Remember the Cuteness, Part III

So, it's been a bit since Remember the Cuteness, Parts I and II, but Miss Maddie has been changing so much and so quickly lately, that I felt it was time to capture some of her current quirks and idiosyncrasies for posterity. Here goes:

1. A-Okay: Lately, the Madster's response to everything you ask her is "O-kay!" It's really that enthusiastic, too. Want to go upstairs? O-kay! We need to go change your diaper. O-kay! It's time to brush your teeth and get your eye drops. O-kay! (No seriously, that just happened tonight.) Now, if only she actually were okay with half the things she so easily acquiesces to, well, life would be a lot easier, let's just leave it at that.

2. Baby-stalking: There's no way to sugar-coat this one--the girl is obsessed with babies. She loves them. She loves to talk about them. She loves to point at them and squeal. She loves to touch them, and kiss them, and kiss them, and kiss them, and kiss them, and kiss them, and sorry, got stuck in a bit of a loop there. Most of the time, it's adorable, but sometimes, it can be a bit of a nuisance. For instance, there were three or four families in our Kindermusik class that had new infants, and the parents just brought them to class with them. Maddie was so interested in all the babies, that the poor moms and dads had to leave their newborns in their car seats behind a little barrier in the class room, just to keep her from running over and touching them every five seconds. (Sidebar: The "You'll really have to get her one of those comments" got a little annoying by the end of the semester. While we probably will "get her one of those" at some point, I have no intention of creating another human being simply because my almost-two-year-old wants one. On the other hand, this strand of logic would explain a lot of the crazy and ridiculous choices some people make. It's obvious; they were listening to two-year-olds.)

3. Swimfan: Our little Monkey-face loves her some chlorinated water (See Meltdown). As soon as the first warm day in June rolled around, we took her to one of the pools in our sub-division, and while she had to be coaxed into the water the first time, once in, it was love at first splash. She loves the kiddie pool that she can get in and out of by herself, she loves the big pool with its steps, and she really loves going back and forth between them, making whichever adult is the current "designated parent" chase after her, in and out, in and out. She alternates between calling pools "poooo" and "a baf wif kids," this last usually being shouted at Jon from across the pool: "Daddy, I takin' a baf! Daddy I takin' a baf wif kids!" The only downside to this aquatic fixation is her lack of understanding when it comes to timing and the pool (Well, that and the fact that our sunscreen bill is through the roof). She does not understand, for example, that one cannot simply just go to the pool first thing in the morning (especially when one's parents have to go to work), in the rain, right before bed, or on the way home from daycare (And lucky us, we pass three of the damn things going to and from this last one. Ugh.). Still, on hot summer days, it's a good way to kill an hour or so.

4. Kiss, Kiss, Hug, Hug: Finally, the baby who couldn't be bothered to cuddle with you, who didn't need to be held, has turned into a little girl who loves to give hugs and kisses. Yay! Yay! (Sorry, that was me doing a song and dance in my head. I'm pretty pumped about this.) She asks for kisses; she bestows unsolicited kisses; she gives "big hugs" in which she wraps her chunky, little arms as far around you as they can go and says "Ahmmmm." And last but most definitely, certainly, without a doubt not least, sometimes, sometimes, she will say, all on her own, "I wuv ooo, Mommy. I wuv ooo, Daddy." It's usually followed by a hug or a kiss on the leg (It's all she can reach if we're standing). Heart.melting.now.for.real. She did offer all the people in Home Depot a kiss the other day, after bestowing one on both Jon and myself, but we're trying not to read too much into that...

And now, since I know you're only reading this to placate me, here's the picture you popped over to our blog for anyway:

Maddie, enjoying a cookie while hanging out with Nana and Pa in Abilene, KS.

Placeholder: The Home Improvement Edition

So, as promised, here is the long list of lame excuses as to why, up until two days ago, there had been a month's-plus silence on the blog. First, I've been super-duper, very, especially, completely, overwhelmingly busy with work--more than usually so, in case you didn't catch my meaning there. See, twice a year, all six journals for which I manage the edit, publish within a month and a half time span. It's a bit insane for while, and so everything else slides a bit. It's all I can do it keep up with work, the kid, and the house. Plus, in light of said craziness at work, there hasn't been too much of note going on at home. I know you all miss my rambling (and the pictures, yes, the pictures), but trust me; you missed nothing.

What have we been doing? Well, Jon and I (okay, mostly Jon) have started in full-tilt on the upstairs bathroom again. His dad is available to help with tiling tomorrow, so we needed to have the bathroom "tile-ready" before Nana and Pa (or NanaPa as Maddie used to refer to them) arrive. Therefore, Jon cut and is currently laying down the last of the backerboard for the shower, the floor, and the odd 80s-style step in front of our tub. Wednesday and Thursday night were spent painting, which is one of the few remodeling projects I can help with. Dear readers, I am so sore! The bathroom is the only room in the house with vaulted ceilings, so painting it involved screwing a roller onto a broom handle and seeing how high I can make it go. Also, I'm not tall. (Chris Stoppel, I want you to note that I just said I wasn't tall. I am not short. Average height! Anyway...) Tonight we went and bought about three tons of tile, so by tomorrow, I'm hoping the floor and shower wall will be taking shape.

On the Maddie front, she's still talking up a storm. Yesterday, she said what I think has got to be her longest complete sentence to date: I saw a man walking a doggy. Not the most scintillating material, I'll grant you, but still, long. Sadly, she's continuing her streak of getting up ridiculously early. It seems like once a week, she sleeps in until about 7:30, and the rest of the week, we're lucky if she's still in bed at 6 a.m. Luckily, she's cute, or we might have to sell her. (What? Maybe there are some people who'd like an adorable, curly-headed alarm clock. People who like to get up really early all the time.)

All right, lovelies, I'm going to wrap this up and enjoy what's left of my evening off, but I promise some pictures or videos or something soon. Have a good weekend! --A

Tete-a-Toddler: Conversations with a Budding Linguist

Time: Weekday evening

Place: Kitchen

Maddie: Dadeeee, whew ah ooo?

Jon (who is standing right next to Maddie): Maddie, where do you think Daddy is? Where is Daddy?

Maddie (grinning): Daddy ah wuk! (giggles)


Time: Weekday evening

Place: Kitchen

Setting: I'm cooking, and Maddie is watching me and "helping." I've given her a set of measuring spoons and an empty measuring cup.

Me: Maddie, are you cooking with Mommy? Are you cooking?

Maddie (fiercely stirring an invisible substance of some sort): Yeah!

Me: What are you cooking?

Maddie: Salt.


Time: Weekday morning

Place: Maddie's bedroom

Me: Maddie, let's get you dressed so you can go to daycare. Do you want to go see Miss Laura?

Maddie: Yeah!

Me: Who else will you see at daycare?

Maddie: a Miss Wawa, a Yandon, a Spehcer, a Caityen

Me: Yep, you'll see all your friends at daycare.

Maddie: a Pa?

Me: No, Pa won't be at daycare.

Maddie: a Nana??

Me: No, Nana won't be at daycare either.

Maddie: a Unca Chiss???

Me: What? No. Maddie, none of those people have ever been to your daycare!


Time: Sunday morning

Place: Church

Setting: At the end of our church service, the congregation stands around the outer edges of the sanctuary, holds hands, and sings a closing song. Last Sunday, my parent were visiting, so they attended the service with us. I was holding Maddie, and my dad was standing next to us. My dad tried to hold Maddie's hand.

Maddie: Nooo! (Wrinkles up her forehead, nose, and mouth, and pulls her hand away.)

Grandpa: All right. I won't touch you (puts his hand on my shoulder).

Maddie (pushing his hand away somewhat violently): Noooo! No a toucha Mommy!


Time: Weekday evening

Place: Neighborhood playground

Jon: All right, Maddie, one more time down the slide, and then we need to finish our walk and go home.

(Maddie goes down the slide.)

Me: Okay, time to go. Let's go get in your stroller.

Maddie: Nooo. A mo' sa-yide. A mo' sa-yide!

Me: No, it's time to go.

Jon: Say bye-bye, slide. Say bye-bye.

Maddie: Bye-bye, sa-yide. See ta-ma-oh.

*My apologies for the length between this post and the last. I'll be posting again in the next couple of days with some lame excuses for the delay, pictures, and general updates. I appreciate your patience!

Tete-a-Toddler: Conversations with a Budding Linguist

Time: Friday evening

Place: the kitchen table

Jon: Maddie, are you pooping?

Maddie: (red in the face, eyes watering, grunting) No.

Jon: Maddie, you're pooping! Are you pooping?

Maddie: (still the same, but possibly louder grunting) No.

Jon: Maddie-

Maddie: Bye-bye, Daddy.

Me: Maddie, what are you doing? Are you pooping?

Maddie: Bye-bye, Mommy.


Time: Saturday afternoon

Place: the kitchen table

Me: Maddie, you need to eat more chicken.

Maddie: (very seriously and with a slight nod) A bee-ana.

Me: We're not having bananas for lunch. You need to eat more chicken.

Maddie: A bee-ana.

Me: No bananas. We don't even have any bananas. Are you all out of milk? Do you want some water?

Maddie: A bee-ana. (Still completely serious)

Me: There are no bananas. You need to eat more chicken, or you're done with lunch.

Maddie: A bee-ana.


Time: Sunday evening

Place: Living room (during the Bracket unveiling, which is the only reason she was allowed to eat in the living room)

Me: Maddie, are you going to eat more of your pizza?

Maddie: No. Ah dun.

Me: Do you want some more broccoli?

Maddie: Yeah!


Time: Monday afternoon

Place: Kitchen

Maddie: A walk.

Me: No, it's too windy to go for a walk.

Maddie: A walk! (Pushing her trike-stroller into the kitchen)

Me: Sorry, baby, but we can't go on a walk today. You can walk out to get the mail with me, if you want.

Maddie: A walk!

Me: Sweetie, no. No walk.

Maddie: Tah-git*?

That's my girl...

*Tah-git = Target

Placeholder

First things first: Yes, yes, I know. Two and a half (okay, really almost three) weeks without a new blog post is way too long. I'm sorry, okay? It's just that there really hasn't been that much going on, and our camera battery is dead, and we keep forgetting to charge it, so we have nothing to write about and no cute pictures to post, and really, you all just come here for the pictures anyway. Admit it.

So, I think, going forward, when I'm out of specific topics to ramble on about or adorable photos to share, I'm going to write something I'm titling a "Placeholder" to keep you generally updated on the goings-on at Casa de Webster-Stoppel (or the Stopster house, as we occasionally like to refer to it).

Since our last post (and seriously, not to call you all out since I've been a blog-writing slacker lately, but how could more of you not have commented on the world's most adorable video?), Maddie has recovered from pneumonia, but it seems that she's segued right into teething, canines no less. This makes her really grumpy, she's running a low fever on and off, and to top it off, she hasn't sleep past 6 a.m. once in the past week. In fact, in the past two days, she hasn't slept past 5:30 a.m. She's still sleeping through the night; she just seems to disagree with her parents as to what constitutes an acceptable end-time for "night." To make matters worse, her usual daycare provider went on maternity leave last Thursday, so we're also dealing with the side-effects of putting her in a new childcare situation. (And don't get me wrong, Michelle's been great. It's just that it's a new place, and while children are very adaptable, they're not quite as adaptable as people will try to lead you to believe.) So, we've been dealing with some serious separation-anxiety at drop-off and bed times, and I feel like this may also have a leeeetle bit to do with why she's getting up so damn early. (Sorry for the cursing, but dudes, I seriously need some sleep, or barring that, at least some "me" time in the morning. This morning, she played with the sliding glass doors to our shower--while I was trying to wash...)

Let's see. What else? Jon and I finally started working on the upstairs bathroom that has taunted me with its hideous '80s wallpaper since we moved in, so we've got that going on. This, of course, means that we've had to move all of Maddie's bath stuff into our bathroom, so right now, my vanity area is not only covered with books, toys, and old jewelry, it's also covered with soft plastic bath toys and towels. It's okay to be jealous of my life, really. Anyway (do you see how lack of sleep affects my mood, people?), so far, we've taken down the offending wallpaper, removed all the cabinets and drawers, taken down the baseboards, torn up the carpet that was covering the step-I-thought-was-going-away-but-now-appears-to-be-staying, and sanded down the cabinets and drawers in preparation for priming and painting somewhere down the line. Our next steps will be to de-popcorn the ceiling and tear out the weird divider/privacy wall by the toilet. I've always found that little half-wall pointless. I mean, I get that maybe it shields the toilet, but it's not like our bathroom is as big as Grand Central Station (or probably even the bathrooms in Grand Central Station). If someone is in there with you while you're going to the bathroom, trust me, you're going to know about it. We'll put up some before, after, and during pictures once the project is completed. Moving on...

Not really sure what to move on to. See? It been a slow news week around here. Um, doo-da-doo-da-doo. Oh, Maddie's been dropping complete sentences every once in a while lately, so that's sort of exciting, right? She'll ask for "More milk, please" or various versions of a request. She'll ask "Where'd [so-and-so] go?" I don't know if she gets all the individual words in phrases such as the last one, but she's repeating the entire phrase, and she knows what it means, so that's good. Her vocabulary is already pretty large for a kid her age (even her doctor said so, so it's not just me being all proud-mom-my-child's-so-special-and-gifted), but it seems like she learns new words every day. They stick, too, which is good. She knows how to ask what something is, and a week or so ago, she busted out the word "spaghetti" at daycare. Okay, so it was more like "bahgeddi", but it was clear enough that Laura (may her maternity leave be pleasant) understood her.

Trying to think if there's anything else going on. Jon and I are currently obsessed with Lost, which yes, I know, is sooooo 2004, but we've been watching it on Netflix, and we're hooked. We're only on Season 2, so if you watch it, for the love of the hatch, don't tell us anything about it, and please, people, don't post anything about it on Facebook or Twitter or what have you. It will only ruin it for the rest of us. Also, shame-moment, the Lost-cession may or may not have something to do with the recent blog silence as of late. I'm sorry. I'll try not to neglect you for so long in the future.

And now, because I told you that our lives weren't currently that exciting and also because we all know it's true, here's the picture you really all read this for anyway:

This was taken last weekend when Maddie and her soon-to-be cousin Oliver were playing at her Uncle Chris'. (Photo courtesy of Nancy "Nana" Stoppel.)

That's All Folks

It hasn't really been mentioned on the blog yet, but Maddie is talking a little bit. She has been for some time, and she's mastered a handful of words, but for some reason, we've failed to mention it here until now. Part of it is because it seemed to happen so naturally (and to be fair, so slowly), and part of it has to do with what I mentioned in my previous post--we're busy and lazy. Her first word seems to have been "kitty", which started out as "dee!" and then progressed to "bi-dee!", and last night, I think I heard "itty!" Since then, she's picked up a sizable vocabulary that includes uh-oh (ah-doh), oops (ups), Elmo (Ah-bo), up (it actually sounds like up), Maci (Bay-see, the dog at daycare), book (ah-boo), ball (baaaw), and Daddy (Dah-dee). (No Mommy yet. Whenever I try to get her to say it, she either laughs at me, or she comes up with something that sounds like baby or bobby. We'll get there...)

However, none of the words above can compare to the all-time favorite, the godfather of all Maddie-isms: Ah Dah! That's right; Miss Thing is frequently all done. I mean really, absolutely, 100% completely finished.

Awake in the morning, and Mommy or Daddy is not in to get her quickly enough: Ah Dah! with sleeping

Half-way through almost every diaper change: Ah Dah!

Reached the end of a book: Ah Dah!

Finished eating, drinking, nursing, bathing, sitting in her car seat: Ah Dah!

Ah Dah! Aaaah Dah! Ah dah! This is one word she gets. Up, for instance, is still for lack of a better phrase, up in the air. Up does mean up, but up also appears to mean down, and in some cases, home, strangely. Kitty is another multi-purpose word. It does refer to our cats, but it also refers to all four-legged furry animals, including "Bay-see" at daycare, when she's not being referred to by name. Daddy does mean Jon, but it can also, I think, mean me, occasionally, and oops and uh-oh are often uttered several seconds prior to whatever disaster they are supposed to describe. All done, though, always means, I'm finished. Whether or not being finished is convenient for other people does not concern Maddie in the slightest. She is Ah Dah!, and that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.