Never A Dull Moment...

Maddie is just a little bundle of words lately. It seems like everyday she's saying two or three new words and using them in context. This morning was the icing on the cake when she said her name for the first time "Ma - de - line." We were at gymnastics and I was introducing her to new families in the class. I'd say "This is Madeline, but we call her Maddie." A few minutes later she started repeating "Madeline...Madeline." She would say each syllable slowly but it was clear. Sydney's teacher heard her and complimented her. I said "she just started saying it!!" Halfway through the class she said it again and another parent heard and understood her too.
Later I took the girls to the mall with my friend Erin and her boys. We were at the Play Place and Maddie was playing in the boat. Another child climbed in and I told Maddie "gentle" so she wouldn't bump into the child. Next thing Maddie starts putting her hand on each child she sees and looking at me, repeating "gentle" each time. She did this about four times and I was just in awe that she is soaking up everything I say. She also made up a game where she would sit down in the boat and say "down" then stand up and say "up". She repeated this and looked at me the whole time making sure I was watching her.
Lastly one of her favorite songs is the "Happy Birthday" song. She grins and tries to sing along, but she can only either say "Happy" or "Birthday". She is so determined, lol. It cracks me up.
Tonight when I put her to bed I asked her to give me a kiss. I've been working on this with her for a long time...she can blow kisses, make kissing sounds but has yet to give a kiss. Tonight she did but instead of puckering she opened her mouth wide. I laughed so hard that she started giggling too. I asked again said "can I have a kiss" and she opened her mouth again. We will have to work on the puckering!

Sydney is getting more and more creative everyday. Sometimes I can't even tell if what she is saying is real or made up. One such time was when she made a picture to hang on the wall. I had taped up some of her artwork from preschool and she quickly went to the computer desk to make new pictures to hang. She would make a little scribble on a page, call it a picture and then cover it from top to bottom with blue painter's tape and hang it up. I noticed she loved the hanging up part more than the actually drawing part. So I said to her that while I love that she is hanging up her work, her pictures have to be more than a small scribble. She looked at the picture I was holding, which had a small pencil scribble, and said "it's a cave." I thought...ok...and said "that's great but where is the bear?" Sydney says "inside the cave." At this point Andrew is behind her grinning at our conversation. I then say "ok, maybe you can add a forest around the cave, or mountains, but we can't hang pictures up that only have little scribbles." She says that it's not a little scribble, "it's a cave with a bear in it." Sigh...and now I cannot throw this picture away because it is a picture Sydney drew of a cave with a bear in it.