Horsey!

Horse Riding

Our cousin Whitney hooked Maddie up with a horseback ride tonight. Maddie absolutely loved it. She did really well and was fearless from the beginning. She definitely wants to go back and "ride more horsey."

Family Photos

Hello, my lovely readers!

Recently (like a week and a half ago), Jon, Maddie, and I ventured out to Prairie Center and met the lovely and talented Sarah Dickerson for a little family photo session. First of all, seriously, if you haven't been to Prairie Center and you live in the area, you should totally check it out. It's a little "rugged" as Sarah described it, but if you wear good walking shoes, it's gorgeous. Lots of wildflowers, ponds, trees, etc. (Um, also giganto bull-snakes, if you get off the path to try to take pictures by some trees, so I don't recommend that...)

Secondly, Sarah was great. She trekked all over the place with us, was patient with Maddie, and most importantly, she got some great shots. I'm only going to post our favorite shot here because sometimes uploading photos onto this thing is a pain, but you should definitely check out more images from our session on her blog. (We've also placed her blog in our list to the right, so feel free to check out more of her work, if you have time.) We're buying a disc of all the pictures from this session, so we'll put them all up somewhere online when we have that, so you can browse if you're so inclined. (And if you're not, I totally get that. I know we're stunning, but even that amount of pretty gets old after the first 20 pictures or so.)

Anyway, all in all, Sarah was awesome, the light was awesome, and thank goodness it wasn't nearly as hot as it could have been. Oh, and it should be noted, Maddie will do about anything for raisins. I think we went through about 3/4 of a bag...

I Be Two!

To my lovely Madeline:

Oh, baby girl, where do I even start? I guess, first, I should start by dropping the “baby,” since you no longer, and haven’t for some time, fit that label. Today, you are two (go ahead, hold up all five fingers and tell me you’re two), and there’s no more pretending that you still retain even the smallest vestige of babyhood. You sleep in a “big girl” bed, you wear big girl clothes, and you use big girl words (we won’t mention the fact that yesterday you confused couscous and goose, and told me that couscous goes “Honk, honk!”).

I wonder if you’ll ever get tired of your birthday being a bittersweet day for me (and maybe your Daddy, I’m not sure). I do love watching you grow-up, watching you discover your world more fully and find your place in it, but at the same time, your birth day will always be a reminder of the things we’ll never get back, the moments we’ve probably already forgotten. You move so fast (seriously, child, you’ve got to slow down at some point—it’s like you’re training for some sort of toddler Iron Man), and it’s all I can do to keep pace.

Sometimes, when I look at you, I can’t believe what I see. A year ago, you had a handful of words. At your last birthday party, you were still about 60:40 on your walk to crawl ratio, and you certainly weren’t jumping off the hearth while shouting, “Mommy, watch ‘dis! Watch me, Mommy!” Two years ago, you couldn’t even hold your head up or make eye contact. Now you have entire conversations (mostly about bouncy castles, The Wiggles, and cookies, it must be said), you’ve mostly mastered the stairs, and you insist on picking out at least one item of your own clothing every morning. (Note to older Maddie: I hope, by this point, you’ve learned that Elmo socks do not go with everything.)

So, now, you’re two, even if you don’t know it, and I just wanted to say that no matter how fast you keep moving, your daddy and I will always do our best to keep up with you, even when you’d rather we didn’t. You are still one of the best things in our lives, and we love you so very much. Happy Birthday, Madster! You be two.

Love always,

Mommy

I Go Underwater!

Perhaps not surprisingly, this post is out of order. I've been meaning to write it for about a month, but well, New York and a family reunion got in the way, so... Anyway, we enrolled Maddie in swimming lessons for the first time this summer.

This particular class--the Parent-Tot Session A, through Olathe Parks and Rec--was two weeks long, four times a week. In reality, there was very little "swimming" going on. It was mostly a way to familiarize the kiddos (anywhere from 3 months to 3 years) with water. Held by their parents the entire 30 minute lesson, the "tots" blew bubbles in the water, kicked, moved their arms, did supported front- and back-floats, jumped from the side of the pool, and horror or all horrors, went underwater. Oh yes, Miss Maddie, the girl who previously had to be laid down in a very shallow bath to wash and rinse her hair, went underwater.

While the actual act of going under was scary and quite unpopular, once accomplished, she would proudly tell anyone who would listen, "I go unnawaddeh!" I also found that it was easier to let her just slip underwater after a jump than telling her about it in advance. Strangely, surprise-dunking is more acceptable than a full-body soaking you're prepared for, I guess.

All in all, while she certainly can't swim at all still (and that wasn't an expectation going into this, so no disappointment) she's definitely more comfortable in the water, pool and bath. You can now wash her hair in the usual way, by dumping cupfuls of water over her head, and she'll blow bubbles in just about any water she can find. I may try to get her in Session B in the winter with the hopes that even though she won't be quite three, they'll let her sneak into the first instructor only level next summer. Who knows, maybe we have the next Michael Phelps living under our roof--you know, minus the whole I'm-too-stupid-to-know-not-to-smoke-weed-around-a-camera thing. Below, pictures!