, Mommy will surely pull out the camera to capture the moment with a picture. And if Mommy pulls out the camera for one shot, a full photo shoot will surely follow...."

Holiday Baking

We've had a lot of cold (REALLY cold) weather this week, and schedules have been nuts, so it's been just me and the kids in the house, WAY too much. I decided to try and break up the monotony and work with the holidays by decorating some Christmas cookies. I figured we'd do sugar cookies so the kids could use cutouts and then decorate them. Normally I'd make baked goods from scratch, but the thought of trying to do that AND decorate with the kids was too much. So we rolled out the dough on the counter (with some flour sprinkled on first). As it always happens to me, the dough stuck to the (floured) rolling pin every other roll, creating a mess, but we continued on anyway. Each kid ended up putting straight flour in their mouths, which sounds incredibly gross to me, but I guess that is a natural consequence! Eli and Maddux cut out shapes of snowmen, stars, gingerbread men and trees. Then they put the sprinkles everywhere. After dinner they were each able to sample their masterpieces, which they loved. To top off the evening, I loaded them in the car and we drove around looking at Christmas lights. I wanted to go for a walk to see them, like we normally do, but it was in the 20's. Even all bundled up, unless it's snowing outside, that is just miserable!

More Proof of Learning

Eli is constantly impressing Lehr and I with his increasing knowledge of the Bible and the story of Jesus. He flips through his kids Bible during room time at least once a week, and he always requests that we read a story from it before bed. Between that and what Eli has learned at church, we hear a lot of funny, and sometimes profound, things from him!

Earlier this week we were putting up one of our Nativity scenes. We talked through the birth of Jesus again. Somewhere in the middle, Eli started talking about the crucifixion. He always asks to read that story in the Bible. So Eli told us that on Christmas, Jesus was born, but later He died. And He died because the guards poked Him (with their spears). Then he got all deep and said, "Mommy, they poked Him because they didn't know Him. But after they poked Him and He died, THEN they knew Him!" They really do absorb it all, don't they?

Eli and Maddux Funnies

Some gems from the kids this week:

• Maddux and Eli brush their teeth and hair after breakfast every morning. This is sometimes interesting with Maddux as she is a BIG time 'player' in the bathroom. Water, soap...the whole deal. She does not have the privilege of getting her own soap these days (though I know she still sneaks it sometimes), nor is she allowed to get toothpaste. But she does sit in there and brush those pearly whites for minutes on end. The other day I went in to wrap up her morning routine: I said, "Rinse and tap, Maddie!" She shook her head 'no' and said, "I'm still teefin!"
• The kids and I made batch one of two Chrstimas cookies after naps today. I built up the activity with them during lunch today, talking about what kinds of cookies we'd make and what we would put on them. We called Daddy during our meal and had our usual speaker-phone-conversation. Eli told Lehr, "We're going to make sprinkles and I'm going to make YOU a cookie, Dad! I'll use red and green....." Then he looked at me and (in a lower tone, so Lehr couldn't hear) asked, "By the way, do you have any other kinds of sprinkles?"
  

Trimming The Tree

Big, grandiose plans to go cut down our own Christmas tree like we did last year. However, really REALLY cold temperatures hit Atlanta this weekend, and it was barely tolerable to go outside just to get into the car, let alone walk around looking for the perfect tree, only to then cut it down and drag it back through the field to the car. Instead, we opted to go down the street after nap time and pick out a 'pre-cut' tree. As luck would have it, we found a really nice, perfectly shaped tree right away. It wasn't even the cold making the decision for us: when we got home and set it up, no extra turning or trimming was needed. Eli helped Lehr with some outside lights. They did a great job, but when we turned the lights on afterwards, two strands were out. (Much frustration since these were new strands of lights and Lehr had already checked their viability before he hung them.) The kids were excited, no matter which lights worked and which didn't. The kids 'helped' us put ornaments on....not the easiest feat, but we all made it out alive. It was like a race to see how quick we could get the tree decorated. Eli and Maddux had no concept of placement or 'fragile'. If it was in the big box, it was fair game and obviously whoever got the most ornaments on the tree the fastest, won! If we'd had more time, a fire and hot cocoa would have followed, but by the time the last ornament was hung, it was already 9PM and the kids were toast. (So were Mom and Dad!)