All about Madeline

Hello world. I've decided it's time for a very Mormon post describing the ridiculously funny things my two year old says, does, or believes. Or maybe the mildly funny things. Basically, this is what Jessie and I do for entertainment, so naturally we can't imagine that anyone else wouldn't want a dose of Madeline in their lives. Feel free to disagree. Quietly where we can't hear you.

Basically, Madeline has strange ideas about the world, and when you say something to her once, you'd better be prepared to hear it for the rest of time. My favorite was when we were at my mother-in-law's and Madeline was trying to play with her dog (whose name is Misty, but she calls her Kiss-me. I love that.). Misty wasn't cooperating, so Madeline said, very loudly and very angrily, "Listen to ME Kiss-me! One-two-three TIMEOUT! Listen to ME! NO! NO! DON'T!" The tone of her voice floored me, because it was like listening to a recording. Whoops. Time to work on those parenting skills if I'm going to get tattled on in front of Grandma. We might be making progress, because she still routinely sends her dolls and toys to timeout, but she asks them nicely. Most of the time.

Madeline has also come up with a unique way of dealing with her anxieties. Jessie told her once there was "no reason to be scared" of the dark, and she's latched onto that phrase like a piranha. She talks to herself as she's going to bed and says, "No reason to be scared of the dark. Leave all the lights on? No reason to be scared." There's also no reason to be scared of the neighbor's drums, other loud noises, and scary moments in movies.

Madeline got a dollhouse for Christmas, and she's in love. We like it too, because it gives us a pretty good glimpse into the Mind of Madeline, which is an interesting and sometimes bizarre place. Her dolls do everything we do, including going to bed, making all the meals, driving to work, playing horsey on Daddy's back, dancing with, kissing and hugging one another, and so on. The best is when she shoves the mommy out the second story window, and then the daddy comes running and assists her back into the house via the door to "get better". So she can push her out the window again. Nice to know she has respect for motherly figures.

Madeline has also rekindled her love affair with Mary Poppins, who is now known as Peter Poppins for reasons unknown. Her new favorite part of the movie is when the bank manager takes Micheal's tuppence and causes a riot. She likes to get the chips out of our Sequence game and run around with them saying "My money! Don't take my money! Give me back my money!"

Well, that's a decent sampling of what it's like to live with Madeline. Minus the incessant Toy Story talk and lack of any interest in potty training. And now you'll have to excuse me to take a nap. Because Madeline was up from 4-5:30 last night turning the hall lights on and off in order to look at the glowing stars on her ceiling. Don't you wish she was your kid? (No really. Don't you? Because I'm renting her out from 8 pm to 7 am. Reasonable rates.)