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.)

In honor of Auld Lang Syne

I know I haven't blogged in too long when Jessie notices my lack of witty anecdotes. I did tell you I would be slacking off. And between a wonderful Christmas, the whole family down with colds, and a few other personal family matters, I didn't have the time or heart to be blogging. But I can't let the calender roll over to 2011 without registering my existence in the virtual world. So, for your pleasure, here is Cami's Annual New Year's Thoughts of Importance! Otherwise known as my fake New Year's Resolution list. I thought about actually making *gasp* real resolutions, but dismissed that idea on the grounds that it would make me accountable and perhaps inspire actual change. Ugh. So instead, I have decided to make a list of the top ten things I resolve NOT to do this year. It's so much easier than being proactive and accomplishing things.

Unresolved:

1. I will not learn Spanish. I've been meaning to learn Spanish ever since I married Jessie so that someday we can serve a mission together to parts Spanish speaking. Except for the first few months when I learned to say "sinners can repent and see the light" and "my husband is handsome", I have not learned any Spanish. I will now assuage my guilt by committing to make no organized effort to become proficient this year.

2. I will not travel to Boston in the fall. You laugh, but I actually wanted to do this. Jessie and I had big plans. Then we decided that an appendectomy, a new baby, a new dishwasher, student loans, a van, and food all rank above airline tickets on the list of things we wish to pay for. So flying to Boston in the fall might be driving to Denver in the summer. Same thing.

3. I will not try to be fashionable. I tried a few times this year. I felt proud until I realized a) most of the fashions nowadays do not flatter post pregnant bodies and b) I have no idea what is fashionable nowadays. So I will stick to trying not to look dorky. And not wearing mom jeans.

4. I will not have dinner on the table every single night when Jessie gets home from work. Most nights, maybe. Every night is too much pressure. And when I don't have dinner ready or at least planned when he walks through the door, I feel guilt. So it's time to do something about that. Either way, I'm not going to make dinner every night. This way I can feel like I'm furthering my goals and becoming wiser. Score.

5. I will not let Jessie beat me at Scrabble. We play together on the iphone and ipad. Jessie is getting better and better, but remains bitter that he hasn't beaten me yet. I intend to keep it this way. Unless he beats me. In which case I let him to keep our marriage intact and boost his self-confidence.

6. I will not eat snails. This should be pretty easy to do since I have never eaten them in my life, and there is not a lot of peer pressure to do so in my neck of the woods. I just wanted to add it to the list to boost my success rate.

7. I will not start a band. My neighbors will appreciate this gesture of goodwill and harmony.

8. I will not try to cut my own hair. I may or may not have done this in the past week in an attempt to save money, under the mistaken assumption that it is easy to "just trim" hair. Turns out this is false if you are doing it to yourself and have zero hair cutting experience. On an unrelated note, I really need to visit a salon.

9. I will not pick any 16 over 1 upsets for March Madness, no matter how much Jessie attempts to convince me there is a first time for everything and optimistically and fool-heartedly makes this rookie mistake in his own bracket.

10. I will not apologize at the start of every blog for not blogging a week. Hopefully this will be a combination of the fact that I am blogging more than once a month and that I have accepted that those who read my blog are acquainted with my habits and used to my flakiness.

So there it is. My firm resolve to be passive and unproductive this year in the name of improvement and progression. Hopefully you'll all be as lucky in accomplishing your goals and aspirations. Happy New Year, everyone. You'll excuse me now, as I really need to take a nap now. Wake me when it's midnight.

My weekly update on our coolness and other amazing details.

So I always have really good excuses for not blogging for forever. Which makes me really cool. This time it is an infection that knocked me out for a weekend, a constipated baby, and general busyness doing Christmas shopping, seeing family, and other cool stuff like that. And since it's almost Christmas, I'll probably slack off some more in the coming weeks. Hooray for slackers (and my house shows it too. For all the same excuses, my house is kind of a mess. But for that one I also throw in the whole new baby excuse.)

Anyway, now that we're done with the requisite apologizing, we can discuss cool things. Like Madeline. Madeline is cool this week because she has reached new heights of defiance in public places. I keep thinking we've reached the threshold, but then she continues to amaze me. I knew my daughter had special talents. We spent half of sacrament meeting last week in an empty classroom throwing tantrums on the floor, part walking in and out of the chapel and screaming, and a small portion in another empty classroom having a long lesson about reverence and showing respect to Heavenly Father. Which she promptly forgot entirely when we tried to reenter the chapel for the closing prayer. We also spent a fair amount of time this week putting on a show for local shoppers in various retail locales. I'm sure they were amused by our game of tag through the stores, the kicking and screaming on the floor, and the parts where I gave up trying to control her and let her rip apart the toy displays. I'm a little tired of being THAT mother in the store. That you are either laughing at, judging, or pitying. Depending on your experience with young children.

But in other news, my other progeny continues to give me hope for the rising generation and counter Madeline's attempts to stop our family growth at two. Other than the whole constipation thing, which is really rather sad, she continues to be a dream. Last night she actually slept for seven and a half hours. She usually sleeps for five or six anyway. Go ahead, hate me. I would feel guilty, but I feel like it's a compensatory gift for enduring Madeline's first six months of life. Or something. I probably don't deserve it at all, but let's not analyze it, lest we kill a good thing. And in other good news for my sanity, I'm done with my Christmas shopping and feeling great. (Wow, I'm a braggart today, huh?) So life, overall, is pretty festive and awesome. Hope you are half as cool as us over here in Warnerville. (Kidding. Totally kidding. I'm just feeling annoyingly chipper today, apparently. Long naps and brownies will do that to you.)

Milestones and merriment

Well, we've officially made it to one month. The hormonal mother inside me cringes to write that. Because Kimberly is much better at eating than Madeline was, she's chunking up a lot faster. (My baby has rolls of leg fat! Hallelujah!) But this means she's not a tiny newborn anymore, and that makes me sort of want to cry. But I am cheered by the fact that she's now more alert, and therefore more fun to play with. We have wars sticking our tongues out at each other. And somehow with all the poking and prodding and dumping her sister out of her bouncer chair, Madeline earned the first smiles of Kimberly's life that I'm fairly certain were not motivated by gas. Which I think is not really fair, but since I am unwilling to hit the baby in order to keep up in the popularity contest, I've resigned myself to the fact that Madeline will always be cooler than Mom to her little sister.

Life has actually been pretty busy, even with a newborn. We're gearing up for Christmas. we managed to motivate ourselves enough to make Christmas cookies, although we haven't yet summoned up the energy to deliver them. Maybe some of our neighbors will get some before I eat them all and blame the extra weight on the baby. Madeline has helped wrapped some presents (sorry to anyone who gets presents from us), and we made a Christmas chain to count down to the joyous day. And Madeline learned to say "ho, ho, ho". So pretty much we're a festive bunch around here.

Why Jessie is cooler than the rest of us.

So tonight was Jessie's work party. Since he now works for a real company, it was a swanky affair at UVU, complete with some delectable prime rib and John Schmidt. But the best part is that his company gives out really awesome raffle prizes, like four big screen televisions, x-boxes, stereo systems, gift cards to restaurants, ski passes, and other cool stuff. Since Jessie has insane luck when it comes to winning things, we were somewhat optimistic about our chances. Which led to a conversation on the way to the party about who got to keep any cool prizes. I told Jessie that since he already got an iphone, tons of free shirts, a nice backpack, a jacket, and other swag from work, that anything less cool than an iphone that he managed to score would be given to me. The poor wife who doesn't get free stuff. He agreed, with the stipulation that if he won an ipad, he got to keep it.

Guess who won an ipad.

Punk.

On the bright side, I'll probably get to use it all the time anyway. If I can keep it away from Madeline and her rabid desire to watch Sesame Street on Youtube.

Bringing up Baby. And Baby's Nemesis, Toddler.

So. Two kids. I've been doing this double duty mothering thing for a couple of weeks now, so I can tell you exactly what it's all about. (For my two kids only, of course. For any general knowledge on actually raising any amount of children, go ask your mother. I'm totally winging it here.) Basically, the baby is easy. Either Madeline was twenty times harder, or I've gotten slightly smarter. I'm inclined to believe it's a combination of having an idea what I'm doing this time and having a very chill baby who does her best to make life good for me. Kimberly sleeps well, eats well (she's already gained a pound on her birth weight), and hardly cries. She almost always takes naps whenever I want her to, and a bad night is waking up twice and getting the hiccups so that she can't go back to sleep. I am definitely, definitely spoiled so far, and probably just jinxed myself. Expect a post tomorrow about my ultra fussy, sensitive, sleepless newborn who poops all over the carpet and throws rowdy parties at one in the morning for all her newborn friends.

No, the hardest part about having a newborn this time is definitely having a toddler. Outwardly Madeline loves the baby-to a fault. She loves to hold her, touch her, poke her, and in all other ways smother her with affection. But her other behavior would indicate she definitely has jealousy issues. She likes to randomly hit, kick, poke, and otherwise torment her sister. She has definite separation anxiety with both Jessie and I. We're talking fits when Jessie goes to meetings, crying when I go up the stairs too fast so she can't see me, and freaking out going to nursery, which she normally has no problem with. And nightmare tantrums when it's time for naps or bed. She also desperately wants to be the baby, manifested by her sudden desire to be changed on a blanket or changing pad, sticking binkies in her mouth, needing a glass of milk whenever I nurse the baby, and wanting to be held and carried. It's terribly amusing when it's not terribly frustrating. Seriously, the number of times Kimberly has made me cry since being born: 0. The number of times Madeline has made me cry since Kimberly was born: a few more than that. Fortunately, the hormonal crying fits have also been significantly less this time around. Less wasted tissues and headaches. So we're working on the toddler situation and assuring Madeline we're not putting her up for adoption now that there's someone quieter in the house. On a brighter note, hearing her apologize to Kimberly is pretty adorable. And we get the opportunity to hear it often.

Let us not be downhearted over Madeline's insecurities. Overall, life really is significantly less stressful and sleep-deprived than I imagined it would be. This parenting gig is pretty sweet compared to a nine to five job. Or at least that's what I tell Jessie when the poor slob has to go to work in the morning while I watch Toy Story. How I love Woody and Buzz.

Mawige. Mawige is what brings us...you know the rest.

Well, I'm sure you're all dying to know what life is like with two little munchkins. But your thirst for information will have to wait a day or two, because it's time for our annual Jessie love-fest, in which you humor my mormon-mommy-blogger need to tell you about how cool my husband is, to feed our egos. That's right folks, Jessie and I have officially been married four years today. It feels like a lot less when I write it down. Since we're so awesome and knowledgeable about matrimony and stuff, we're pretty pleased to have achieved this milestone despite the rumors from the paparazzi that Jessie was leaving me to study the penguins in Antarctica, or that I was running away to focus on my belly dancing career. Allow me to regale you with the most awesome parts or our union over the past year, and why I'm glad I went through them with Jessie instead of, say, George Jetson.

1. We found my wedding ring in an unlikely place after Jessie had magnanimously decided he loved me enough to buy me a new one even though it could have provided him with a handy excuse for running away to Antarctica. I believe I detailed at the time how delighted I was, so I'll spare you the sappiness.

2. We cemented our love watching the Olympics, and I decided that Jessie and I should get in training to win a figure skating gold medal. Because how cool and romantic and good for your marriage would that be? Then I remembered I have no sense of balance, and can't ice skate. And I was bummed for a minute, but then I remembered Jessie loved me anyway. So now we're going for the Nobel prize in physics together. Just as soon as we can get Madeline to sit still for the photon laser.

3. We found out we were having kid #2. And wondered if we were crazy. And endured a long pregnancy of hospital visits, morning sickness, crazy hormones, and other such unpleasantness. (And that was just Jessie. Believe me, I was feeling even worse.) And we still liked each other enough when it was all said and done to hang out together in labor and delivery and have a baby. Of which I'll post a picture, because let's face it: this post may be about Jessie, but we all want some baby pictures. (Of which I will post more once I unload a camera.)
4. We survived an appendectomy, and in the process avoided going on the annual Antimony trip. Both of which were good for our marriage and brought us together. Because Jessie had to stay home and hang out with me for a few days, and went nuts being on sick leave and cleaned the house as he is wont to do. Going through medical crises is great with Jessie. I have less housework to do for a week.

5. Jessie got a new job with a lot of perks, because he is awesome. Now he lets me play with his iphone and brings home free t-shirts and has real work parties. Oh, and he does work for his new company too, but we don't like to talk about that. As always, his nerdy work side and his obsession with geeky computer programs is endearing. And it's pretty nice he brings home a paycheck too, to pay for those pesky things like food and diapers and new shoes.

There was probably more eventful things in our fourth year of marriage, but with post-pregnancy brain I can't remember them. So, let me sum up: Being married is pretty awesome. Jessie is still a pretty great guy. Stuff happens in our life and I'm always glad Jessie is here to deal with/enjoy it with me. Because misery loves company and happy people do too. So happy anniversary, Jessita. It's been a ball. Let's do more cool stuff.
(And here for your viewing pleasure is the requisite wedding photo that these posts must have. See how in love we are. Jessie is one handsome devil in a tux.)