August 2006 Archives

Maddie went to her first soccer practice last night. Her team is made up of 3 and 4 year-olds. She won't be 3 until October, but they let her in for the season. All players had to have shinguards, socks, a ball, and shoes or cleats. We searched high and low for some cleats for Maddie but the smallest we found were a size 10 (she wears a 6). Kids are allowed to wear regular sneakers too, so that's what we ended up doing. We did find some peewee shinguards, but the socks are so long that they are rolled down a couple of times (they would have been up to her hips).

She did really well at her first practice. She got out there and everyone was impressed with how well she kept up with the boys. You can definitely tell which boys have been playing longer and harder -- they're really good at their ages! -- but Maddie had fun just running around after them. We're not sure if she knew to chase the ball, or just chase the boys. (Please, please, no chasing boys!) They did practice making goals and she scored one or two.

We wondered how she would react out there on the field. Bill has been practicing with her at home and every time she even touches the ball she yells, "Gooooaaaaallll!!!!" Very "World Cup" of her. She yelled it a few times on the field yesterday too.

It was so hot out that the kids got water breaks every 10 minutes or so. At her first water break she wanted to go and play on the playground near the field (where Josie played while she was at practice) but then she decided to go and play soccer some more. Afterwards she and Josie played at the playground and then we all went out for dinner and ice cream.

I'm partial, but she was the cutest thing out there. Definitely the smallest. There are only 3 girls on her team, including Maddie. But like I said, she did pretty well keeping up with the boys.

Bill will probably add more, since he stayed with her most of the time and helped out on the field, but here's some video for you to enjoy:

I gave the girls some crackers for their snack this afternoon. I came back into the room to find the crackers all over the floor.

"What happened, Maddie? You and Josie need to pick up your crackers."

"Noooo, Mommy. I'm DEC-A-RAT-ING!!!!!"

"Oh, really?

"Um, no I'm just feeding the birds."

"We don't have any birds."

{Sindri walks into the room and starts eating the crackers on the floor}

"I'm feeding Sindri! See, Mommy? I'm a good helper!"

upon entering the room and smelling something unpleasant:

"Maddie, do you have poopies? Should we change your diaper?"

"No, Mommy, I just toot. Chicken nugget toot!"

Congratulations to my little brother Mike and his lovely wife Kami on the birth of their first child, Ethan William McLochlin.

Ethan came into the world early Thursday afternoon in Chicago, and had a horde of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins camping out at the hospital to greet him. From what I understand, the labor wasn't too long or brutal, though an incident with the umbilical cord required Ethan to be removed with forceps, leading to some bruising and a slight cut by his eye.

Needless to say, a few days of puffiness surely won't keep this charmer from being just as beautiful as his parents. We're jealous as hell of all of the family who gets to see the little guy, since we won't be meeting him until Thanksgiving. At least, by then, we may be able to hold him for five minutes without someone stealing him. We're betting it's a war for time with Ethan right now.

Anyway, I'd report the height and weight, but my parents told me different stats than were in the announcement email, so I have no clue which is true. But it seems Ethan was neither really large nor really small. Sort of just right.

Here's a picture of the happy family. It's not the best shot of the baby, but I chose it because of my brother's expression. Get used to whatever feeling is powering that grimace, Mike. I'm betting it will be the norm from here on out. :) Congrats, and we love you guys!

I just peeked my head around the corner in the playroom to hear Josie counting the toys on the floor. She counted all the way to 6! And not just from memory, but she actually pointed to each toy and counted.

I wasn't sure I was believing my eyes, so I asked her:

Josie, how many toys do you have?

Un, due, tee, oe, eyeeee, isss! Big smile on her face.

Bill leaves the room last night.

Maddie turns to me, with the most serious face, and says:

You know, Mom, I really like him.

Alecia: Maddie, would you like some more peaches for dessert?

Maddie: Yeah!! Can I please have more peaches and dirt?

Maddie: Mommy, I want to go with Daddy

Alecia: Daddy's at work, sweetie. We'll see him when he gets home. He'll stay home and play with you while Mommy goes to work.

Maddie: I love Daddy. He stay home with me while Mommy go to work. I don't love Mommy.

Alecia: That's not very nice, Maddie. You don't love Mommy? That makes me sad.

Maddie: I sorry. I don't love you, Mommy.

I knew this was coming, but I didn't expect it so soon. Especially not from my 2-year old still in diapers. I went in the other room and cried.

Maddie is, well, Maddie. She is still the life of the party and doesn't know a stranger. She'll go up to any kids and tilt her head and say, "Do you want to play? Here, I help you." and hold out her hand so the child will go with her. She loves to both help take care of her little sister, and torment her. It's absolutely adorable the way they hug each other when they first see each other in the morning. Or the way they lie down together on the couch to watch Dora the Explorer. It's not so great when Maddie decides to wrestle with Josie and jumps on her head or keeps her in a headlock, laughing. We're still working on that whole be gentle concept.

As I've said before, we are in the middle of the terrible twos, in a bad way. She is the smartest, funniest, most perceptive kid... until she doesn't get her way. Then watch out. (Any comments comparing her to either of her parents are not welcome!) She will scream and thrash and throw things at whomever is standing nearby. She'll ignore us when we talk to her. She'll walk away when we're talking about time out. Speaking of time out, I'm sorry, Super Nanny, but it just doesn't work for Maddie. We've followed your tips exactly as you've explained them, but the kid just keeps getting out of her chair! Yes, be consistent and keep putting her back, but after about 50 times even I forget why she's in the time out chair to begin with.

Maddie is all about anything little these days. Tiny little plastic animals (that hurt when you step on them, btw), tiny little dolls, etc. The only difference is when she gets around girls older than her. I thought she would be intimidated, but she absolutely loves it. She played with a 3 and 5 year-old today and smiled and giggled the entire time, following them around and running and jumping to keep up with them. While Maddie struggled to keep up with the two older girls, Josie ran after all three of them yelling Maddie's name. She tried so hard to keep up, climbing with the girls, but she was just too small. The heartbreak on her face when she came walking back to me just killed me.

Maddie has added a few new dance moves to her routine. She also finds it extremely funny to do the booty shake whenever she's naked. In the bath, in the morning getting dressed. She giggles and shakes her little behind (which really is little. The kid has no hips or booty to shake).

Speaking of her little booty, we are still working on potty training. It's a long-term process. After buying new Disney Princess panties, after bribing with gummi bears, after talking about how big girls like Grace use the potty... Maddie just has no interest.

Maddie got her first real salon haircut last week. She hates having her hair brushed and now refuses to wear anything in her hair, so it was time to cut it off until she will let me fix it. I hated cutting off her beautiful locks, but I hated her stringy, unbrushed hair even more. She was great and very patient while Mona cut her hair. At first she started to get a little teary-eyed; I think she was just intimidated by the hairdresser telling her what to do. Then, she got into it and started posing in the mirror and watching herself. Afterwards, you should have seen the little diva. She got a lollypop for being so good and pranced around the salon telling everyone to look at her "beautiful hair." (She used to say her "beautiful long hair" but that's not the case now). I think she looks cute (regardless of how her hair looks) and I have to admit that the short do fits her little tomboy/princess personality right now.

You begin to realize how much TV your kids are watching when they hear a song and can relate it to any one of the shows they are watching:

Beethoven's Fifth Symphony - "Little Einstein's song, Mommy!"
Chariots of Fire - "It's the Madagascar song!"
Jack Johnson "Upside Down" - "Play the Curious George song again, Daddy!"
Sister Sledge "We are Family" - "Dora! We are family. Todos los amigos com me."

Speaking of Dora, can I just say that I LOVE that show? Maddie is learning so many Spanish words and we're working on them at home as well. It has been interesting to see her actually mix up English and Spanish when she's talking. In the car the other day, she told us to look at the rojo car. And that she loves her morado princess purse.

Maddie is just as picky as ever and still goes most of the day without eating more than a bite. Conveniently, she seems to get hungry right about bedtime. Even though I know being picky is a toddler thing, it's scary to see your almost underweight child refuse to eat. I have the urge to be like an Italian Grandmother and fatten her up.

In all, it's been an pretty unexciting couple of weeks. My best friend Marci came to stay for two weeks, which was wonderful. I'm not sure if she'll still want children after putting up with our two jumping on her all the time, but she was a brave soul, nonetheless. The girls loved having her here and she was like a new playmate for them.

We're heading into Birthday Season right now. Maddie's playgroup is arranged by birthday so all the kids will be relatively the same age. That means that every one of her friends has a birthday from July through November. Every two weeks is a birthday party. Fun for the kids; near bankruptcy for the parents.

I'll try to be better about posting more about what the girls are doing. Bill has some more great video to share, and I'll upload our next batch of photos soon.

We had a followup appointment for Josie's eyes a couple of weeks ago. We were waiting to get her new glasses until we found out if her vision had improved (as the doctor thought). It turns out that is has improved, but it's still pretty bad. She will need new glasses with a new prescription and we'll need to be better about making her wear them. After a good start, she now hates to have them on. If our efforts don't work, the doctor suggested using some drops that dilate the pupils. The only way she'll be able to see clearly is if she does wear her glasses, so that may help train her. Sounds cruel, but the kid needs to wear them or her eyes will actually get worse and possibly start crossing. Maddie got her eyes checked too, just in case. Her vision is fine and she won't need glasses as well.

Josie is talking a little more. She's trying more words, but not enunciating them well. We're working with her to try and sound out the words by syllable. The funny thing is that she can pronounce certain syllables clearly, but she still mumbles the entire word. For example, she calls Maddie "Nye Eeee!" But she can make the sound "Ma" and "Dee". Try to get her to say them together and it becomes "Nye Eeee" again.

Her little ringlets are getting so long. When it's wet her hair looks even longer. At this point, it's almost longer than Maddie's Josie's skin is doing okay. We've been good at trying to keep her away from the foods she can't have, and her face has been really clear, but her legs and ankles and wrists are still really bad. The poor kid just scratches them all day until they are raw. We put a steroid cream on them every morning and night, but it doesn't seem to help much. I've tried keeping her in socks, pants, and long sleeves (indoors, of course) but the kid really does prefer to be barefoot and naked. It must be the Alabama genes coming out in her. (haha, just kidding, Mom!)

Though she can't talk very much, the kid is a wonder if what she picks up and can do. Physically, the girl is tough and can keep up with whatever Maddie is doing, be it dancing or jumping or climbing like a monkey. Lately, she's into phones. She loves to steal our cell phones and talk on them. She knows how to flip it open, talk ("Mmm-hmmm, okay, yeah, bye bye!") and then close it. She walks around a little and then repeats. She even mimics how Bill wipes the open phone on his shirt to clean the display screen.

Both girls will do anything for our attention now and Josie's favorite activity right now is to climb up on something she's not supposed to (coffee table, kitchen table, arm of the couch) and yell, "Neeeeeeeeeeeeee!" which essentially means "Look at me!" with a big mischevious grin on her face.

Her favorite toys so far are any kind of baby doll ("beh be"), cars, balls, and her kitchen set. Occasionally she'll sit down and play with the little people that Maddie likes, but that only lasts as long as they start arguing over something.

She already looks up to her big sister and tries to do everything Maddie does. And now, instead of seeking only our attention for it, she yells out for Maddie to look at her. "Nye eeeee! Nye eeeeee! Nye eeeeee!"

Unfortunately for both girls, the weather has been too hot and too humid to even go outside. I attempted to take them to the park one evening around 6:30 and they ended up sweating through their clothes and their faces turned bright red. Instead, we've been either playing at home or going to the indoor Burger King playland or taking a trip to Kangazoom, an indoor play area with inflatable slides and obstacle courses. They love it and it wears them out for a good nap. We're all looking forward to fall when we can actually go outside again and take walks. It's hard to appreciate the sunny south when it's nearly impossible to go outdoors and enjoy it.

We've also taken a couple of trips to a lake and beach, about 30 minutes away. The girls love the sand and water. Bill and I are excited to take them to the ocean -- Destin or the like -- sometime soon.