Thinker

Madelyn's new new mattress has finally arrived.  The new company, Easy Life, called yesterday morning to confirm.  Unlike Sears' robo-caller, which has continued to call every single freaking day this week, Easy Life had a live person call.  Was she a native American English speaker?  I don't think so, but there were no problems communicating with her.

The delivery guys?  Friendly and happy, like they enjoy their job.  And, even though Tom apparently didn't request that Mad's crib mattress get picked up (I have my suspicions that it was hard for him to see it go), the delivery guys willingly took it with them for the bargain price of nothing.

We ended up with a memory foam mattress.  It's processed differently (read: less chemically) than a lot of other similar products.  Tom had warned me that it would take a few hours to get to its full size because of the way it would arrive.  I was still surprised when it came in a roll.  A super tight roll.  The full size mattress was rolled up so tightly that the roll wasn't even 18 inches across.

By the time it was unwrapped and unrolled, it was already fluffing up.  By the time I came back from signing off on the delivery forms, it looked like this:

In the past few hours it has nearly doubled in size.

I washed the mattress pad and a few full-size sheet sets we happened to get last summer before our Chinese exchange students arrived.  Next up will be the continued search for bedding.  Why do they make children's bedding that needs to be dry cleaned?

Have you bought bedding lately?  Whew!  That stuff's expensive!  We'll be making it Mad's birthday present.

In less than one month, the daughter I always knew I'd have will turn four.  How that can be?  Four is so much older than three, don't you think?  At four, we really can't get away with calling her a toddler any more.  Not that she acts much like a toddler.

Her morning routine for the past several weeks has included coming into my bed in the morning and telling me, "I'm hungry.  I'm thirsty."  (If Fynn is already with us... and she usually is... the next thing I hear is, "I hunc.  Jink.")

One recent morning I responded by telling them I had to take a shower and get dressed before we would head downstairs.

Mad wasn't having it.  "I simply need a drink," she said with blessedly mild consternation.  (Yeah, she got her drink right away.)

It will be interesting to see how our mornings change with the new bed.

Aside from just making the transition to Madelyn's new bigger bed, I am... we all are... looking forward to returning to the regular nighttime routine.  Half a week of acting crazy, loud screaming fits and running from Tom before joining us in Fynn's room?  Beyond ready for it to be over.  (Aside from the major change in routine and dealing with new fears, Mad is coming down with a head cold... a sure path to trouble.)

It will be so nice to have Mad in her own room.  It will be even better to make the room into a place that Madelyn will love for (hopefully a lot of) years to come.  Since this is coming in time for her birthday, and because I've been trying to make gifts for the girls* instead of filling the house with a bunch of plastic crap, I've been working on a project for Madelyn's room.

Have I mentioned that we live on one side of a mountain range and work, Grandma and Papa's house and our friends are all on the other side?  (Okay, fine, I've mentioned it few [hundred] times.  What?)  The pass that goes down the hill has a fire road on one side.  We call it the train road because there are several tracks that carry freight from Los Angeles to points east.

Madelyn has loved taking the train road for a couple years now.  Around this time last year she learned about the sunflowers that often line the road.  I stopped and mangled picked one for her and she has never forgotten.

Sunflowers are yellow.  Yellow is Mad's favorite color.

My camera and I have made many trips on the train road lately.  I learned pretty quickly not to pull over too close to that area where men pull over to "hang out" with other men.  They're so friendly!

The pass is usually at least a little windy.  It's hard to photograph flowers in the wind, but it can be done.

These are all from the train road.  Something like this, but without the background and with frames will hopefully end up on Madelyn's wall within the next month.

*Why, yes, I did make two of the cutest stuffed dogs for the girls for Christmas.  So what if neither one has eyes, a nose, a mouth, an attached head.  It's the thought that matters, people!  And I'm a thinker!