Happy Birthday Madeline!

We are heading up to the Baltimore Aquarium today to celebrate Madeline's birthday.  Although she has seemed 3 for a long time, I can't believe she actually turns 3 today.  I haven't done an update post on Madeline in a long time.  But, she is such an amazing little girl, she definitely deserves one.  

Madeline will say that Oliver is her best friend.  And she truly does love him.  She is usually very patient with him.  There are some times that she gets frustrated when he messes things up that she is working on.  But, usually, if he is trying to get something that she has, she will either give it to him or find something else that will make him happy.  She likes to be the one to make him happy.  If he wants something, like his bottle, she will ask me to give it to her so she can give it to him.  She also likes to hold his hand in the parking lot so that he is safe.  

Besides Oliver, Madeline has lots of friends from church.  She loves her friends Faith, Theia, Buddy and all their siblings.  She looks forward to seeing them and gets along well with all of them.  I think they are the only reason she happily goes into the nursery at church on Sundays.  

Madeline still doesn't eat much.  She says she doesn't want to eat too much because her stomach might hurt.  So she weighs only 26 pounds (6-7%) and she can barely keep her 3T pants up.  But, she is still growing and is still pretty easy to carry :)  

She is a little confused with time (as I think most kids are at this age).  She thinks that anything that happened in the past or will happen in the future, happened on "Saturday".  She is also going through another attachment phase and is having a hard time with me leaving her, even with daddy.  She wants me to bath her and put her to bed at night.  She will say that daddy already got to do it 3 times.  So, it's mommy's turn.  Or daddy bathed her on Saturday, so it is mommy's turn.   

It is still very hard to get pictures of her.  I am hoping she will grow out of this.  But, I am not seeing an end in sight.

She is always asking what words mean.  When we pray at night with her, we pray that she will understand what it means to be a sinner and need Jesus to forgive her.  Many times, she will ask what "sinner" means and then ask for examples.  Until recently she has actually been pretty against praying.  I'm not really sure why.  But, we have been praying that her heart will be softened toward God.  And we have actually been seeing her change.  She will usually pray before she goes to sleep now and sometimes she will pray before we eat.  Many times she will pray while she is pretending in her kitchen.  While we are listening to music in our house, she will run out to me and say, "Do you know what they are singing about?!  They are singing about Jesus!" And then she goes about her business.  So, we are slowly seeing her heart soften.  

She recently went through a phase of being scared at night.  She really likes to watch "Scary" movies.  But, when it comes to bed time, she would get scared of every shadow and noise.  So, we had to cut out all scary movies and books.  And she seems to be doing much better.  I love that before I go to bed at night, I can check on her, move her around and put her blankets back on her, and she doesn't really wake up.  Occasionally she will talk gibberish when I go in to check on her.  But, I know she isn't really awake.  She has a lot of "friends" that sleep with her at night.  And she loves having lots of lights on.  She has a night light, christmas tree and a glowing bear.  She sleeps really well in her bed and does not get out until we come in to get her in the morning.  But, she will yell from her bed, "Mommy, it's daytime!" or "Mommy, I'm all done taking a nap!  I slept for a long time!"  A couple weeks ago, I heard her yelling, "Buenos Dias!"

She loves to jump off of things.  She jumps from the ottoman to the couch and off the couch into the ball pit.  And she asked for a jump rope for her birthday.  

I think she is getting pretty athletic.  She runs pretty fast as well.  

She still gets her pacis at bedtime.  And she is allowed to have them if she is in her bed.  So, many times during the day she will ask us to go "play" in her room so she can get in her bed and get her pacis.  She is pretty good at reasoning.  She knows how to figure things out and try to get the outcome that she wants through reasoning.  

We sure do love you Madeline.  Thank you for being such a sweet big sister and sweet daughter.  This next year will probably be a big one with starting preschool and maybe dance classes.  We are so excited to watch you grow.  But, you will always be our little baby.