Guard Dog

Madeline has turned into my little guard dog. She doesn't want Scott to ever touch me. This was especially true on Friday when Scott was practicing for his upcoming clinical entrance exam. He needed a patient to practice doing a physical on, and I agreed to lend my body for the afternoon. I guess that's what a good chiropractic student's wife should do.

Madeline completely disagreed. She screamed and cried while pointing at Scott during pretty much the whole exam. If she could talk, I'm sure she would have been saying, "Don't you DARE touch my mom! I'm not sure what you're doing, but I don't like it and you better stop RIGHT NOW!" I tried laughinng and assuring her that he wasn't hurting me, but she didn't buy it.

She was so upset that Scott wasn't able to finish the exam. Hopefully our little guard dog won't affect whether he passes the test on Wednesday.

It's a girl!

There are people in this world that are sure Madeline is a boy. We often hear "hey buddy" and "what a cute little boy" when we are out and about. Side note: Would I really dress my little boy head to toe in pink? Do little boys often wear ponytails on top of their heads? People are crazy sometimes. She may not have the hair to show for it, but her true girliness is coming through more and more each day.

These are the ways I know she is 100% girl:

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1. She wants to wear anything that can be worn. If she finds clothes on the floor in her room, she drapes them over her shoulders. She now takes clothes out of my closet and wants to try them on. She cries when I try to take her hat off when we come in from playing outside.

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2. She loves to accessorize. Madeline found a pair of Scott's old earbud headphones and has claimed them as her "necklace". Every morning she pulls them out of her toybox and wears them around her shoulders for a good part of the day. She doesn't mind wearing things in her hair, and if a barrett falls out she brings it to me to put back in. She will wear anything that is round with a hole in it as a bracelet.

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3. She love, love, LOVES shoes. I'm sure my dad is thinking "Hmmmm, I wonder who that sounds like?" My shoe collection has majorly shrunk since high school, dad. Madeline wants to wear shoes first thing in the morning, and doesn't care that they have to go over her pajama feet. She knows where the shoe section is in the stores we frequent. She cries and tries to reach out and touch the shoes if we go past it. I bought her a pair of shoes a couple of weeks ago. Later that day we were in the car for quite a while and I noticed that she was being unusually quiet in the back seat. When we stopped to get out, I saw that she was turning her feet this way and that while she admired her shoes!

As for the whole nature vs. nurture argument - I think these symptoms are 90 % nature. I am believing more and more that we are born with certain innate qualities that pertain to our gender.

It's pretty cute right now to watch her dress up, but I may have my hands full when she's a teenager!

Zoo

Madeline LOVES animals. Seriously loves them - to the point where she goes crazy everytime a dog food comercial comes on TV. When I took her to the doctor for her 12 month check-up, she asked me if Madeline is saying any words yet. I said "No, but she makes animal sounds. Is that normal?"

Because of her crazy fasination with animals, Scott decided to take her to the Fort Worth Zoo for her birthday a couple of weeks ago. She absolutely loved it. The real hits were the giant gorilla, the parrots, and the penguins.

I like to think that she still remembers our trip. She has a book with a gorilla in it that she never really cared about before. Now she flaps her arms and bounces up and down when we turn to the page with the gorilla.

I was hoping the trip would be educational for me. I need to brush up on my animal sounds. What sound exactly does a giraffe make? Or a hippopotomos? Unfortunatly, none of the animals really made any noises that day. There really should be a parenting course that includes how to make animal noises - I am sorely deficient in that area. I actually had to call my mom one day because I couldn't remember what sound a turkey makes.

So, the zoo was mostly a success and I'm sure we'll be back sometime soon!