Sweet Mom Moments...

Addison is such a sweet and wonderful blessing and I am enjoying her so much! As I pulled out of the parking lot after dropping her off at school, I realized that we have reached a turning point this week where she is happy to be dropped off and let me leave her there at school with her friends. While she has always enjoyed school, she doesn't always enjoy the drop-off part and usually gives a shout and a cry when I'm leaving - but as soon as I walk out and watch the camera to see what she does when I leave, she is always immediately fine and playing, so I think she does it for my benefit. So, this week, she has turned a corner by just walking in and sitting down or going to play with her friends. She usually points out some of her friends to me and tells me their name. She knows them all and we usually talk and sing about them at home also....especially Jonah. :)

I wanted to share with you also that Addison has started sleeping in a toddler bed this week and she is doing well so far (only 2 nights). I am amazed at how much she has grown and how much she is developing mentally and physically each day.

Here are some pictures of her in her newly converted toddler bed.

Last night, as I was trying to get her to go to sleep (not an easy task, as many of you know - she takes after her mother), and I was laying on her bed with her (a new fun thing for me since the crib is down) and singing songs to her. She asks for silly Camp La Vida songs that I usually sing to her to get her attention (as she squirms and screams) like Hagalena Magalena (she says "Hagwene"), The Little Green Frog ("Green Frog"), and one of her favorites from Dooley and Pals, the name game - she identifies this one by saying "do Elmo....do Addison....do Abby" or some other name or object and then I sing the name game with that name/object. It's really quite hilarious to me when she asks for these specific songs.

Anyway, as I was singing and she was trying to keep herself awake, she turned on her Jungle light/sounds thing attached to her bed and as the blue light was shining on her and she was contently watching it, I was just staring at her in amazement. She is such a beautiful child and I am so thankful to have her in my life. What a blessing it is to be a mother, and I really never thought that I would feel that awesome about being a mom.

So she looks at me with this big smile and starts asking me that whole "How old is she...20 months" thing that she's come up with lately (I don't have a clue where it came from). I burst into laughter, so of course, she did too. So it became a back and forth thing where she would ask and I would start to answer and burst into laughter and she would too. Or she would burst into laughter as she was asking and we would just laugh and giggle together. I began to think that this isn't exactly a great bedtime routine because she is getting no closer to sleep, and then I decided that I don't care because these are the moments that you remember when you need a smile and that stay with you forever - these spontaneous moments that turn into wonderful memories later. I want to hang on to those as much as possible.

Then she put her arms around my neck and gave me the biggest hug. I said "I love you, Addison" and she said "I love you too, Mama." It was just one of those moments where everything is right with the world and you know you are exactly where you need to be.

Addison Update

It's been a long time since I've posted, so I'll do my best to catch you up on the latest happenings with Addison!

She just gets cuter every day! She's growing up so fast and we are amazed at the different things she says. She speaks in sentences now and can really come up with some stuff! Today, one of her favorite things to say was, "Daddy's so siddy! (silly)"

She is saying many things more clearly than before, which is neat to hear how she has changed how she says things. She makes me laugh almost every time she opens her mouth because she'll be 2 next month, but sometimes, I think she's 4 by what she says! Of course, not ALL of it is good, but most is. The other day, I was taking her to school and I don't remember what I said, but she said "Hush, Mama". Needless to say, that didn't go over very well and she knows not to say that to anyone...but that doesn't necessarily keep her from doing it...depends on what kind of mood she's in.

She will hear something just once and start saying it. Like the other day, I read her a card from Nanda and Pippy and it said "Hi Granddaughter" and so she started saying "Hi Granddaughter" repeatedly. She apparently overheard someone at school ask the question "How old is she?" and someone answered "20 months" (I don't know who this was about) so that night, in the bath, she just started saying "How is she...20 months" and laughing. It took me a minute to figure out what she was saying.

Here is a picture of her with her cousins, Jayden and Trinity. (Trinity is one of the words she now pronounces, rather than calling her "TiTi" like she used to.) They got some Easter pictures made and this is the closest thing to a smile that she would give during the photo shoot. This is her mischeivious grin that we see quite often. Normally, when she gives me this grin, she has her head cocked to the side and is either in the process of doing something she shouldn't or is about to attempt it.

Here is a picture of Addison sliding at the park. She wore her Clemson cheerleading outfit for "Favorite Team Day" at school.

Some of her favorite things to do (and say):
1. "codor" (color) she likes to color Abby Cadabby (of course), and ponies (My Little Pony)
2. go upstairs and play - she looks at you, cocks her head to the side and enthusastically asks "wanna go utstairs and pway?" and she nods and smiles at the end in agreement. it's so cute, you can't say no!
3. "swing to and fwo" (fro) - she will ask this when she wants to swing because she sings this little song when she's swinging
4. pick the dandelions ("get fowers") - she likes to pull them up and put them in her buckets when we go outside
5. put money in her piggy bank - Jason opened her a savings account at Family Trust and they gave her a piggy bank. She calls it "money pig" and likes to put all the change in it and then have us dump it out so she can put it back in again.
6. "see Addison" - she LOVES to watch herself on video and also look at her pictures on camera. she's just a bit vain, I think... It's really cute though because she will sit on the couch and watch herself for as long as you'll keep putting the DVDs in. She will smile and laugh as she watches herself.
7. "God made..." - I will show her different things (birds, trees, moon, stars, Addison, etc) and ask her who made them and she will say "God made _____". I'm not sure if she learned this at school or from Nanda. Nanda and Pippy kept her last weekend while Jason and I went to TN and when I came home, she was saying it. It's really adorable.

Here is a picture of her coloring....doesn't she look like such a big girl?!!

She still loves going to school. She is learning so much! She comes home singing songs that we don't know, which is weird because before she started school, we knew everything she knew. Now she's teaching us stuff! She can name the shapes of her blocks (square, circle, triangle, star), but she still doesn't know her colors (everything is blue the first time you ask). She knows her numbers and alphabet about as well as she did before she started, although she knows 11 & 12 now and she sings the alphabet song pretty good. She learned a new blessing (God our Maker), so now we say that one at home instead of the ABC one.

The funniest thing is that she has boyfriend! She came home talking about Jonah, who seems to be the "bad boy" of the class (go figure). It is the cutest thing! When she says his name, she grins really big and puts her head on her shoulder and looks at the ceiling! I've gotten a couple of video clips of it. When I ask her if she's ready to go to school, she says "Go see Jonah" and when we get there it's the same thing. When I ask if she had fun playing with her friends at school she says "Play Jonah."

However, Jonah did have a slight setback a few weeks ago that Addison is still talking about. When Jason picked her up one Friday, she had a knot and a scrape on her head. The teacher said that a classmate threw a truck and hit her in the head. When she got home, I asked her what happened to her head. She touched her head and said "Jonah truck". She wasn't smiling when she said his name that time and she didn't seem to happy with him for a few days. She still talks about "Jonah truck" sometimes, but she still seems to like him anyway.

Here is a picture of her before she went to school on "Mismatch Day".

That's all for now, folks! :)