maddie diary   spring 2000

up to three years

this quarter
     -

size
      -  inches
      - 33 pounds

activities
      - trips to museums

interests

     - trains
      - toy story characters

The Miracle of Nature (3/18)
We were putting beads on strings.  I asked what bead she had just put on.  She said, "A butterfly.  They turn into racoons."  Missing the whole concept of the cocoon.  In May, however. Maddie did get to witness the plague of cicadas.


Outings
We visited the B&O museum March 4, where we were able to finally climb on all sorts of trains.  The highlight for Maddie, however, was the gift shop, with the omnipresent Thomas paraphenalia. 
This spring we went to the Natural History Museum, American History Museum and the Air and Space Museum several times.  Any trip on the metro is fun.  We saw the Galapagos 3-D Imax film (Maddie didn't like the glasses, so she saw it in blurry 2-D), insect exhibits, train exhibits, and dinosaur exhibits. 
The dinosaur exhibit prompted her to ask why they were bones, then why they were all dead.  The answer-- a big rock came down and hit the earth etc.-- prompted her to believe that each dinosaur died by getting hit on the head with big rocks.

The Inner Circle
Maddie used to have two inner circle members,Big Bear and Peace Bear-- the core members-- but has gradually added several more: the giraffe, the elephant, the polar bear, and the car bunny.

Recently, she's added two non-sleeping figures to the inner circle.  Maddie saw her first theater movies last month (I think)-- Toy Story II (great) and The Tigger Movie (dull as dirt).  She fell in love with Buzz and Woody from TSII, and now has adopted bubble-bath bottles with their heads as official members of her inner circle.  They were required participants at bath time, desired onlookers at dinner time, and even players at Candyland (it doesn't require a great deal of brains).

Dad the All-Powerful
I was reading a railroad coffee-table book to Maddie the other day, pointing out the stations in various cities:
Me:"That's Miami."
Her (very impressed): "That's YOUR ami?!?"

She'll be an academician...
Maddie can read quite a few words.  She's got a lot of words like "is", "that", "what", "the", etc.  She definitely can sound some words out, with the vowels a bit iffy.  She loves to pretend she's reading non-picture books, and can sit very patiently reading her own interpretation.  She was reading a novel, and said something curious, and I look at what she was pointing to and it was a 3-syllable word VERY similar to what she'd just said: like "craytin" for "creation". 
She's constantly asking "where it says dentist?" (or whatever word you just said) when being read to.  When you show her, she tries to justify that the words does, indeed, say "dentist".

...or maybe beautician
She likes to pretend she's cutting my hair with a nail clipper.  Until the other night, when she learned to actually cut hair.  She sensed my newfound fear, for she told me, "Take your glasses off.  I am gentle.  I will not pinch you.  I am a good lady."

Yippee!
Got a child seat for the bikes.  She loves it.  Relatively long rides to restaurants and parks are now longed-for outings.

Sick time
Intermittent night-time cough for a full month (mar-apr). 

Herding cats
She had her first class picture.  The mayhem was indescribably funny.

Dead dog
Her beloved dog Augie died this spring.  Maddie handled it well, believing him to be happier in heaven.  However, a week later, she was advocating sending her quite healthy cat Max to heaven so she'd be happy.  Didn't grasp the "relieving his pain" portion of the Augie lecture.