Kids on the Dance Floor

Here are some clips from the reception after my cousin Cory's wedding last week.  Above, my niece Sophie (a flower girl in the wedding) dances around freely while Ben runs up and down specific rows of parquet tiles.


Ben had promised his cousin Emily (his favorite person ever) that he would dance with her.  But he has his own personal dance style.  If you listen closely you can hear her say, "He's not even dancing with me!"


So this wasn't dancing as much as three kids chasing each other while Maddy crawled across the dance floor and we all held our breath hoping she didn't get trampled.  She got scooped up pretty quickly.  I heard that adults finally got a chance to dance after we left.

21 Months Old

Well, I blinked and now Maddy is 21 months old.  She is sick today, so I was lucky to get this one photo of her smiling.

From several weeks ago.  She loves Daddy's Cincinnati Reds hat.

It's so neat to see the two of them becoming friends.

From the day that Ben pretended he was a baby.

This play kitchen was in the basement and the kids rarely played with it.  I moved it to the living room and now Maddy loves it.  Fork, anyone?

This has been The Month of Books.  She usually wants us to read the books to her.  But when she reads them by herself, she uses her hands and feet.

She is convinced that this walking toy is actually a chair.  Also, she seems to sense that I want to take her pacifiers away and she is now stockpiling them.  I swear she hides them around the house.

Mike finally got her used to sitting on the grass.  No more whining, crying or screaming when her delicate feet touch the ground outside.

Banana!

Maddy has come up with her own way saying "banana."  First she cracked me up by doing whatever this is.


Then the silliness continued.  When I told her she was cheesing for the camera, she said "kee" because that's how she says "cheese."  And of course at the end she asked for a book, because she always always always wants books.

Bookkkkk

You know how Maddy suddenly loves books and calls them "buh"?  A few days ago Mike heard her put a "k" at the end!  She loves asking to read a "bookkkk."  Or "bookie."

Sibling Love

Ben was sitting on the bean bag chair.  Maddy climbed on top of him.  He was such a good sport for letting her.  And for the pacifier.


They're playing together a lot more, and sometimes they really get on each other's nerves.  There are certain toys that Ben just doesn't want to share.  So far the legos are safe - Ben likes them, Maddy doesn't.


Last week Ben thought it was fun to act like a baby.  He even requested a diaper and crawled around the house.  Maddy loved this game.

Speaking Words

Maddy has been using limited sign language to communicate for months.  She has started to speak words more over the last couple months.  She has been saying "bubble" all summer.  It's one of the few words she says regularly at speech therapy.  She likes to blow bubbles that much.  Actually, she has been clamming up less in front of her speech therapists.  They're really happy with her chattiness.


Since she says "buh-buh" for "bubble" and "buh" for book, it got difficult figuring out what she wanted.  Until she figured out the sign for "book."  Here she's pointing to the bookshelf.  I don't know where her sudden interest in books came from.  Just glad she finally likes them.


Her favorite TV show, which almost nobody has ever heard of, is "Oobi."  She used to ask for it by saying "beh," then "bee," and now she can say the "oo" at the beginning.  And now she asks for Oobi ALL THE TIME.

Can you tell what her new favorite word is?  Here she had just asked for Daddy, and when I told her he was upstairs she turned around to climb the stairs and go find him.  Yep, she's Daddy's girl.

Disney World

A few weeks ago we flew to Jacksonville to visit family.  Being only a couple hours away from Orlando, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take the kids to Disney World.  We started at Disney's Hollywood Studios (used to be MGM).  In the building above, there were kids lined up to have their picture taken with Winnie the Pooh.  But as soon as our brood got to Pooh Bear, Ben got skittish and Maddy just freaked out.  Of course, as we were walking away Maddy pointed back at Pooh Bear and said "beh, beh!"

Next up was the Disney Junior live-action show which showcased just about every program that airs on Disney Junior.  Handy Manny is strolling by here, but he was always too quick for Ben to meet him.

Ben LOVED this show.  It's great for kids who are fans of the TV shows.  After this, Ben begged to get an autograph book and pen that lots of other kids had.  He didn't get a single autograph the entire trip.  He just wanted the book and pen.

For lunch we treated ourselves to a sit-down meal in a nice restaurant in the park.  I had some kind of fantastic salmon dish.  It's rare for us to get really good food when the kids are with us.  Which is always.

Maddy was already wilting from the heat.  It was nice and cool in the restaurant.  She amused Ben by chewing on the lemon from my iced tea and making funny faces when it tasted sour.

It was tricky to keep Ben content when we were in line at this next movie-themed ride.  The line led us into an auditorium where movie clips were shown on a big screen, something to keep people occupied before the ride.  But Ben got tired of standing and we took turns holding him.  He also didn't like how dark it was or how loud (and kind of scary) some of the movie clips were.  Maddy ended up falling asleep before we even got on the ride.  We were told by an employee that this ride was suitable for our kids, but he downplayed the part about a very loud gangster gun fight.  That woke Maddy up and scared Ben.  He did like going through a scene from the Wizard of Oz.  After that ride we went to a 3D Muppet show, the kind where bubbles get blown into the audience.  Both kids really liked that.

After the Muppets, Ben saw some Pixar characters signing autographs.  He stood in the line for a few seconds before saying he wanted to do something else.  Then he found a vendor selling a ton of Cars stuff.  He spent a lot of time picking out something to buy.  At this point Maddy was pretty much a puddle in the stroller.  We went through a lot of bottled water.   At the end of the afternoon, Mike and Ben used the Fast Passes they had gotten in the morning to go to a Buzz Lightyear-themed ride that Ben absolutely loved.  Great end to the first day.

Back at the hotel, we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner.  It was a great way to decompress.  Ben chatted up our waitress, and Maddy ate all the tomatoes off of Mike's salad.  And then there was cake.

The lobby of our hotel, a resort for military families vacationing at Disney.  It was awesome.  And while we had searched the Disney vendors to find a hat for Ben, we found one he loved right in the hotel shop.

Here's Ben with his Toy Story hat, trying to convince me he wasn't intentionally waking up Maddy.  She sleeps so much better in portable cribs than in pack-n-plays.

Maddy was a handful in the hotel room.  She constantly tried to get off the bed by herself.  She did the same with the couch and fell off of it once.  She opened every door and cabinet in this dresser.  Here she's pleased with herself for finding the hidden fridge.

On the second day we went to the Magic Kingdom... and I forgot to take my camera.  It was sunny, hot and humid (actually not bad for Florida in July, but Maddy and I can't take the heat).  Mike and Ben went on the Teacup ride once.  We all went on a Winnie the Pooh ride that Mike thinks used to be Mr. Toad's Wild Ride years ago.  But Ben was a little scared by how dark it was.  The guys went on some kind of racetrack ride.  Next they were going to go on a Buzz Lightyear ride, but Ben couldn't even handle how dark it was just standing in line.  They never made it to the ride.  Then they went on the Goofy Barnstormer ride, a little roller coaster that Ben loved so much he asked to go again.  At this point Maddy had had it; she was hot, sweaty, tired, and too uncomfortable to take a nap in her stroller while we waited.  So I walked around the park with her so she could get a little breeze and she feel asleep.  We took a break for some cold drinks and when Maddy woke up I gave her a lemonade slushy that made her very happy.  The guys went on some other rides (carousel, Dumbo, something else) and saw a show or two.  Then we all went on It's a Small World.  There was much pointing and squealing by Maddy.  Both kids liked it - a calm, gentle boat ride through colorful scenes of singing children.  Air-conditioned, of course.

We spent about 5 hours at that park and headed back to the hotel for a very late lunch.  The kids chilled out in front of the TV with juice boxes.  Mike took Ben to the hotel pool and Maddy napped.  Then we had a "silly dinner" of ice cream sundaes in the hotel's ice cream parlor.  After a good night's sleep, we headed back to Jacksonville.  

Big thanks to Mike for planning this whole trip, and to my cousin and her husband for helping to get us passes to the parks.  Our kids had a great first-time Disney experience!