Hi! Do you mind if I just check under your shirt to see if you have any milk...?

Hi! This is Madelaine! Mama keeps saying how she wants to write my Birthday Post, but my birthday was a long, long time ago, so I figured I'd help her out and write some things about myself, in the meantime. Anytime she wants to write about me it takes her for-EV-er because she has to upload and re-size and edit and pick out all the pictures of me she wants to use (and, believe me, that's A LOT of pictures... the woman goes crazy with the camera sometimes), and THEN she has to write the Mushy Stuff. (Did you read the 6 month post? Talk about SAP, it was like a MAPLE TREE over there...) She takes 4-EVER to write Mushy Stuff. About how she loves me and I'm so cute and yada yada yada. Well. I AM cute, I have to give her that...



So! What would you like to know? How about this- I'll pretend I have a Facebook page, and tell you about my favorite activities and books and stuff! I don't know WHY Mama won't let me have a Facebook page yet- ALL my friends have one- and I know more about the computer than she does!! Sometimes she lets me sit on her lap when she's at the computer, and I totally try to change all her settings to mess with her head. I press all the buttons! And she has no idea how to fix it! It's lots of fun.

Name: Madelaine Elimae. Pretty, isn't it? :-)
Activities: Wreaking havoc; Exploring (Mama calls it "Getting Into Things"); Looking adorable; Waving at my adoring public from shopping carts or my stroller; Playing Peek-a-boo; Dancing and playing my piano; Going with Mama in the car to drop off Daddy at Big Work; Splashing all the water out of my bathtub; Reading stories with Daddy at bedtime; Snuggling and nursing to sleep with Mama in the Little Big Bed; Finding alternative nursing positions; Trying to figure out how to run around the living room and nurse at the same time; Shocking my parents when they realize how many words I recognize now; Whining when I don't get my own way; Laughing so hard that I get hiccups and have to nurse to get rid of them; Burying my head in Mama's chest when I feel shy.

Interests: How electric cords work; the contents of the bathroom cabinets; tasting new foods like vegetables birthday cake; the funny noises Mama makes when my poopy diapers leak everywhere; psychological experiments of all kinds on my parents, like measuring their frustration levels when I'm doing something really cute and they grab their cameras and I stop; pulling on Daddy's leg hair to find out just where the borderline of "too hard" is; knocking on Daddy's bedroom door when he's asleep to see if I can get him to wake up; watching bigger kids play (they can walk around without holding on!?!?); putting things in my mouth (especially shiny things like Mama's necklaces); playing with my new sippy cup (Daddy took the valve out so I could drink the water easier, and now I can spray water all over the carpet! It's like a combination of bathing and nursing, my two favorite things at once!)

Favorite toys: Junk mail envelopes; Mama's keys; the Remote Control; plastic containers; plastic bags; grown-up books and papers; Mama's calculator; pens and markers; fake credit cards that I'm allowed to play with; plus occasionally all the actual toys that people spent money on for me

Favorite books: I like all my story books a lot. :-) I can even read them upside down!

Favorite movies/ TV: I just watch whatever Mama and Daddy are watching. Mama tends to watch shows where someone is having a baby, decorating a house, or picking out a new outfit. Daddy tends to watch shows where things blow up a lot. I just like to run around Exploring while they're distracted by the TV.

What else?? I guess I could tell you a lot more, but the grown-ups want the computer back, so I'll just show you one more picture.

Hey! Text me sometime!

Love, Madelaine

On a beautiful autumn day, our hearts rejoice!

Heh, I should go into the greeting card industry... sorry about that...

I just wanted you to all know that I have cinnamon vanilla coffee and pumpkin fritter bread for breakfast! Yum! (Well, technically the coffee is half-generic-decaf, half-cheap-brand cinnamon, with vanilla syrup. I bought this big bottle of vanilla syrup that I thought would last a long time, and it's disappearing surprisingly fast. I think Someone around here must be drinking a lot of coffee. Probably Madelaine...)





Speaking of the Small Human, here's a short movie of her playing with her Glow Worm- she can now press the button to make it play songs! Excuse the poor camera-handling. Technical shortcomings can be overlooked in light of the fact that there is about 1.2 seconds of authentic baby dancing in here, no? Also, some blinding Smiles...

Have a beautiful day!
Neb

Ha ha! After everyone gives up on actually checking this blog, I post!

Hey y'all!

You know what gets in the way of me posting on here? My OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE PERFECTIONIST tendencies. (We've discussed this before, right?) It's not as if I haven't posted on here before about this, but, you know, it always chases me... See, I want to write Perfect Posts, complete with carefully edited and captioned Pictures, and that's Hard. So I just don't post at all! Isn't that sad? Well, today, I'm breaking the bad habit.

So what's new with you folks? What's new with US, you say? Well, we just got back from baby story time at the library, where my little person stared, bewildered, for the first 10 minutes or so, snuggled in mommy's lap, and then when the Library Lady read a story about a farm, there was wide-eyed, open-mouthed beaming. It was just way too cute.

Here's what I REALLY want to blog about today:

*NEB: On the Economy! (A Rare Topic for her!)*

I don't know about you guys, but the recent headlines are making me a little... well... nervous. What's all this about the Zillion Million Dollars that the government is using to "bail out" the Big Financial Companies? (What is a "financial company," anyway? If they're not tutoring math or selling something tangible like potholders [or, even better- Baked Goods!], I don't really understand the point of their existence...?) I haven't yet found a good article written for Lay People (read: people like Neb, people whose understanding of "the economy" consists of managing her husband's paycheck, paying rent, buying groceries, and shopping for Baby Clothes online) that explains what's really going on here. Reading sites like cnn.com, I just have this impression of our economy as this giant, teetering skyscraper made of straw and glass, ready to fall and shatter if the wind blows a little too hard for a second...

Maybe now is a good time to not have a whole lot of savings (and only a moderate amount of debt.) If you don't have much to lose, you don't have much to worry about, right? I guess I just wish I had more information- like, what is likely to happen if The Big Bailout goes through? And what will happen if it doesn't?

I'll just be over here hanging on to my little bit of the skyscaper, hoping the boat doesn't go down, cause I can't swim... (wait, we're in the water now?)

Neb! (The Imperfect Blogger)