The Race!

Sorry for the radio silence! Brent and I took off Friday morning to head to the Outer Banks with his twin Brother Joe and his wife Sarah. The reasoning for the trip was so that the boys could run the OBX Marathon. The picture above was as we dropped them off a the start of the race. They looked similar to this at the 10 mile point however at the 20 and the 26.2 they looked a little road worn-- thus I didn't post the AFTER pictures. We had a very restful weekend despite the fact that the men refused to move off the couch as soon as the race was completed and every time we tried to tell them to get their own food/drink/remote they would reply "When was the last time you ran 26 miles?". I speak for my sister in law as well as myself here: We are both very proud of our husbands but see NO NEED to continue with these pursuits in the future! Training ate up a great deal of conversation and time over the past 5 months.... I think 10K's and 1/2 marathons are much more reasonable and don't make you walk funny for a week.

All of this was facilitated by Brent's parents who came and took care of Madeleine for the weekend. Personally between you and me I think they were very happy to be rid of Brent and I. While we were gone Madeleine picked up many new skills here is a list:

- So Big. Sarah is a former teacher and she put her skills to good use by teaching Maddie to do so big. Sarah taught it to her in all of about 3 minutes. I don't think the car was unpacked before she had learned it... We may be calling her in to teach other things we have been working on for MONTHS.

- All Done. We have been doing basic sign language with Madeleine for a while now and are starting to see her doing some of the signs. She now knows how to do the signs and what to do when we say them now we need her to do them when it is her preference. For example I would be over joyed if when her tummy was full she signed all done. We are a way off from this but if you asked me two months ago if she would be signing at this point I would say no way. It is not the most graceful all done sign anyone has ever done but if you say it enough times and you watch closely she does do it!

-Cow. Kay says she is doing this sign, I am very skeptical... None the less we are working on farm animal signs. Between you and me I am not sure what cows/pigs/horses/sheep have to do with our every day lives... I think we would be much better off teaching her such functional language as traffic/rain/metro. There is virtually NO livestock in our lives - unless you count what is on our plate and I think it's a little early to key her into that reality.

She is ALMOST crawling. I know I will be the first to admit I have been saying this for months but really folks she is ALMOST crawling. Brent put her down in the middle of the living room floor to make a sandwich last night and in a minute music started playing. She had managed to get her self over to her computer, touch the screen and start the music. How she got there I am not sure. She has some odd ways of being mobile that only people with hyperflexiblity can relate to. She can do perfect splits while laying full chest on the ground. THIS IS NOT GOOD. Thus, we are back to wearing the baby biker shorts so she has to keep her legs in the correct position. Now that winter is here, we can put the lovely biker shorts under her clothes so she can still look super cute while receiving the benefits of the therapy.

We are spending the weekend turning our basement into a preschool. A while back I posted I needed help with organization and soon after Deborah her nurse, Brent and I got together and we decided that the best thing for Madeleine would be to create stations in our basement where she can go from table to table and play with different types of activities. I am combing craigslist for people selling little people tables and so far have had great luck!

Have a great weekend, stay dry and I'll post more pictures as soon as I have a few minutes.

Thanks,
Kirsten