Sunday, January 27, 2008

'Dirty Jobs'

Today has been an interesting day for Mommy. Let me start by saying, there will be no picture with this post. I started feeling a little 'under the weather' yesterday and woke up this morning with a full fledge cold. Scratchy throat, post nasal drip, cough...gotta love it. We are currently 10 1/2 weeks pregnant, so taking medication is out of the question. Daddy spent the morning with Madison and Mommy plugged in the humidifier to 'cuddle' with for the morning.
Daddy was so very helpful all day so Mommy could rest. Madison was sweet and loving too.
The fun began during bath time. Daddy was cleaning up the kitchen after dinner so Mommy decided to bathe the food covered child. All was normal in the bath until Madison tried to tell Mommy something. I thought she was asking for a toy I'd never heard of and then it happend. She showed me what she was trying to tell me. Madison needed to poop. In a BIG way. Luckily she was cruising the tub on her tummy when the fun started. There was plenty of space for the poop to just keep coming-and come it did! I scooped her out of the tub, into a towel and onto the changing table, slid a diaper under her and yelled for Matt. He hung out with her until we were sure there was no more pooping to be done.
Mommy, sick with a cold and dry heaving like crazy (thanks to little Pickle), had the fabulous task of draining and bleaching the tub. Let's just say be glad you were not here!
The baby is now clean, dry, and in pjs. The tub is sparkling clean. All her bath toys are bleached and dried. Mommy is exhausted. Daddy just thinks the whole thing is funny. Wait until it's his turn to play 'fish the poop out of the tub'.....

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Seventeenth Month


Our little girl has grown and changed so much over the last 17 months. Daddy hardly recognized her when we returned from Florida and she keeps learning and changing more everyday.
One of the biggest changes for Mommy is no more nursing. We weaned Madison while on our Florida trip. It only took 2 days of screaming for her to figure out no more nursing. She asked for milk a few times in the days following the initial weaning, but didn't seem too upset when we told her 'No'. She is completely disinterested in cow's milk so we are working on calcium and other nutrients from different sources. After a few days of constipation, Madison learned she has to drink water or juice to make up for the breastmilk she is no longer getting.
Now she eats everything in sight to make up for those extra calories. She even sampled crab legs and shrimp on Christmas Eve (thanks to Daddy's sneaky hand). Sometimes it seems like she never stops eating all day long!
She also loves to dance, stomp her feet, clap her hands, read her books, talk (and boy do I mean TALK), and kiss. She is great at hugging and kissing now and loves saying, 'Hiii' to everyone. Madison is still doing great with her signing too. Her signing vocabulary is too extensive to list now, and her spoken words are even greater in number. She recognizes animals, foods (of course), and body parts. We are currently working on colors and numbers. She is working on sharing and other than the occasional frustration and hitting (yes- hitting not good) she is quite polite. She now knows how to sign and say 'please' and 'thank you'. Madison loves to count, but it always comes out, 'two, two, two, two, TWO'. She gets the general idea, but needs help with the order of the numbers themselves.
Daddy's favorite new trait is Madison's excitement when he gets home from work. She runs to the door when she hears his Jeep yelling, "DADDY!". It doesn't get much better than that!
Madison is learning to color too, and loves her colored pencils and drawing paper. Thus far she seems to understand only coloring on her special paper and not in books, or on walls. Let's hope we keep it that way.
Not too many pictures this month. We'll work on that for the coming months.

Christmas in FL


Mommy and Madison left December 13th for our big adventure in Florida. Daddy flew in the following weekend just in time to play for the week of Christmas. Madison had a great time playing with Uncle Matthew and Daniel and Aunt Abby. She even learned how to say Abby's name before we flew home on January 7th.
It was nice to see and play with our friends Kendall, Reagan, and Ava too. It's amazing how much all these kids are GROWING together! We even got to go with Kendall and Tina to Kindermusik as their guests for the day. Madison had so much fun learning about new instruments and stomping around.
Christmas was a blast- watching Madison open all her gifts (and everyone else's too!). When we weren't looking she started taking the paper off any gift in arms reach. Madison thought the goal was to take every single piece of paper off the boxes. She was more interested in removing tiny bits of paper than most of her gifts. Her shopping cart from Uncle Matthew was a hit though. He taught Madison to take all the cans and food out and sit in it so he could push her around the house. The laughs and squeals were great!
Overall it was a great holiday for Madison. She got a little baby from Cousin Rick and Leona, a big beautiful baby (to help prepare her for her new little brother or sister) from Aunt Dar and Uncle Mike, a puff the magic dragon book and animal, a matching apron with Mommy for cooking, cute clothes from Gramm and Grandpa and Aunt Nancy, lots of warm clothes from Mommy and Daddy, fun new toys and wooden puzzles from Gramm, Grandpa, Mommy and Daddy...whew the list goes on and on....
Now that we are home, Madison loves to play with her Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Kitchen from Grandma and Grandpa Shemenski.
It was such a great time for our entire family. We are blessed to have such generous extended family and friends.

We're PREGNANT!!


We found out December 10th we are expecting baby #2. We went to the doctor January 10th for the first time. Little Pickle looks great and has a strong heartbeat. Our anticipated due date is August 19th, three days after Madison's 2nd birthday. We are thrilled with our news and can't wait to share the adventures of Madison's new little brother or sister with all of you! Please be sure to pray for our little Pickle.

Sixteen Months


So as many of you have pointed out- I'm a bit behind. I'll make this one short and sweet as the interim posts seem to cover most of the big events of the past month.
We had a bit of a scare late in the month. Madison and Mommy went to have Madison's Christmas pictures taken. She learned how much fun it is to throw fits- arching her back and throwing herself onto the ground early in the month. Picture day was no different. When she doesn't want to do something, she wants EVERYONE to know about it. Madison didn't want to sit in the sleigh for pictures so she stood on the seat, arched her back and sailed right over the side. She landed flat on her back and head after a little over a 2 foot fall.
We rushed straight to the doctor, whose office was only a few blocks away. Dr Pattan did a full exam head to toe and assured me Madison is an anomaly. She barely even had a red mark where she hit her head. Everything was absolutely perfect. We were very lucky God sent an angel to protect Madison during her fall. Later in the day, after a big lunch and long nap, we went back and found out the pictures turned out horribly anyway. Not a fun day for either of us.
On a positive note, we love playing at the park. Madison gets so excited when we turn the corner and the playground comes in view. She starts yelling and signing, "Play!". Her favorite part is the 'wee' also known as a slide. She says WEEEE as she slides all the way down. Daddy even got to come play at the park with us before our big Florida trip.
We also got to play with the 'snow' at the mall one night. Every night at our local mall during the Christmas season the mall had bubble snow for kids and adults to play with. Madison thought it was great falling from the sky. She danced and stomped around and tried to catch the snow bubbles as they fell. Several people stopped us after the snow storm and told us how entertaining our little goof ball was. It was great fun for all three of us.
Click for more pictures from the month.