Pirate Captain Madelyn

When she was just a weeeee little baby, Madelyn loved The Backyardigans.

One episode we watched on repeat was one that highlighted Pablo, the little blue penguin, as a cleaning-obsessed pirate on his ship. Pirate Captain Moody was his name. And he had a little ditty that he sang (as they all did, all the time). As Madelyn watched it on repeat, she was able to learn the words:

"Clean, clean, clean, my ship must be clean..."

She'd sing this while "helping" Mommy sweep the kitchen floor, or putting her toys away, or whatever required her attention.

Lately, she hasn't been too interested in The Backyardigans, instead focusing her attention on the Care Bears or the standard Dora or even The Little Mermaid.

However, today, Madelyn channelled her inner pirate, a throwback to her Backyardigan days, by picking up a roll of paper towels and looking through the tube at me. "Arrrrr, Mommy, I'm Pirate Captain Madelyn!" she exclaimed in her best pirate voice as I was making supper.

"Oh really?" I said. "Well, it's very nice to meet you, Pirate Captain Madelyn!"

Noticing what I was doing, and not being a fan of the concept of supper to begin with, the Roo stated, "Arrr Mommy, pirates don't eat supper!"

"They don't? Well then what do pirates eat?"

And without hesitation, Madelyn responded: "They eat treats and carrots."

Perhaps she was getting "pirates" mixed up with the "Easter bunny". Understandable, since the holiday was just a few short days ago. (I should note that she eventually DID eat her supper, carrots included!, with the promise of enjoying some Easter treats for dessert!)

All dressed up and ready for dinner!

Here are some pics of the Roo in her pretty Easter dress, ready to head out to Baba and Didi's for an Easter Feaster!

Easter 2011!

Finally, Madelyn is at an age where she can appreciate the glory of the Easter egg hunt!

And her reaction and devotion to the craft of holiday egg retrieval was a magical and satisfying experience!

Upon waking up early in the morning, the Roo was greeted with her Easter basket, complete with a chickie that cheeps when you squeeze his tummy (thank God she's at the age where she

doesn't care that she got that chickie LAST year,

she was STILL so excited to see it!).

Also, Bunny Bunny (a gift from Baba and Didi for Madelyn's first Easter) made a welcomed appearance. (I can only guess that, when she's in her teen years, this trick of reusing items from past years to bring a smile to her face will only be looked upon as "cheap" and "unappreciated", so I'll play this out for as long as I can!)

After filling up on an Easter basket cupcake for breakfast (we knew right outta the gates that

this day would be devoid of nutrients), it was time to get her geared up for her first REAL Easter egg hunt!

And it was a BLAST! I thought I'd done a good job of hiding some of the eggs, but this is one clever little girl we're dealing with here, she was ON her GAME. Once she caught on with what we were doing, there was no stopping her! She had so much fun that I do believe I will find ways to incorporate the concept of the Easter egg hunt into normal everyday life.... "Madelyn, can you find all the socks that the washing machine ate?"

Thanks to Daddy for recording the whole ordeal! Here it is as it unfolded, the hunt in all it's glory:

What goes "bump" in the night...

The other night, probably around midnight, well after everyone had settled in, Madelyn took a tumble.

Now no one knows for sure what happened, we can only go by what she told us, and what she told us was that she had fell out of bed (not sure how with the bed rail?) and hit her head on the floor!

Regardless if it was the floor she hit her head on, or if she just bumped it against the wall or her headboard as she's done once or twice before, one thing was certain - her noggin took a bit of a lickin'.

She was sobbing. I would've, too! You're woken from a deep sleep, you're in pain, it's pitch black, maybe you've just had a bad dream too...it must have been scary for her.

By the time we got to her bedroom, all of less than 30 seconds since she stared crying, we threw open the door and found her sitting on her bed, crying. I climbed onto her bed, and pulled her into my lap. She was curled up on me, her sobs starting to dwindle, as we asked her what had happened. No goose eggs, no blood, her crying stopped, and she was leaning back towards her Dora pillow, so we kissed her goodnight, and that was that.

Hated that she was upset and crying, but LOVED the chance to get that good snuggle in. And it was a good one. Short, but I adored every moment of being able to hold her and have her just cuddle into me, and loved that I was able to calm her down.

The next morning, Donovan told me that when he went in to get her up, the first words out of her mouth were about that moment during the night, but she corrected herself as she recounted the story for Daddy:

"Daddy, I fell and hit my head and I was crying and then Mommy held me...no, first Mommy picked me up and THEN Mommy held me and I stopped crying and went back to sleep!"

I was able to relive that precious bittersweet moment all over again, but this time it was more sweet than bitter, because it meant THAT much to her, that not only was it the FIRST thing that she told Daddy about, but she made sure to tell the story PROPERLY!

:)

Song lyrics

We all have the tendency to screw up some of the words to their favourite songs every now and then, and when it happens, we catch ourselves and struggle to get right back to the right lyric as quickly as possible.

The GREAT thing about 3 yr olds is they have NO idea what the words ever really SHOULD be at that age, so when they sing the wrong lyrics, they make it their own and they just continue to sing loud and proud. It's ridiculously adorable!

Here are some of Madelyn's most commonly misquoted lyrics from some of her favourite songs:

1. I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues by Elton John: *actual* title

The MADELYN version: "I guess that's what they colour the blues"

2. Private Eyes by Hall and Oates: *actual* line: "You play with words, you play with love"

The MADELYN version: "You play with worms..."

3. Yakety Yak by The Coasters: *actual* line: "Take out the papers and the trash"

The MADELYN version: "Take out the piggies and the cash"

4. Mamma Mia by ABBA: *actual* line: "Oh Mamma Mia, how can I resist you"

The MADELYN version: "Mamma Mia, how can I assist you" (pretty good!!!!)

5. My Girl by Chilliwack: *actual* line: "My girl is just a memory, she's been so long away"

The MADELYN version: "My girl is just a memory, she's been salami"

This morning at Auntie Fran's house....

Daddy takes Madelyn to daycare, and every morning, as he drops her off, she gives him a goodbye kiss.

This morning, when the Roo got to Auntie's house, accompanied by the friends she brought with her (Baby Kitty Cat and Baby Jaguar, as per usual), she saw that one of the other children, Jaron, was already there. So she runs up to him and starts making him pet her friends, and then Daddy says, "Oh, Madelyn! I need a kiss!" Madelyn says to Jaron, "OH! Hang on a minute Jaron! I have to go and give my Daddy a kiss!"

Daddy said she had the biggest smile! Not only is it awesome that she runs to Daddy to give him a kiss, she had to let Jaron know what was happening!

That's my girl!

How I found out about the mailman.

Catherine:
I feel so horrible because so much time has passed and our little girl does SO much, and we just don't always have the time to commit to updating things, but I want to get a few cute little stories out here before they're gone from my memory!

Just about a month ago, Daddy was ready a bedtime story to Roo called Why I Love My Daddy. The story depicts images of a child animal with its daddy, and is accompanied by a line or two, written by real children, of reasons why the kids love their fathers.

On this one particular page, Madelyn showed Daddy, as she loves to do with everyone, who everyone is in the picture by pointing to them and giving them a name.

And on this particular day, on this particular page, Madelyn decided the parent in this setting was the Mommy as opposed to the Daddy, as the title so aptly suggest. "And here is Madelyn penguin," and continued to give a title to each of the other penguins in the background. "This is Baba penguin, and Didi penguin, and Alexis penguin, and Grandma penguin, and Grandpa penguin..."
Donovan:
So, Madelyn finishes going over who each penguin is, and I couldn't help but notice that she didn't give ME a penguin! Not to fear, there was ONE penguin left at the far right of the page.

A big, strong looking penguin, that surely reminded her of her daddy.

"And who is THAT handsome penguin?", I asked her, getting ready to hear my name being called.

"Oh. That's MAILMAN penguin," she replied, and quickly turned the page.

Uhhhhh......

You can bet that Mommy and Daddy had a pretty long talk after THAT bombshell! :)

And yes, this is a true story.