07 April 2017

Madelyn and Alyson were playing with some dollhouse toys at Nana and Poppop's today. While playing, Madelyn declared, "I'm going to neaten the living room."

"Neaten" is a word, but not one you normally hear. It's in the bottom 20% of words by popularity according to Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/neaten

06 April 2017

Last night, we attended a special event at Madelyn's school. As a result, she was in bed about an hour later than usual. Before bed tonight, Madelyn was telling me how tired she was all day, "I was so tired all day today because I stayed up sooooo late last night!"

05 April 2017

Hearing Madelyn's thoughts on running and running advice is often one of the best parts of running with her. Today, she advised: "If you can't run with music, you should listen to as many songs as you can before you go running. Then, they'll get stuck in your head and you can 'listen' to them while you run."

04 April 2017

During Tony's birthday dinner at Mom and Dad's today, Mom was asking Madelyn about helping me cook dinner last night.

Mom: So you cleaned shrimp? Did you like it?
Madelyn: No, I didn't like it at all. It was kind of gross.
Mom: Aw, I was going to have you clean shrimp for me when I need it this summer.
Madelyn: Well, I don't really want to do it, but if you ask me, I will.

03 April 2017

Madelyn helped me fix dinner tonight since we had the meal and new recipes she picked out. When Tony got home, she announced to him, "I was Mommy's sous chef for dinner!"

02 April 2017

Madelyn finally read her cookbook and picked one meal for us to have tonight: Shrimp-Mango Quesadillas. The plan had been to have that tonight so that it would be easier for her to help fix it, but the mangos aren't ripe enough yet.

Me after checking the mangos: Nope, we can't have the quesadillas tonight. We'll have burgers instead, and the quesadillas another night this week.
Madelyn: We have to have it a night I can help!

Little does she know that I think she's going to learn how to peel shrimp. Bwahahahahaha!

01 April 2017

Sibling rivalry about everything, right? Tony went up into the attic to see if he could find something. Alyson stood looking longingly up at the bottom of the ladder.

Alyson: When will I get to go up and look in the attic?
Madelyn, almost taunting: Daddy has already let me climb the ladder and look in before.