Madelyn Rocket Frog Turns Four

Madelyn turned four a couple weeks ago. Can you believe it? Four is so much older than three, don't you think?

There were a few similarities between this year's party and last year's. In case you don't remember, we had frog cupcakes then.

We also had them now. (Yeah, I know "had them now"... it is what it is.)

You see frogs, right? (All smiling Muppets... er... frogs were done by Grandma Margaret. As usual, the nonplussed frogs were created by yours truly.

This year's party had a camping theme.  Although my dad's generous offer to bring over their fire pit was tempting, I opted for these insanely delicious s'mores cookie bites. (My version of the recipe calls for dark chocolate instead of sickeningly sweet Hershey's bars. Plus, dark chocolate has antioxidants, so these bites are healthy.)

I got the recipe here, although you can see mine bear little resemblance. The main difference, aside from the chocolate is that my pan was apparently 9 X 9. The extra inch in each direction meant less cookie on top. As far as I'm concerned, this is a serious win.

Our parties are developing quite the reputation for crafts and activities. Nobody pretends like I'm some amazing child party guru. They ask if they can rent out Grandma Margaret to come up with great fun that costs nothing.


Like the pine cone bird feeder. Okay, so you made dozens of these when you were a kid. In my sheltered (ha!) life, I only learned of them when Grandma Margaret recently said, "Hey, I was thinking... "  

Pine cone, peanut butter (just go ahead and accept now that the kids are all going to stick that spreader back into the peanut butter after licking it off... yes, even your beloved Princess Smooshy Face) and birdseed. Use a pipe cleaner to make a hanger and put it on the tree in your yard.  

Ours are buried in the full foliage of one of our plum trees, but they are already needing to be reseeded. The birds are happy.

Hand- and fingerprint trees are a lot of fun. (Bailey's is a weeping willow.) Be sure to tell the kidlets that it's not chocolate, even if it looks like it could be. I've said it before, whoever invented washable inks and paints is my favorite person. In the world.

No campsite is complete without a tree and a roaring fire. (I cannot stress how much better that fire looked in real life. Same for the tree. No matter how schmancy the camera, sometimes it just comes down to operator skill... or lack thereof.)

Madelyn, giving me her latest "Oh, you're taking my photo?" look. Bonus:  A little Fynnie in the lush landscape that is our perpetually awesome backyard.

Last year at this point, Madelyn looked just as excited. And then we gave her ice cream and she passed out. Over the course of the past year we have taught her about breathing exercises to calm herself and that ice cream should be enjoyed slowly with small bites. Although she and I did buy ice cream for the party, it never made it out of the freezer. What?! She didn't even notice.

Not that Madelyn didn't make my heart jump into my throat anyway. Why she threw her head... and hair!... forward while blowing out the candle, I'll never know. But she didn't catch on fire and we did not find any other reasons to seek specialized medical treatment. That, my friends, is a successful party!

Fynnie may or may not have gotten hold of three or four cupcakes. All we know for sure is that we found three of them sitting outside with the frosting and candy faces eaten away.

This, my friends, is Fynnie's thinking face. Ask her a question and this is what she will do. Usually while saying, "Um..."

I'm pretty sure she's planning her next party.  Not to worry, Grandma Margaret is all over it!

In My Mind I've Said A Lot

... but here... not so much apparently.


And time is flying by.  Unlike with Madelyn, this hasn't brought me to tears.  It's still unsettling.


Monday I sat down at my desk and looked at the calendar.  I saw the beach scene.  Ahh, lovely.  Then I realized we were in a new month.  A closer look and I saw that the calendar already said April, so I proceeded to start my computer and plan my day.  I have no idea how long it took for me to realize that we weren't starting April, but May.  Could have been two minutes, could have been an hour.  (Please do not mention that I've had that same beach scene up for a month... I'm not at my desk that often.)


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We went camping this weekend at Silverwood Lake.  It was a lovely getaway even if:
1.  My very own sweet and loving husband still has his head jammed too far up his rear end.  Still waiting on that loud suction noise followed by a pop and a foul smell.  Hoping it comes on a windy day.
2.  The cost of our not-on-the-lake-heck-not-even-near-the-lake spot cost $35 a night.
3.  Our neighbors to the south were at least one, but probably two or three troops of some sort.  They erected their group sign on a massive wooden structure that was hammered together Friday night around 8:00.  They had many ceremonies that necessitated the overuse of a train whistle.  They played Asian, yet Christian-sounding, music and prayers over a loudspeaker.  And they preferred to use the open lawn space between us for competitive activities, complete with cheering, clapping and more train whistling every time Mad was napping.
4.  Our neighbors to the north played their loud music over a boom box and/or their car stereo.  The music was pretty cool... Spanish language versions of 70's smooth jazz and soft rock.  While they did turn the music off right at the stroke of "quiet time," this did not stop them from talking loudly to one another until almost 1:00 in the morning.  Many of the loud conversations were directed toward their two children who were riding bikes in front of our campsite.  Frequently, their conversations woke up Mad and me.  Someone must have alerted the camp host (or maybe he just noticed the blaring music as he drove around to check sites) and the music went way down thereafter (to the hear it, but not feel it level).  The best time was while the family left... to go pick up lunch from McDonald's(!!!).  We loved picking up their trash as it blew into our site.  We also appreciated the smell of marijuana that wafted across right after the main dude grabbed a bottle of wine from the cooler and went into the tent late Saturday afternoon.  Nothing like a little wine and ganja after Mickey D's, I guess.
5.  A surprisingly large number of people at this place are not campers in the sense that I think of them.  How do I know?  Try several different car alarms going off at all hours of the day and night.  Some more than once.  My brother is right that the only difference between where we were and being downtown somewhere else is that we didn't hear any emergency vehicles.
6.  Corey, who has his own tent, kept knocking on mine in the middle of the freaking night so I could unlock the car because he was A) hungry or B) "needed something from the car."
7.  Mad, who's not used falling asleep with anyone else around (let alone all that racket) stayed awake until after 9:30 Friday night.  Once she did fall asleep, I felt like I spent the entire night chasing her around with the sleeping bag we were using as a blanket.


And yes, I stick by my original statement.  It was a lovely getaway.  I spent time with my brother's family.  Corey got to have more freedom and responsibility than he usually earns.  Mad was mostly adorable, even when she was upset because I wouldn't let her do something.  At one point she stuck out her hip, pouted and said to me in a low voice, "Mama go work."  Sleeping on the ground wasn't any more difficult than sleeping in bed, and I got to rest with Mad during the day.  She must have requested, "Huh Wi'll Baby" (translation:  "Hush Little Baby") about forty times, but having her looking up at me as I sang was just like I always imagined before I knew her.  She, my sister-in-law and I went and played in the lake (with our hands) Saturday morning.  I was able to take some nature photos (no word on how they came out yet).  And Tom was eventually able to join us and behave like a decent human being.  Lovely.


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I have a new theory about nausea.  I think it might be worsened by sunlight (never mind that I vomited in the middle of the night).  Almost every morning as Mad and I are settling into the car, I find myself retching just before I pull out.  Last Friday Tom stayed home with Mad, so my settling into the car period took about five minutes less than usual.  Instead of retching in the privacy of my own driveway, the nausea hit when I was about a block away.  Howdy neighbors!


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I have my next prenatal appointment later today (Wednesday).  I am very curious about how she'll measure this time.  I had a very small dinner and a cup of juice and had to spend about an hour leaning to one side because she's up under my ribs.  How is that possible?  I still have to take my prenatal vitamins, but the thought of consuming anything just seems wrong.


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I haven't finished my post on Mad's birthday party yet.  Even though we're three weeks past it, I will.  I just sent out thank yous tonight.


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That's enough for now.  For anyone who's still awake like me, sleep sweet when you get there.

History of the Madelyn Girl

I was reading some of the responses on The One Minute Writer today and it took me back to last year, when Madelyn was born. I had written most of it down... or typed it up... on the computer, but when we had that crash in January, everything was lost. So I'm going to put some of what I remember about my pregnancy and delivery and Mad's early days here. This first bit is from an article I submitted to DivineCaroline in November of 2007.

My husband and I have been together for nearly eight years and married for two. We’ve discussed having children together. Sometimes I felt the pull of the daughter who is “out there” waiting for me. Other times I knew for sure I didn’t want to go through that again. For my husband, I think he has worried about how good of a father he’d be “from the get-go.” I have been married once before and have a fourteen-year old son. Tom has been wonderful with my son, who is now our son.

For the better part of a year we had been discussing whether or not we wanted to have a child together. If we weren’t having a baby, then I wanted to get my tubes tied so I could go off the pill and live a less chemical life.

Sometime early this summer we both decided that not having a baby was the better decision for us. We’ve been working on some financial goals and enjoying the freedom that comes with having a teenager. I was in agreement with the decision, but I wasn’t ecstatic about it. I told Tom that I would take a little time to absorb the finality and then I’d make the appointment. However, our summer schedule was insane. Our son started an independent study program that meant I was essentially his teacher. When we weren’t working eight hours a day on schoolwork, we were off camping. We had so many trips scheduled, and not all with definite dates. So there wasn’t really time to have surgery. I planned to make the appointment for early October, when life would be back to normal and taking a few days off work wouldn’t be such a big deal.

I remember the time that I think the baby was conceived. In a small part of my mind, I thought about our decision ... but I had thought about it other times as well. This particular time, though, was so incredible and magical. It felt like making a baby.

A few weeks later when my period didn’t come on Sunday, as it had been for a few months, I wasn’t too worried. The original reason I got on the pill was to regulate my period, and even with that help, the only thing I could guarantee was the week that my period would start and stop ... not which day. When my period didn’t come on Wednesday ... typically the latest day ... I started to wonder. When nothing had happened by Sunday night and I was starting to feel “different,” I was concerned.

One night while Corey was away and Tom was playing tennis, I did a little online research to see if maybe I had cancer or something else that caused my missed period. It sounds crazy, and it probably is, to say that a major ailment could be better than being pregnant. But this is where I was at: Life was so good. Tom, Corey and I were settling well into married life. We had been incredibly happy. Getting pregnant without both sides consenting seems to me a lot like betrayal. I know I didn’t do it on purpose, but I think that the part of me that wanted to have a child with him feels guilty anyway. The thing I kept thinking was that this pregnancy could be the key to unlock the happiness of our marriage and send it away for good.

I stopped sleeping well. I couldn’t fall asleep and I couldn’t stay asleep. For the next couple of nights, I probably averaged two to three hours over the course of the night. Even though I’m off during summers, I couldn’t sleep late because I was now home schooling our son.

Relief came in the form of a camping trip with my brother and his family. Tom couldn’t join us, so Corey and I headed out to the Eastern Sierras without him. By the time Corey finished setting up the tent, I was so exhausted that I went to take a nap. This is not something I normally do on vacation, and especially not on camping trips. I slept for an hour and then when we all headed to bed later, I crashed right away. Part of me knew this was probably a bit of being pregnant and a lot of not having to face Tom with this news.

We stayed away for three nights. I slept so well for the first two, but the night before we went home, I could feel the tension welling up again. I couldn’t sleep to save my life. When I did sleep, I dreamt that his best friend tried to kiss me and that I was sort of letting him when Tom walked up. I don’t remember it as clearly now, but one of us said to the other, “We have a lot of things to talk about.”

When we got home that night, it was too beautiful outside and too stuffy inside, so I spent most of the evening on the grass in the yard. When Tom got home and joined me, I listened to the events of his past few days without us and told him a little about our time in the mountains. I told him about the dream and then, without my meaning to, but also without my being able to stop, I told him that I thought I was pregnant. Well, I told him that I was either pregnant or very sick and that I’d done research that pretty much negated the possibility of very sick.

I thought I saw him smile (or grimace) a little and I saw tears welling in his eyes. I didn’t have a clue as to what he was going through. I was as ready as I could be for, “You know I said no, so you can deal with it on your own.” (This really wouldn’t be like him.) To my complete relief, what he said was, “Well this is just another adventure for us, isn’t it?”

The next morning we went together to buy a pregnancy test. He waited for me to take it and made me promise not to look without him. Once it was confirmed, we went to the bookstore, where each of us got a pregnancy book. He has attended every appointment with me, and insisted after the first one that we change doctors because of the demeanor of that doctor and his staff. He gets to decide if we find out or not about the baby’s gender, and we both have to love the names we choose.

When it came to telling our families, he made me wait until his was out here in late September (we found out in August). In reality, this made perfect sense because I have a history of miscarriages prior to having Corey, and I was only a few weeks along. And telling all of our parents at the same time would be fairer. I’m glad we waited, but it was one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do in a few years.

Our son is thrilled to finally be getting the brother or sister he’s always wanted. My father almost knocked me down when he came to hug me after getting a copy of the first ultrasound photo. My mother, who is almost blind, just sat there perplexed as to why she was given a photo of an owl until she heard my mother-in-law gasp and saw her come running up to hug me. My father-in-law, who’s never been one to think women can’t do anything they want to, has suddenly become very concerned that I not go out of my way to do things for others, or otherwise over-exert myself.

And somehow, this news, this pregnancy, did unlock a key to the happiness in our marriage, but instead of letting it fly away, it has deepened and become more intense and exciting and fun. Life is good.