Story Time

Here we are reading a book called The Baby Goes Beep.  It was one of the books I had read a lot to Ben when he was this age.  Maddy likes books with cats and babies in them.  She also likes to rip the pages (hence the scotch tape on the table).  Here she is distracted several times by some crayons on the table.  Near the end of the book she does the motions for "smooch" and "shh."

19 Months Old

Miss Maddy Moo is 19 months old today!

She wasn't making this face until the camera was pointed at her.

She spent much of this month perfecting her bubble-blowing skills.  We don't know how she learned how to do this.  She just did it one day.

This month was a turning point in Ben & Maddy's relationship.  Ben is realizing that he has the power to make Maddy laugh.  Maddy is realizing that she has the power to irritate the snot out of Ben and that it's kind of fun.  Oh, and in the background of this photo, her favorite show Oobi is on the TV.  She asks for it by saying "beh."

She has been sticking her tongue out while drinking through a straw.  Apparently this is because of her low muscle tone.  She's also a bit behind in speech development because of low muscle tone.  I started taking her to speech therapy a couple weeks ago.  It's been going really well - no screaming from Maddy, and she's babbling more and has started saying a few more new words.  She's still doing great in her early intervention class.

One of her new words is "hat," although she just says "at."  I got her a new headband, and when I put it on her head she patted it and said "at!"

I was so happy to take the family to a cookout with our local LPA chapter.  Maddy was less happy.  She was okay until they did a group photo of the kids and she had a meltdown.  This photo was well after that, but she was still freaked out.

I found something she dislikes even more than group photos at a cookout: the bathtub.  Since she's been sitting up so well lately, I thought I'd try to do a "big kid" bath in the tub instead of in her reclining toddler tub.  Huge mistake.  After this photo, I washed her hair and she tried to climb out of the tub.

She put Ben's sunglasses on by herself.  Both the sunglasses and her pacifier are upside down.  She is almost as much of a goofball as her brother is.

Shoes

Last month Maddy started trying on any shoes she found around the house.  Here are Ben's old Elmo slippers.

It took a while to find sneakers that fit her.  By the time I did find them, it was too hot for shoes.  Bet they still fit her in the fall.

Ben's shoes.

Daddy's shoes.

Ben's sandals were hard to put on at this angle.

Much easier this way.

Phones

Maddy loves real phones, toy phones, and any object that she can pretend is a phone.  Which is just about everything.

It's for you!

Double-fisting it for a conference call.

In the middle of saying "hi," because that the only word she says into phones.

Later that day, coming back to the remote/phone.

Perhaps someone tried to tell her that's not a phone.

Forgetting about the phone and watching TELEVISION.

Piano Pounding

Saturday morning chaos.  It's good chaos.

Memorial Day

It was really hot on Memorial Day.  And our air conditioning wasn't working.

Perfect time for a cute sundress and a headband to keep the hair out of Maddy's face.

She sweats so easily on a normal day.  I feel bad for her when it's hot.  Ice water helped to keep her cool.

A big fan in the family room helped, too.  She discovered how to make an alien voice by getting really close to the fan and yelling into it.

Mike worked for part of the day but came home and grilled some sausages.  We found out that Maddy loves kielbasa.  That's my girl.

Whether we want her to or not, Maddy loves to share.

Apparently I didn't take any pictures of Ben on Memorial Day.  So here's a photo from the night before, when he was exhausted from playing in the sun and really grumpy and just wanted a freezer pop.

Summer in May

The last weekend in May was so hot it felt like summer.

Because these must be oversized utensils.

Ben could have spent all day pouring water from one bucket into another.

I dipped Maddy's toes in the water.  She was not pleased.  Maybe another day.

Chatting about what a lovely day it was.

LPA Regional in Holland, MI

Several weeks ago the four of us took a 6-hour road trip up to Holland, Michigan for an LPA regional.  It was Mike's first regional event and our first one in our own district.  It was a lot easier to deal with the kids with two adults in the car.

Maddy enjoying one of the hotel room beds.  We got free cookies at check-in that she immediately crumbled all over the bed.  We arrived around dinner time, registered, hung out near the pool, met some folks, and tried to get the kids to eat something other than chips and brownies.  I think Ben ate part of a strawberry.

They were pretty wiped out after dinner so we crashed in our room.  Ben was too tired to whine about Maddy lying on top of him and making him share his crackers.

One of the people who helped organize the event offered to lend us her Candyland game to keep the kids occupied.  On Saturday morning there were some meetings that Mike and I wanted to attend, so we dropped Ben off in the childcare room.  We tried to leave Maddy there, too - it worked for a bit, until we heard her crying to be rescued.

We got to meet some really great people at the conference.  Many of them were locals from Michigan.  It was kind of strange to be around several families who spent a lot of time together and whose LP kids pretty much grew up together.  We don't have other kids like Maddy near us.  I also appreciated talking to a couple other parents about things, like how hard it is to relocate; how challenging it is to deal with an unexpected dwarfism diagnosis; and how tough it is to do both at the same time.  Not many people can relate to that.  We also got to meet some awesome people from Indiana who are part of an active chapter that's about two hours from us.  We are going to try to participate in their chapter's activities when we can.

In the afternoon, there was a shuttle that Mike and Ben took downtown to the Tulip Festival parade.  The rain didn't keep Ben from enjoying the rides.

Trying to stay dry during the parade.

Ben eating his first candy apple.  It was all he dreamed it would be.  Mike said that things kind of went downhill from here, with Ben getting tired and complaining about the loudness of the parade.  And it literally rained on the parade.  Luckily the shuttle brought everyone back early.  While the guys were gone, I tried to get Maddy to take a nap in our room.  It was not what I would call a success.  She's a great sleeper in her own bed.  She apparently sees portable cribs as some kind of torture device.  She briefly snoozed on my bed.

Before dinner there was a kids' show by an entertainer who had a puppet and sang silly songs.  Ben was super hyped.  Maddy watched from the sidelines.  Then the kids had their own buffet.  We were eventually able to set Ben up with food at a table and leave him.  But Maddy came with us to the adult banquet next door...not for lack of trying.  We met some more nice people at our table and had a great time chatting.  I was a little embarrassed when Maddy shoved her entire hand into the table's butter dish, though.

One of Maddy's new friends.  She is Ben's age and was very sweet to Maddy, even while Maddy looked like she was going to swipe her necklace.

All the kids got a goody bag of "prizes."  Maddy loved this plush ball.  She really loved dropping it on the floor repeatedly to make Daddy fetch it.

Ben pretty much attacked the dance floor.  He ran and ran around it in big circles.  He's all sweaty in this photo.  He wanted to wear his glow bracelet.

Maddy and Daddy on the dance floor.  Soon after this the kids pooped out.  We said our goodbyes and went back to our room for the night.

Sunday morning, before checking out.  She had had a better night's sleep but was still squirmy and tired.  It was Mother's Day and the hotel didn't offer a normal breakfast so we went across the street to Denny's.  Ben had chocolate chip pancakes and Maddy pretended she didn't like bacon and eggs.

On the long road home.  Mr. Crankypants conked out right after this and took a nice, long nap.  Maddy thought he was playing a game and laughed.