Madeline is saying the sweetest words I've ever heard.

"Love you!"

A few nights ago at dinner, the three of us (Rebecca was having a sleepover at Grandma's house) were sitting around the table. I was trying to teach her to say "Please" when she was wanting something and she finally got "Cheese, please!" down pretty well. It was so sweet, the scrunched up nose and wrinkley face that she'd make when she said it that Brian said "Oh Madeline, I love you". She paused for a moment then broke into a grin and said "Love you! Love you! Mama? Love you!"

She's also now saying "Cheese please" every time she wants anything.

A few weeks ago I took Rebecca into the grocery store to grab a few quick things while Brian kept a sleeping Madeline in the car. As we were rounding our way through the freezer section and past the beer Rebecca stopped dead in her tracks. I turned around and said "Come on, Becca, keep up with me" She stood completely still and stared at someone hidden from me behind a display case. "Rebecca," I hissed, "Come on! Don't stare. Let's go!"

She turned to look at me with wonder and excitement showing on her face. Then she blurted out something unrecognizable. I asked her what she'd said and she said "Mama! Come here! Look!"

I finally walked over to prod her along and realized what she was looking at.

She whispered again to me "Mama! That man! That man has a TAIL!"

There was a man restocking the beer display with a feather dusting brush in his back pocket. Because he was squatting down it was sticking strait out of his pocket and indeed looked a bit like a tail.

Rebecca excitedly kept whispering "A tail! Mommy he has a TAIL!"

As I pulled her along towards the checkout, trying to explain it was a brush not a tail, she shook her head.
"No Mama, I saw. That man had a tail!"

The other day I was getting the girls ready to leave for daycare when Rebecca stopped short, looked at me with a puzzeled expression and said "Mama? But.... if Santa Claus as fingernails, why is he named Santa CLAWS".

I tried to give a very simplistic explanation that some people have last names that sound like other words. She looked at me for a moment then said "I don't know about that, Mama" in a cynical tone.

Who would have thought that hearing Mama would be the 2nd sweetest thing Madeline's ever said?
This weekend she started saying "Becca". Or rather "Gah-kah".
This morning I said "Madeline can you say 'Becca'?" and she looked at me and smiled slightly and said "Gahkah!" then gave this little look like "Check it, I'm so stinking cute and I know it. Go me!"
I never thought anything would top hearing her say Mama, but this very well might

Madeline at 10 months (+5 days)

My big girl! I can't believe how quickly she's growing.

On Friday March 26th we got home from work and were playing in the living room after dinner when she started crawling. We clapped and said "yay Maddie!", she sits up on her own and starts to clap for herself. Then she crawled over and started pulling herself up to her knees on the furniture.

Later that night we noticed that on top of all of that, she popped 2 of her new teeth!

She now has 2 bottom teeth and 3 top teeth all the way through. She's cutting 2 more (at least) on the bottom and 3 more on the top all at the same time. Poor little bird!

She slept through the night for the first time about 2 weeks ago, but that was a one-time occurance. Greatly appreciated, none the less.

Now, in the last few weeks she's graduated from kinda-crawling to full on crawling. As of last week she is walking along furniture a bit and can briefly stand on her own without holding on to anyone or anything!

This weekend while visiting with some of Brian's family she ate a good third of my T-bone steak! I couldn't believe it! She would chew, swallow and yelp for more!

She did it!

A few weeks ago I was changing a particularly gross toddler diaper when I decided something needed to give. We got cleaned up and then I said "Rebecca, starting tomorrow, we are done with paper diapers. It's your choice, you can use cloth diapers again like Madeline does, or you can start using underpants all the time."
She said "underpants!" I explained that would mean she would need to use the potty every time she had to go. She looked at me for a moment and said "Yeah, I don't want to do that."
A few minutes later I was loading the dishwasher when she walked up and said "Mama? I thought I wasn't ready to use the potty all the time, but I think I am."

So the next morning we got up and packed up her paper diapers and put them away. I bounced around like a mad woman excitedly saying "You're such a big girl! What a big girl!" then reminded her that she needs to let mommy and daddy know when she needs to go potty.

She went the entire day without an accident. She skipped nap that day, she was kind of freaked out about the idea that she might wet the bed, but I wanted to see if she could do it. By nighttime though she didn't even bat an eye about going to bed without a diaper. Never once did she ask for a diaper.

It's been about a month (we started on March 28th) and she's only had a handful of accidents! I'm so proud :)

At one point during the first few days of this Brian and I were doing the excited-parents thing telling her how well she was doing, what a big girl, etc and she gave us this look that I could only describe as "These people? OMG need to chill." complete with a slight eyeroll. Apparently we need to turn it down a bit.

This morning Rebecca was singing to her self, then turned to me and said "Mama listen to my song!"

To the tune of Micky Mouse (you know, M-I-C-K-E-Y etc etc)

Em-i-ly, Q-R-I, M-O-U-I-P

Madeline started waving about a week ago. Kind of. Sort of. She gets the concept of waiving, but her hand sort of twitches down at her side and her fingers wiggle about a quarter-centimeter. LOL

We had her at the doctor this week for her first illness (:( ) since she started coughing and having some wheezing. Just as I'd expected the doctor diagnosed her with RSV and Bronchiolitis. He explained that the majority of children with a cold have RSV, they're just not all diagnosed with it unless they come in with wheezing. It apparently isn't that big a deal until they start having major breathing problems. He gave me the scary signs to watch for and in trying to ease my mind explained that "most children get through this fine, you just might need to hospitalize them and give them oxygen sometimes". WHAT?!
Thankfully it doesn't look like we're anywhere near that. She's had this for 3-5 days and she's already starting to sound better. She's in great spirits. Half the time you'd never even know she's sick, she's all smiles and giggles.

Rebecca & Madeline's first "argument"

This morning Madeline was laying in our bed and Rebecca climbed in with her. Rebecca was talking to her when Madeline started saying "noooooo. Nooooooo" (I'm sure it's just babbling, but it sounds like a really emphatic Nooooooo)Rebecca chimed in.
It went like this:

Rebecca: Hi Maddie! You can play with my penguin if you want to
Madelie: Noooooo
Rebecca: Yessss
Madeline: Noooo
Rebecca: YES!
Madeline: Nooooooo
Rebecca: YES! :huff:
Madeline: Giggle. Noooooo. Giggle.

LOL. I was dying.

Rebecca's birthday

Ok, so it was 2 months ago. I'm playing catch-up.

The weekend prior to Rebecca's birthday we threw her a birthday party for her daycare friends.

My mom won the use of her old apartment complex clubhouse and kindly gave it to us for the party. Rebecca requested chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting (that's my girl!) and pizza. She had such a great time!

She looks like she's having a great time, no?

Isn't it just the cutest ever?

Rebecca adores the big sister/little sister shirts. It was a sad, sad day when Madeline outgrew hers. Unfortunately that happened a lot faster than I expected and I don't think I ever got a photo of them together in them :(

But look how cute!