October 2006 Archives

The girls are doing great, as always. It's been a busy couple of weeks for us, but we're all getting excited for our Thanksgiving trip to Indiana, and Christmas soon after. This year should be fun for both holidays: 1) Maddie and Josie are old enough that they remember and will know their relatives in Indiana, and 2) they'll actually know what's going on this Christmas. Maddie is already talking about Santa Claus and Josie is aware that he says "ho ho ho!"

Maddie celebrated her 3rd birthday on October 10th. We had her party at a local park, which was the best idea we've ever had. It was the most laid-back party, the kids had fun, and we didn't have to clean up afterwards. 3 years-old. Yikes. This birthday made me so sad. She's no longer a baby or toddler, but a preschooler! And all the sass and humor to go with it. She had her 3rd year appointment and she's doing just fine. Still a little low on the growth charts, but nothing to worry about. We talked about potty training and the fact that she might be holding back because she has been so constipated for a while. I try to give her a little juice each day to help (she's been like this since she was a baby) but sometimes it doesn't help much. The doc suggested some prune juice and if that didn't work he would write a prescription for a mild laxative. So far the prune juice has been working really well. And... Maddie has started using the potty! She has been wearing panties during the day at home (her choice) and despite a few accidents here and there, she has actually used the potty by herself twice. Both times she went on her own and without prompting or reminding from me. She was so excited the first time that she wanted to call everyone we knew to tell them. Luckily for our phone bill, we just called a few people.

She's quite the little diva lately. Give her a mirror and she'll pose and stare into it for hours. She has picked up some new words as well -- don't worry, these aren't profane ones! Her favorite word lately is "actually."

A: Maddie, is that your cup?
M: Actually, it's green.

Josie is now wearing her glasses full-time thanks to her new glasses and some wonderful eyedrops we put in every morning. The drops dilate her eyes to the point that she can only see by wearing her glasses. It's worked so far in that I've been able to skip a couple of days of the eyedrops because she's used to wearing them. We usually don't let her wear them much at mom's morning out or other places where we can't supervise her in case she takes them off (no more broken glasses, please!)

Her vocabulary improved suddenly overnight. She can now say many more words, though only Bill or I would be able to recognize them. She has started little gibberish sentences which are so cute because of the facial expressions that go along with them. I was starting to worry because she wouldn't pronounce any consonants other than b, d, or n. Now she is actually trying other ones and she can sing along with the alphabet song.

Like her sister, Josie has become quite the little entertainer. She loves to dance and bob her head back and forth to the music. Both of the girls love the song "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley. We have to listen to it on the ride home from MMO each week. Maddie sings "crazyyyyyy!" and Josie bobs her head and says "caaaaaaaaay, eeeeeeeeee!"

The girls are all set for Halloween as well. Bill and I thought we'd come up with more cute Halloween costumes for the girls this year -- we had the idea in mind and were going to start working on making them -- but then we took a trip to Target. One look at the Belle costume (from Beauty and the Beast) and Maddie was hooked. It took a lot of wrangling just to get her to take it off so we could buy it. All she talks about now is how she's going to be Belle for Halloween. In fact, anyone we meet gets to hear all about it. (Her friend Grace is going as Cinderella so they'll make quite the pair).

Josie didn't have any strong opinions so we chose a Tinkerbell costume for her. Her blond hair was in a ponytail that day and it just seemed to fit. The only problem now is getting her to wear the costume. It's a little itchy and she hates it. We're going to have to work on fixing it somehow. In hindsight, we should have gotten her the Dora costume. She is infatuated with Dora right now and spends all day playing with the dollhouse and characters. Her first words when she wakes up in the morning are "Da! Booz!" (ie. "Dora and Boots").

Speaking of waking up, the girls are now sleeping in the same room, each of them in their own bed. Josie has moved into her toddler bed and no longer sleeps in the crib or pack n' play. It has taken a little while to get them used to falling asleep like that (and we're still working on it) but it's coming along better than I ever imagined it would. The only problem is that Maddie still wants us to lie down with her until she falls asleep (a bad habit we started) and Josie just wants to jibber jabber until she falls asleep.

We have some more funny video of the girls dancing that we'll post soon. In the meantime, check out the new pictures of our trip to the Dairy Farm and the pumpkin patch.

I was showing Maddie some old photos of Christmas last year. I wanted to reintroduce her to some people we'd be seeing in a few weeks when we head back north.

On seeing a picture of Drew:
Who is him the funny one?
That's Drew.
He's silly!

On seeing a picture of Grandma Horvath and Josie:
Who's that?
That's Grandma Horvath, Daddy's grandma.
That Horvath is kissing Jo Jo.

Yesterday was Maddie's third birthday. Since we'd already had her party with friends and extended family on Sunday, we decided to go out and have some fun with just the four of us last night. Unfortunately, we didn't plan on Kangazoom and Monkey Joe's both being closed. So, we ended up at Dave & Buster's, instead.

We took some pics and video of the night that we'll post eventually, but suffice it to say that we had a lot of fun. Maddie enjoyed playing the car/motorcycle/truck driving games (except for the one that jerked so hard that she hit her nose on the steering wheel), Josie enjoyed dancing along with mommy on Dance Dance Revolution, mommy enjoyed cheating at the horse racing game, and I enjoyed winning tickets so that our girls could take home a crappy stuffed cat and a small rubber snake. Really, we all just enjoyed having the place mostly to ourselves and spending time away from the house.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. And, as usual, Maddie was NOT happy when we left. She was crying and kicking, so I asked her, "Did you have fun in there?" Being as angry as she was, she shouted, "No!"

I replied, "That's too bad. I guess I paid that thirty dollars for nothing."

"That thirty dollars was for 'No more playing, Maddie!'" she replied, doing her best effort at imitating daddy and mommy.

Yeah, I think we're going to love three-years old.