Move over Beckham!

I went to San Diego to visit Janice, Scott, Ryan, and Evan last weekend from Friday 2/15-Monday 2/18. I flew down on Friday while Todd and Madison drove down to Ontario area then Todd and I met in Temecula on Saturday where I picked Madison up and took her back to SD with me. So, I had a little time with the boys sans Madison on Friday night and Saturday morning. The highlight was definitely Saturday morning when I went with them to their first "soccer" practice. Yes, you read it right. Soccer. Little Kickers they call it.

Actually, I was talking to Scott on the phone a couple of days before my trip and he asked if I would be there on Saturday morning and I said "yes". He was very happy because then I would get to see the boys first soccer game. Huh? Soccer? Aren't they a bit little for soccer? Didn't they just sort of learn to walk a few months ago? Ok, but I would have to see this one for myself.

Well, let me tell you...it was just about the cutest thing I have ever seen. Ryan and Evan in their Little Kickers uniforms running all around this soccer field. And Scott and Janice trying to corral them. It was quite a sight! It was really cute because Evan looked so much like a little mini-athlete with his shirt all tucked into his shorts and his lean little body. Ryan, on the other hand, was not into the tucked-in look. Within about 10 seconds of his shirt begin tucked in he managed to wriggle it out of his shorts. I don't think I ever actually saw him pull it out...I think he just must have twisted his body in just the right way so it would come untucked. Hmmm...much like the way he gets his shoes off by rubbing them on the foot rest on his stroller. I think there is a theme developing here.

So, my job was to take do video and take pictures...easier said than done. First of all, I was a bit far away. Second of all, there was this huge net in between myself and the boys. I understand the need for safety but come on!! I had to put the lense of my camera inside one of the little diamonds of the net so it would focus on the kids and not the net! Totally ridiculous when you are trying to find two toddlers amongst about a dozen or so other toddlers all wearing the same uniform!!! Somehow I managed to get a few decent shots thank goodness. I did end up inside the soccer arena because I couldn't stand missing out on all the fun!

Just check out some of the cuteness here. On a cuteness scale from 1-100...cuteness=infinity

Evan being cuddly and adorable as usual with shirt tucked in...notice Ryan's shirt...untucked.

Ryan doing his pre-practice stretches...notice the shirt...untucked again.

Ryan stomping his feet to "yellow light" and Evan off doing his own thing! What about Ryan's shirt? Well, you can see for yourself. And Evan? Tucked in.

The boys gearing up for another game of "green light, yellow light, red light". Ryan clearly looks like he is looking for his favorite auntie Shelley :) Just look at that face! And the shirts? Business as usual!

All in all, it was one of the cutest, most adorable things I have ever seen. I am so happy that I got to be there for it!!!

Follow the leader

Sometimes things just strike you funny and you have to document them. This was one of those moments. Madison was taking a bath and she was very busy working on this. She told me her toys were playing follow the leader...it was so cute!! She just loves to line things up. Hmm...I wonder where she gets that from?


Then she systematically had them jump back into the water one by one...

She was so proud of herself!!

Love is in the air

So, I meant to blog this about 2 weeks ago but like some of the other posts, I am a bit tardy. In any case, on Saturday Feb 9th my sweet husband and little girl kicked me out of the house from 9:30am-5:00pm so they could plan a Valentine's surprise for me :) I had no idea what they had planned but I just knew I was not to come back to the house until Todd said so. It was great! I went to the gym and worked out, then I went to coffee with my friend Luna, then I went shopping at Children's Place and got Madison a few new spring things. What a nice day to myself! Then I called Todd and asked if I could come home and he said "yes" Yay! I couldn't wait to see what they had been up to all day. So, I drove home and walked into the house to this....

and this.....

and this...

Wow!!! Was all I could say! The table was set all pretty for dinner, there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers on the table, there was an "I love you" balloon, there was a huge picture that Madison had made for me taped to the buffet, and on top of the buffet, there was a card from Todd, a card from Madison, a little present that Madison had picked out, and a bunch of yummy cookies from the Cookie Connection! My husband knows me all too well! I LOVE cookies!!!! Apparently, Madison had helped him pick out everything! They had been all over town getting stuff for that night! So, she was in the on the whole thing with him. That has to be the sweetest thing in the world :)

Not only did I have all of these wonderful things that they had done for me...but on top of that, Todd had cleaned the house! He vaccumed and cleaned everything! It was the most wonderful Valentine's surprise!! The best Valentine's ever!

Then, Todd told me to go upstairs to our bedroom and read or whatever I wanted to do because he and Madison were going to make me dinner :) This just made my heart swell...I didn't think my heart could swell up anymore than it already had but it did. So, I went upstairs and read a book in bed while they cooked for me.

Then it was time for dinner. They made Margherita pizza for an appetizer, and spaghetti with turkey sausage and garlic bread for dinner. Then there was the dessert...mmmm....Claim Jumper Dutch cruch apple crisp and Hagen-Daaz Vanilla Bean ice cream. Like I said...Todd knows me best. I LOVE apple crisp and vanilla bean ice cream. It's my favorite dessert!

What a magnificent Valentine's celebration it was. It was so special and so exciting not to know what was going on. Todd is really good at surprising me...which is hard to do because I always want to know what's going on! I'm so proud of him and Madison for making that day so special for me.

Shelley, the herpetologist?

I'll bet you didn't know that I was an amateur herpetologist? Well, let me just tell you that I have loved frogs, lizards, and snakes since I was a little kid. I spent a summer in Ames at Grammie Abby's house catching baby frogs in her basement and garter snakes in her yard. And when I went camping as a kid I spent much of my time looking for and catching lizards! Actually, I spent a lot of time chasing after them and not catching that many but that's beside the point. I also used to have chameleons when I was a kid. I went through quite a few of them because they kept dying on me. I think I played with them too much and probably frightened them to death...literally. Apparently, they are not the kind of reptile to have if you want to handle your reptile as they are easily "stressed" but I did not know that at the time, obviously. In any case, imagine my excitement when I was walking down the hallway at Dad's house the other day and I ran into this little guy?

He was sooo cute! Naturally, being the lizard expert I was, I picked him up and went to find Madison to show her. We pet him and talked about how his skin felt and how we had to be very gentle with him. Then we talked about the fact that we should take him outside and let him go someplace where he would be safe and comfortable so we went into the yard to let him go. Madison got to hold him for a very brief moment then he scurried across her hand on the way to the ground. It was a really cool experience! Maybe more for me than for Madison...and certainly more for us than for the poor lizard.

So, being the science-geek I am, I told my co-workers about the lizard catch and release party and I described what the lizard looked like to Sheryl. I told her it looked pretty much like a small alligator. Well, she said, it was probably an alligator lizard. Duh. Of course, right? I made a mental note to myself to look up the alligator lizard but forgot to.

Well, before I started this blog entry, I Googled "alligator lizard" and low and behold...I found our little guy. Yes, he was indeed a California alligator lizard (see image from Google below).

Then I read the not-so-fine print... "Alligator lizards can give a nasty bite when caught, so don't try to catch them." Huh. Good thing I caught him and let my 2-year old daughter hold him!!! Nice one, Shelley. So much for being a herp-geek. NOT!! I guess I will stick to just being a science-geek. That seems to work out best for me.

True Norwegian?

I guess I'm not a true Norwegian since I don't like Kumla. I mean, what's not to like about it, right? What's not to like about finely shredded potato mixed with flour and cooked in hamhocks? (Borrrring). What's not to like about something that looks like this?

Gross with a capital "G"!! I'm sure Grammie Abby is the best at making it so no offense to her at all. But Kumla is just not right! What were they thinking...the Norwegians? Grammie said they had to keep inventing new ways to make potatoes. Hmmm....potato recipe number 899...let's see, what haven't we tried yet? Ah...I know. Let's try shredding the potatoes, mixing them with flour, and boiling them in hamhocks? Yes. that's it! :)

Well, Grammie Abby came to visit this past month and we had such a wonderful time with her! We talked and laughed and ate and watched movies and played cards and all that fun stuff! The highlight of the trip, however, was not the Kumla for me...it was losing 6 or so games of Hand and Foot to her. That was much more fun than eating Kumla! Ha! But, Madison did not think so. She, on the other hand, loved the Kumla! I guess she is a true Norwegian.
That-a-girl!!

On Sharing...through the eyes of a child

Ok, so you know how they say that 2-year olds don't truly understand the concept of "sharing?" Well, apparently they haven't met Madison. Because she's got it goin' on! She knows what's up! We were doing puzzles together yesterday and she was working on her Melissa and Doug animal puzzle that has different animals on it with different skin and coat colors and patterns. So, half of each animal is part of the background of the puzzle and the other half is the piece you are supposed to "match" up to it's animal with that skin or coat color and pattern. (I clearly can't describe this very well so here's a visual of the puzzle).

Well, Madison has done this puzzle (successully) a bizillion times so she knows how to match up the pieces and all that...but yesterday she started putting the "wrong" pieces in the "wrong" places. Wrong to my eyes and brain...but as she was putting them in she was saying "Mommy, these animals need to share with each other" And she systematically put each piece in the "wrong" place so that none of the pieces matched each other...all on the first try. Whoa. (Unf0rtunately, I did not manage to get a picture of that one since the profound nature of the moment hadn't really hit me yet). Then, she systematically took them all out and put them in the "right" places telling me they needed to be home again (the picture above).

Next, she moved on to the a puzzle which was a bit more advanced for this type of logic, or "sharing". It was another Melissa and Doug puzzle...this time it was a farmhouse puzzle that had little hinged doors that opened and you put the magnetic puzzle piece into the correct place in the farmhouse. This one is trickier because many of the pieces are similar in size and could potentially fit into the "wrong" spot but, again, she has done this one many times before and knows where they all go. Well, she systematically put all of the pieces into the "wrong" spots again telling me that they were all "sharing". She had to try a couple of different homes for some of them to make sure that they fit into their new home. The only one that didn't fit was the cow...but she still managed to find a place for her. I watched her do all of this with a look of awe on my face. What an amazing concept she was demonstrating...a way of looking at things I never would have thought of. But it made so much sense to her and it was perfect. And so simple. Sharing, through the eyes of a child.

(The first picture is where all the pieces are in the "correct" place and the second picture is her version of them "sharing")

Pretty in Pink

Madison and I had a really cool girl bonding experience tonight. I painted her toenails and her fingernails. And she actually sat still for the whole thing! I told her we had to cut her toenails and fingernails first (I'm good, huh?) and then I would paint them pink for her. I started with her toenails and right before I painted her first big toe she said to me "Mommy, will it hurt?" I said "no sweetie, it won't hurt at all." Sometimes I forget that everyday, every hour, there are "firsts" for her. I just took it for granted that she would know that painting her nails wouldn't hurt. But she didn't. And she trusted me to do it. What a moment. It was really cool. After each toenail was painted she let out a gleeful "eeeeee" and looked at her foot. Then she would wiggle her toes with delight! After her fingernails were done I told her that she couldn't touch anything for a little bit until they dried. I was convinced that she would leave the bathroom and promptly grab a toy and get polish all over the place! But, no...she took me literally. So, she walked around for the next 10 minutes or so with her fingers all spread out and would not touch anything! I had to hold her sippy cup of water for her so she could take a drink. How funny! I wonder what's going to happen tomorrow morning when I have to take off the fingernail polish so she doesn't try to eat it off her nails...that will be an interesting post I'm sure. Wish me luck!

Sissy's birthday party

Yes, it did happen. Cassie turned 18 on January 13th. Unbelievable. So, we had a birthday party for her at Dad and Cindy's house last night. Todd, Madison and I went out earlier in the day to a party store to get some balloons for her. Well, Madison insisted on picking out the balloons for sissy so she got...yes, you guessed it...a Dora balloon for her! She also picked out a really cute, huge happy birthday balloon in the shape of a cupcake so all was not lost. Well, I was chatting with the cashier about how Cassie had turned 18 and the woman standing in line behind me looked at me and said "she's 18 and your getting her Dora?" I just laughed and told her that her 2-year-old sister had picked it out for her. She thought that was very sweet and then said "well, just wait until she turns 18 and her big sister can get her a Dora balloon too!"

In keeping with tradition, since it was Cassie's boyfriend Michael's first time meeting some of us, yes, you guessed it...out came THE HATS! I'm so glad I escaped that picture! Cindy made teriyaki chicken, steamed rice, and some cheesy potatoes. Yummy! Then we had a wonderful rendition of "the birthday round" and we all pigged out on New Yolk style cheesecake with raspberry sauce. Even Madison. She got her own little slice of cheesecake and manged to get it all over the place! I'm not sure how much of it actually got in her mouth! After Madison went to bed, we watched a hilarious movie called Just Friends. It was Grammie-safe (you know what I mean, Heidi!) and very funny! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time!

Funderland

It was actually a nice day yesterday...about 54 degrees which isn't bad for mid-January so we took Madison to Funderland in William Land Park. It is a small amusement park for 2-10 year olds. I have to say...I was kind of expecting something different. It was kind of a dilapidated, mobile amusement park looking place. You know, like the ones you see on the side of the freeway that you would NEVER take your kids to! The rides were old, the paint was peeling, and most of the rides were closed. Hmmm...I wonder why that was? I was riding behind Madison on the plane ride and we were making the plane go way up high and I had a moment when I thought...I wonder how safe this ride is. Huh. But, aside from all of that, we had a wonderful time!! Madison loved it :) She was so excited she could barely contain herself! We rode on the afore mentioned plane ride which she was scared of as soon as I made it go up and down, then the old-fashioned cars that go around on a guided track, then the fishies. Oh, the fishies...did she LOVE the fishies. They were just her size and she got to ride on them all by herself. What a big girl she was! She rode on then 4 times...once for each color. Yup, that's my girl!

So, to give the place some credit, I suspect that it looked kind of grim because it WAS only 54 degrees outside, the trees were totally bare because it's winter, and it only opened up for the new season the day before. Would I go back again? In a heartbeat. My little girl was in heaven :) What more could you ask for?

Bye-bye potty training

I was really excited to start potty training Madison a week ago Monday (1/7/08). Erin, her daycare provider, suggested a couple of weeks ago that she start potty training Madison on Monday when she started with her 3-year-old son, Austin. She said they tend to work well in teams. So, if I was ready then she would start Madison too. Great! Sign me up! I had been avoiding the whole "potty training" thing. So, I guess I needed a little push. Ready, set, go! Well, since we had a start date, you know me, we had to get prepared for the big event. So, the weekend before, I drug Todd out to try to find some pull-ups. So, there I was at Walmart (shhh...don't tell anyone I was there) staring at the Pampers section...for like 10 minutes. No training pants to be found! You've got to be be kidding me. What kind of place was this anyway? I finally found them at the end of the aisle...apparently they have a special section for training pants. Rookie. Now what do I do? Do I get the Easy-Ups or the Feel-n-Learn? Seriously...what is the difference? One says that it's for potty training so clearly I should choose those, right? Well, then why make the other ones? Ugh. Long story short, I ended up with a package of each. Done.

That weekend Todd and I made a big deal about potty training and did the whole sticker reward thing and Madison loved it and thought it was wonderful and all that stuff. And she was doing really well. And then, somehow, the fun wore off. It was subtle and first. An occasional "no" when we asked her if she wanted to go on the potty. We never forced her to go on the potty. But, that escalated to "no! I don't want to go on the potty". Then it was the acting out and stuff. That went on through the weekend and yesterday and she was really acting out. I had noticed that she was pretending to be a baby and saying "googoogaga...I'm a baby Mommy" and stuff like that and grunting but I didn't really make the connection until this weekend that she started all of this when we started potty training her.

So, today I made a decision...no more potty training. I want my little girl back. I feel a little like I'm throwing in the towel, giving up, etc but I am taking my cues from my kid and she is not ready for potty training yet. And clearly...neither am I. Since we started trying to potty train her (um...1 1/2 weeks ago, which is like an eternity when you're living in toddler time) she has turned into a neanderthal. No, really. She grunts and makes weird noises instead of talking now. She has regressed to hitting me again. She is throwing food on the floor. Pretty much sums it up. Neanderthal. So, bye-bye potty training. To be continued...

Here we go!

This is my first post to the new blog...raising Madison. I was reading through Janice's blog for my nephews, Ryan and Evan, and I was just howling outload. And then I thought...I need to do this. What a wonderful way to keep track of what's going on in the daily lives of our kiddos and share it with our family and friends. So much happens everyday while you are raising kids and there's already so much I have forgotten. So, here we go!

Right now Madison is 2 years, almost 8 months old and full of energy and full of life and full of it!! We are in the "I want to do it all by myself, Mommy" phase followed by the "No! I don't want to put my shoes on" phase. Closely followed by the "No! I don't want to take a bath!" well, you get the picture...just fill in the blank. But we are also in the "Mommy, I love you sooooo much" and "you are the best Mommy in the whole world" phase. It's a bit like living with Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde, actually. One minute she is this super sweet, loving , adorable little angel and the next minute Todd and I expect that her head might start spinning and she might start spewing green stuff. Hmm...qiute perplexing actually. Is this normal? I think so.