Madeline is about to have a baby brother or sister! Last week we made the big announcement here that we are expecting an addition to our family – another baby due in May! We are about 12 weeks along. Of course we have known since September, but have been waiting until the appropriate time to make it public. The funny thing is that by the time we actually announced it, so many people knew already, it was a bit anticlimactic. That’s what happens in a small community. The timing is slightly complicated in terms of the end of the school year and the summer holidays but we will get it all sorted out.
Last week we also made the decision to go back to the USA for the long winter break. Madeline will be happy to hang out with Mom’s side of the family for a few weeks – real treat for her. We don’t know yet if we’ll get to see Dad’s family, but are working on that. She is doing great, though getting to that age where she’s got enough confidence and word skills to express her bratty side, and persuade people to give her exactly what she wants. Her language ability grows by leaps and bounds almost daily – it’s amazing to witness a kid progressing like this. At times one can nearly have complete conversations with her.
A recent exciting thing for Maddie is that this past week her best friend Amy started going to the Little House on the same three days of the week. She has been really excited about this, having spent each day this week with Amy (when not at school, she either goes to Amy’s house or Amy comes to her house). Predictably, problems have come up where Amy and Maddie hang out with one another and don’t interact with the other kids. But I think that will sort itself out with time. I know that for Amy, having Madeline there has really helped with the adjustment of going to school for the first time.
Madeline’s latest obsession is drawing and painting – she has always been a painter but the drawing thing has really taken off. This is a wonderful obsession that we can’t encourage enough! She can sit for long periods of time (by her active standards) by herself either drawing ‘circles’ or ‘abcs’, or a combination of both. Last Wednesday, a breakthrough occurred: for the first time, she drew something more carefully and intricate than a circle (actually a bigger circle connected to a smaller circle by a rounded box), and claimed over and over that it was a ‘cat.’ In fact, it did resemble a cat… under the right circumstances. This is a big moment in her artistic career because she has started creating drawings of familiar figures around her. This kid is definitely artistically-inclined.
Finally , the latest and biggest news in the house is the fact that we have a new American president to look forward to in a few months. We finally got our cable television turned on properly last week so all of us were able to watch the US elections. Madeline is so excited, she sometimes goes around saying ‘Barack Obama’ over and over. Imagine how Madeline must feel, the elation she is experiencing – for her entire life, she has suffered under the Bush administration. She’s never known anything else. Now she’s hooked on a positive future!
