Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

This is a story not for the general interest. There will be mention of diapers. And wipes. And etcetera. Let you be warned.

One day, Aderyn was a little fussy. But dinner preparations were underway and problem solving was slow to happen. Soon, I saw her toddling her way down the hall carrying her wet wipes container with her. She brought them right to me, threw them on my lap, and clapped her little hands. I scratched my head a moment or two, and then (you guessed it) took a sniff.

Thank you, Aderyn, for bringing me the wet wipes. I do so need them on your behalf.

Note: this isn't the only time she solved problems this way. She has trained us well that if she needs something, she brings it to us, throws it at us and then claps. 

In a week and a half we've gone 700 miles. Why do we drive so much? Who knows. Wayne says it's an embarrassment. If you do the math, this is definitely not beyond the norm for us though. With his work 33 miles away and various errands 20 miles this way and that, it's easy to do. It is a shame it's so easy to drive so much.  read more »

Our week was derailed on Monday when we were in a car accident. The whole family was in the car. Rebecca took it pretty bad, as did the two girls. The car was still fully functional, but upon taking it to a body shop for repairs we discovered that all parts on our car were discontinued, particularly the crash bar which was needed to drive safely (upon event of a second car crash). Because we have made a conscious decision to be a single car family for various reasons, we then began the painful process of car shopping without any comfortable window of time to do it in.  read more »

It is decidedly Fall. We had lots of rain, and then it cleared up just in time for us to go to the orchard on Saturday with Camilla and Cameron. We enjoy the sun, it's true. Today as we walked into our house, Paela felt the sun and asked if it was Spring yet. Sorry to disappoint, but I'm sure she'll find things (aka snow) to enjoy about Winter.

Paela was grumpy on the way to the orchard Saturday. Aderyn had her crib blanket, and Paela only had a car blanket, not her bed blanket. She wanted to go home and get it. And not see any pumpkins, she said. But after tears, she decided that if I carried her "like a baby" that it was worth seeing the pumpkins and donuts and goats and everything. And then she was excited to see everything. Just like that. Aderyn enjoyed walking around feeling the pumpkins. I suppose we should get her some shoes that fit. We only have a size too big.  read more »

So we didn't write last week. Whoops. Especially since that was the week that Aderyn decided to become a full fledged walker and almost abandon all crawling. Crawling is only used when she needs to race to the door if someone is going outside. 

Paela has had a number of playdates lately. She enjoys the social stuff, as long as it is a one-on-one interaction. As a side effect of her excitement for playdates, she has picked up the names of the week, even though she doesn't understand the order. We would let her know days before the playdate -- in order to prepare her for the experience -- that she would see her friend Alice on "Friday." Now she likes to ask what day it is and talk about what is supposed to happen on other days -- "We go to church on Sunday," or "It's not called 'windsday,' Daddy... today is Friday and that's the day I see my friend Alice."  read more »

It is beginning to look a lot like autumn. Everywhere you go. Soon the leaves will fall. And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you'll sing.

Or something like that.

We were glad to have cooler weather. Even if the leaves are (already!) changing color. The girls and Wayne went to the zoo (so sad to miss Aunt 'Mil!) Wednesday. We had a picnic one day after a walk. We've gone to the park several evenings this week. So much that Paela starts asking if it's time to go to the park as she's putting her dinner plate away.

There was more to the week. Wayne took some paintings up to another show. I missed a couple of things with friends Thursday because I lost track of time. But we had friends over Tuesday. Wayne started a new painting (commissioned) that will be part of a barter with a guy on craigslist. Which meant a rush to the store to pick up paint thinner because he hasn't painted in ages. Since California at least.  read more »

We aren't big cereal eaters in our house. Well, we weren't. Until the time we bought a certain kind of cereal and Paela decided she loved eating our "crunchies." The name stuck. And the cereal is still a must-have on our grocery list:

Crunchy Granola Raisin Bran

But Paela does not like the raisins, she informs us as she picks out every raisin to line it up next to her bowl. She likes raisins. She just doesn't think they belong in her "crunchies" bowl. And heaven forbid we buy Crunchy Granola Bran (do they even make that?).

Last week I thought Paela was so grown up the morning she told me "I think I want to try my raisins today." She ate the whole bowl, raisins and all.

The next morning, she had a line of raisins next to her bowl by the end of breakfast. Old habits are hard to break. 

Aderyn has added to her "special screech" repertoire. Our current "favorite" screech is the signal that she just noticed we sat down to look at the computer. The minute she notices one of us is on the computer, she crawls over as fast as she possibly can, screeching and crying and pulling on our legs until we get off the computer. Does she want us to play with her? Maybe. Mostly she just wants us to not be on the computer.

The stinker. 

Aderyn stood up and put her hands on the hot stove.

We had cooked breakfast in the oven and after she was finished eating her mush, we let her down to roam. But when we heard her screeching at the tops of her lungs, we looked over and saw that she couldn't let go because she was leaning against the front panel. We doused her hands in water full of ice cubes as she screamed more bloody murder. After five minutes of this, it dawned on us that she normally LIKES to play in water. So we sat her down with a bowl of water on the kitchen floor and let her try to grab the slippery ice cubes out. Lucky for all of us, there was no burn damage.  read more »

Where do you want to go today, Paela? The toy store. She says. And so Wayne and the girls went to the toy story a couple of days when it was too too hot to stay outside. And the mall play area.

And then when hurricane Earl was cooling things down for us (it didn't get much more intense than a bit of rain for us), they joined forces with Cameron and Camilla to visit the zoo. Paela reported that her favorite part of the zoo was when the birds landed on her hands. She got to feed some seeds to a bunch of birds, and she talked about birds landing on hands for the last couple of days. Happily, Aderyn tolerated the stroller for the zoo visit (normally she screams and screams when we try and use the stroller and we thank heavens for the moby), since she got to sit next to her favorite cousin Cameron.  read more »