Out of my comfort zone...

I'll probably never be one of those moms that goes out and plays with her kids in the mud. I'm trying to be a little more spontaneous. We went to a nature trail today. I just bit my lip and laughed when Madeline fell in the mud (less than an hour after her bath) and messed up a cute outfit shoulder to toe. I didn't sanitize her hands after she played with the community animal pillows. I let her dress up in the animal costumes for a full 45 seconds until I just couldn't fight away the thoughts of "what kids wore these last, and were they sick?" When she ate her bread off the ground I just forced a smile and thought about how she must be bolstering her immune system. I trudged through a quarter mile of muddy trail with her for "fun" and when she wiped her muddy shoes all over my pants and jacket I tried to be chill because, hey, it's nothing a washer and dryer can't fix. See, I made a conscious effort to be a laid-back, "cool" mom. I was trying to give Madeline some wiggle room and let her wander several feet ahead of me. But I lost my cool when she and her friend Eli bent down to pick up "mud" that was actually made by a puppy. AHHHHHHHHH It got all over her fingers and a little on her jacket. I think I'm much more comfortable being germ-freak, over-prepared Mom.

Little Talker

Madeline is getting better at figuring out how to communicate, but she definitely has her own way of saying things.
Example:
Madeline just asked me (Raymey), "Are you poopy?"
I replied, "No I'm not, Madeline. Are you poopy?
Madeline: "Yeah."

The kindness of strangers!

A couple of days ago I noticed that my wallet was not where I thought it was. I often misplace things, so I checked all of the usual places and still couldn't find it. By today (the 4th day missing) I was feeling pretty frantic. I was pulling things apart trying to find it! I was trying to remember what places I'd been where I might have left it. I was feeling sick about it when I received a message on facebook that someone had found my wallet. It was found in a place I had forgotten I'd visited! These 2 nice people went to the trouble of tracking me down (they found an old address in my wallet, and didn't find the new one) and Raymey and I picked it up with everything intact. I'm so lucky that good, honest people found it!! There are so many good people out there!

I think I can I think I can...

Tonight Madeline, my mom, and I were all walking around the park. This 10ish-year-old boy glided by on a pair of shoe-skates (Is that what they're called, the kind with a wheel in the shoe). Madeline was amazed and watched him roll away from us. Then she started kicking her shoes and she stood still, waiting to start gliding. She looked at our feet and I think she was wondering why we never do that. She tried again a couple of more times, but to no avail. I love watching the world through her little eyes!

Now and Then

October 2007

March 2009

We passed through the Smokies on our way home from South Carolina and couldn't resist another State Line picture. Please note the tip of my head behind the sign where Madeline is staring in the last picture. I was behind her in all the pictures! Strangely enough a couple of guys waiting their turn for the sign didn't see me and thought that Madeline was very coordinated to be able to balance on the sign and sit so still!

So, we went to South Carolina last week. That makes 25 states that we've BOTH been to. We still have to revisit any states that one or the other hasn't been to. On the way there I had to entertain Madeline by drawing her favorite story-The Sorcerer's Apprentice. She was interested but confused to see the characters drawn out on paper. She played with it for a good long time. We stayed in a little hotel/condo for a week and only paid $180 for the week-super cheap for a great room.

The first day was warmish (upper 60s) so we went to the beach and were the only crazies in the outdoor pool and lazy river. It was chilly for sure, but we had fun. The next few days got colder and we went to a children's museum, some local restaurants (Myrtle Beach is fine for seafood, not so great for BBQ), swam in the indoor pool every day, went to Georgetown SC, and went to a really beautiful botanical garden that was FULL of sculpture by Americans. The garden was so cool that we went there 2 days. At an activity called "meet the animals" we met a de-stinked skunk, some snakes, a couple of turtles, and a toad. It was pretty neat, and Madeline talked about it a lot afterwards. The next day we visited the zoo at the garden. It only has animals native to the area. We saw hawks, eagles, owls of different kinds, otters (which were really interactive!), foxes (which, we learned from the zookeeper, smell like skunks when they, um, use the restroom), geese, wild turkeys, swans, bulls, chickens, horses, pigs, sheep, and gray squirrels. It was a fun experience because we actually never see any of these animals at the Nashville zoo, so they seemed really exotic to us!

On the way back we drove through the mountains in North Carolina. We stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Appalachian-style BBQ restaurant. The door said "Bikers Welcome" and the inside was decorated with puzzles on the walls and hundreds of pig stuffed animals and figurines. We wanted something authentic, and this place was perfect. The food was super smokey and they had a really interesting BBQ sauce - very runny with more vinegar and spice and less sugar and tomato. We also had fried green tomatoes and hush puppies. We feel like by now we've pretty much tried all of the southern foods that we wanted to try before we leave the south. Smoked ribs (Memphis style) are the best of all.

Right before entering the Smoky Mountain National Park, we drove through a Cherokee Indian Reservation. While we were passing by a casino we noticed Old Mormon Church Road. Crazy, huh? We had to take a picture of the road sign with Cherokee writing.

Now we're back in Nashville for 10 more weeks. It was a nice last spring break-that seems so weird to say!

ReddddddddddAH Light!!!

We just got back from our South Carolina trip and I'm not ready to sit down and put everything on here quite yet. Raymey and I just saw Sting on PBS and I remembered that I MUST post this first! We had a great little hotel/condo thing that the owner rented to us for $180 for the week! It was great. Anyways, there was a red heat lamp in the bathroom and when I first turned it on it reminded me of "Roxanne" and I started singing "You don't have to put on the red light!" and Madeline totally picked it up. Several times this week she requested the "red light" be turned on and she'd sing "reeeeedAH liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight, redddddddddddAH liiiiiiiight." It was the best of fun! We love this funny little girl!