Archive for the ‘Maddie’ Tag
March 03 2010 ·
8 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
letters,
Maddie Dear Madison,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all the “help” you’ve been recently. While your coordination on certain efforts leave a little something to be desired, I’m trying to remember it’s the thought that counts. Plus, it’s already more than your brothers have ever done without a lot of finagling.
You “help” us sort toys, throwing cars and figures in the wrong bin, but it’s a bin nonetheless. You “help” put away the laundry after I’ve neatly folded it into piles. While it’s usually a crumpled mess by the time you get it in a drawer, at least you tried and that is reason to celebrate. When the groceries are brought in, you will even “help” put a few things away, before you run off with the rest.
You also like to “help” delitter the floors by hand, picking up and pointing out every single fuzzy and crumb you come across. If this is your subtle way of hinting, I get it. Vacuuming is on my to-do list.
Even when I reprimand the boys, you are always there “helping”. A little echo of “no no no” trailing on the end of a point that has already been made.
However, there is one area where your assistance simply isn’t necessary. As considerate as your motives are, I don’t need you to “help” me take care of business in the bathroom. I appreciate your concern, but I am more than capable of handling that matter all on my own.
Lots of Love,
Your Mom
February 24 2010 ·
8 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
Ethan,
Maddie,
photos 
February 17 2010 ·
20 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
Ethan,
good,
Maddie,
motherhood When the kids are good, they are really good. But when they’re bad, they’re awful. They have their moments. Of course, the excessively loud, tedious episodes seem to outnumber. Or at least those are easier to dwell on. The good, though, they can be great.
Maybe it’s because the bad times tend to happen in grand calamities. They consume me: my voice raised and eyes wide and body tense. They make me question and worry that I’m doing everything wrong because it shouldn’t be this hard. Why is it always so damn hard?
The good are smaller, quieter, blink and you’ll miss it. Like a brief reset to make it all bearable. Tiny flashes tucked inside my pocket. There usually isn’t much of a story to share when things are well.
Sometimes, though, like yesterday morning. Ethan and Maddie are cuddled together in a hug. His arms are tight around her and she has her head on his chest. They’re both smiling up at me, not wanting to let the other go. He’d then give her a kiss on the forehead and she’d lift up to give him one back. Brother and sister. Little and littler. Simple and delicate and rare. For a few minutes it was almost the picture of perfect.
Almost.
The only way it could have been better is if my son had been wearing pants.
Good times. I’ll take ‘em however I can get ‘em.
February 12 2010 ·
8 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
Maddie,
motherhood I was never much of a doll sort of girl. Of course, I had a small collection of Cabbage Patch Kids, but I also popped the limbs off any Barbies my parents would dare dangle in front of me.
I’m not sure what I did with these Cabbage Patch Kids, however, as I distinctly remember never having a maternal bone in my body until I had flesh and blood children of my own. In fact, it took at least a few days after the birth of my first child for the beginnings of a maternal nubbin to form. It’s safe to say, I never thought I would be a mother until it happened.
Maddie has two soft pink baby dolls. One given as a Christmas present by her grandparents, the other bought on a clearance rack last week when she seemed drawn to it. I didn’t expect much when we brought them home, this is a girl used to playing with her brother’s trucks and light sabers, but she has since started pushing them around in her pink shopping cart. Side by side, in pink sleeper outfits.
Pink pink pink. I never thought we’d have so much pink, either.
The other day, she began to brush the bald head on one of these dolls as gently as an 18 month old can. Taking her seat on the floor in front of me, her toddler legs elbowed forth, she brushed contently. When she was done brushing, she held the doll close and covered it in kisses. She then handed her doll out for me to kiss.
Which goes to show how she’s already more maternal and sweet than I ever was as a kid. Though we’ll fail to mention how Maddie tried to bite the doll’s head afterward. Or how she tried to suffocate it by sitting on it. We definitely won’t talk about how she catapulted it across the room once she was finally bored of it. Come to think of it, maybe maternal and sweet aren’t quite the right words. At least she hasn’t ripped off their limbs. Yet.
February 05 2010 ·
9 CommentsPosted in:
The Kids · Tags:
FAIL,
Maddie Mistake #1 was giving my daughter a chocolate chip cookie.
I didn’t think she’d eat it, though. She’s still not very fond of feeling anything with texture on her tongue. Figuring she’d get bored of it in 5 minutes, I gave it to her for something to hold in her hand. I watched her for a few minutes with it, until I was content enough that she wouldn’t try to jam the entire thing down her throat.
Mistake #2 was forgetting that I gave my daughter the cookie.
More time elapsed until Jayden came out, with a look of disgust. That isn’t saying a lot, however, since the boy has the gag reflex of a fly. “Maddie has something on her hands!”
Her hands? Oh, right. She still has that? “It’s just cookie”, I told him nonchalantly as I returned to checking on twitter what I was doing.
“Just go see!”, he urged.
Always one to oblige, I put my laptop down put a halt to the important matter I was attending to and went back to where they had been playing. There, I found my darling Maddie. Covered in mushy cookie remnants and a look of “what the hell?”. All over her face and between her fingers and down her pink shirt. I grabbed a towel to wipe her clean and that’s when I saw the rest of the cookie. Chocolate chip tracks smeared across my bed.
Lesson learned, indeed.
