My Little Wonder with a dash of Tornado

Imagine a room with perfectly vacuumed carpet, furnitured clean and dusted, everything put neatly in it's place - and then she wakes up! The tornado hits and everything is on the floor, in disarray and crayon is on the windows. Sigh. I love her but it is now so hard to keep everything looking decent when she loves to get into everything. I should be grateful that she is curious, playful and creative.

This afternoon when she woke up from her nap she was doing something so magically wonderul I can't get over it. I know she's awake because I can usually hear her talking to herself in her room. When I went up to her crib, somehow she had gotten a hold of an empty plastic storage bag, the kind you'd put food in the fridge in. She showed me the bag, put her hand in, grabbed at her imaginary food and put it in her mouth and chewed. I laughed so hard. I never imagined that at this age she could be so inventive. She even offered me some. So I took it, ate a bit and then she took her turn at eating her imaginary treats. Sometimes I don't know where she gets these ideas. We've not played at make-believe in this way so I can't imagine where she would learn to do it.

It reminds me of something she did last week that had me completely laughing and fascinated. She has her own crayons now with a Disney Princess coloring book. I had walked in the room where she had some show like Backyardigans or Wonder Pets on that had a particularly upbeat song on. There she was, holding one of her crayons like a microphone, singing her own song and dancing to the song playing on the TV! I do not do this so that she could pick up on it - I have no idea where she could have learned something like that!

One thing I think she has learned from me is her abilities with telephones. She sometimes is 16 months going on 16! When I have her talk to people on the phone, she doesn't like me to hold it for her. She wants to hold it herself. She then cocks her head and talks on the phone like she was some teenager or something. And she prefers cell phones to the house phone. I guess she's too cool for the house phone. But then the 16 month old comes out in here and she can't resist to push a few buttons during the conversation.

She never ceases to amaze me with all the things that she does. She is so friendly, not just to people in the family but to anyone and everyone in general. She will give a big smile and wave at random people. She loves to give babies her age kisses and will run up to them without compuntion to give them one, usually scaring the crap out of the other toddler. She will also just go up to strangers and just start talking to them. The other week when Amy Jo and I were at the ZCMI Center mall, we had gone into the Deseret Book. There were a pair of sisters sitting on the floor in the children's section, the older one reading to the younger one. Madeline thought nothing of sitting herself down next to the older girl and listen to her read. At first the girls were unsure what to do, but after myself and their mother encouraged them, the older girl continued to read and Maddy sat there and listened. Oh, my heart! One day I hope that Madeline will be the older sibling reading to her younger brother or sister.