Evan was our first baby and so of course we thought he was unusually good at every thing in every way. We loved to wonder at how coordinated he was for something so small. And he was. But you are even more so. Or maybe it only seems that way because you have no sense of caution.

After pulling out the riding toys in our new driveway! we were astounded at the way you took to them. You got on your little Cinderella push cart and your legs started swinging like the Easter Bunny hops, on either side of the thing. Off you flew, a natural born skateboarder it appeared, down the hills and into the grass. What a sight! You and Asphalt are at the beginnings of a very complicated relationship- I can tell.

The other day we were on the back deck and you made a game out of jumping off the sand box lid. No, running down it like a ramp. Each time it looked as though you were just before knocking your front teeth out when you recovered, smiled, and went back for another rush. Between stunts, you would stand at the peak of it, swing your pointer finger up into the air, and proclaim, "I have an idea! Watch me!" or "Wait a minute," (and finger up again on cue,) "watch me!."

Your coordination is not only apparent in rough and tumble activities, but also in the finer art of dancing. We've known this about you for some time. It's nothing new. You used to rock in the grocery cart basket to "Material Girl," remember? But your moves are getting even more assorted, expressive, and specifically choreographed for the particular type of music played. One of your favorite songs to dance to right now is a song that says "every move I make I make in You, You make me move, Jesus, every breath I breathe I breathe in You." We've come a long way from "Material Girl," and my heart's never been happier than watching you dance that song out in a very literal performance.

You also love to dance in front of the oven door where you can see your reflection. You do lots of swooping arm motions there, like a ballerina tossing an armful of flower petals into the air. Four words on that: so darling to me.

The only physical act that's not so charming or graceful to us is the way you step on our feet.

I don't know what it is about stepping on our feet, but when we sit on the couch you walk on them like stepping stones. It actually doesn't bother me so much because I don't have hair on mine, but your father has come close to throwing you across a room. He's taken to calling you Grip Tape. Having assessed the situation much deeper than I have, he claims the reason your feet are so painful is because they're so padded. If we were Indians he would name you Kills with Foot. Like the Word of the Lord, your feet separate joint and marrow, muscle and skin, Madalyn. (Heb. 4: 12)

Vocabulary 101

Although you are way ahead of the game for your age concerning vocabulary and communication, you have a funny way of substituting more exciting words for things more ordinary. For example, you call your chandelier your "party" and your bed covers,"colors." As in "I need my colors!" You and Evan have your own Christmas trees in your rooms, little ones, and instead of "tree," you prefer to call it "my treat." Ironically, though, you call Mr. Chris "Mr. Christmas." (But you like to do that with lots of names like Mrs. Stephanie being "Shasta," as I've mentioned before, and you're now calling Mrs. Dana "Miss Donna." She's taken to calling you Marilyn and we have a running joke that Donna and Marilyn will take a road trip together one of these days.)

You also combine words, or just become flat lazy and use the first name that comes to mind. This means you'll often call daddy mommy and mommy daddy. And sometimes we become Mahdy and Dahmy. No joke. Quite often we're called that. And our response is always, "I'm not Mahdy." You do the same thing to your grandparents- as though one of their names covers the pair of them.

Another thing you've recently started telling me is that your froggy's coming off, and you hold out a finger at me. I finally figured out you were saying that your finger was coming off. You meant your finger nail. And you say "finger" just fine on its own, but for some reason when you try to say the whole thing- "My finger's coming off," it comes out as froggy.

You're also a little confused about what Happy Halloween means because you say it all the time now. You'll have your shopping cart and stop by to tell me you're off somewhere. "Happy Halloween!" you say with a wave. And then the other day you blew out a handful of flowers like they were birthday candles and said, "Happy Birthday to me!" (It's okay, we'll work all these things out eventually.)

On the subject of Halloween, though, it was a great occasion for you. (Thank you, Ainsley Clifford and family,) because you got to borrow a so-cool JoJo the Clown girl (tv character) costume. You kept telling the moon "Hi, moon! I'm JoJo!" (That after asking me who cut the moon, because it was just a sliver that night- I'd like to see the scissors that did that, too.)

You were not only thrilled with your costume, but with every other kid's as well. Trick or treaters would come to the door and you'd peek around the doorframe and marvel, "Ohhh, wow."

In many ways you're language is showing vast improvement. You used to call letters and numbers minutes. Now you call them A,B,C's. You can't sing The Alphabet Song yet. You do the "now I know..." part perfectly, but for all the letters you substitute "u, u, u..."

You can sing all of "God our Father," (Evan's school blessing,) Jesus Loves Me, and Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. You make up long songs when you lie in bed at night. We hear you in there singing and chatting long after your brothers are asleep. When you don't know words to a particular tune you'll substitute la, la, la. You'll come by with a baby, singing, and ask, "wanna sing la, la, la, mommy? Sing la, la, la, mommy." Another thing you ask me five thousand times a day is "Wanna come play in my room? Come play in my room, mommy." Or "wanna come play upstairs with me?" I wish I could say yes every time. I really do. But somebody has to write these things down about you. Somebody has to wash your dishes and clothes and clean up a little before disease spreads throughout your home.

You still don't know your colors. Actually I can't tell if you know them or not. It's like you flunk under pressure but almost always answer right on impulse. I don't think girls can be color-blind, though, so we'll work that out eventually, too.

A few cute things you've said recently:

When I called you young lady you retorted, "I'm not a la-dy! I'm a grill!"

When we were on our way to a birthday party you looked at your reflection and exclaimed, "I'm so CUTE!"

When you put your boots on the other day you said proudly, "Look at me! I'm Woody!" (From Toy Story.) I thought it was interesting you chose Woody the cowboy and not Jessie the cowgirl. But I get it. Woody's cooler.

The Spice

1) It's funny, the things you name beautiful. Lizards, the kitchen trash... "Oh it's boootiful," you'll coo.

2) The last two times you had trouble falling asleep were when a) you wanted to watch a baseball game, and b) you wanted to play a video game.

A) The baseball game. This happened when you got up to pee pee and saw your daddy watching a Cardinal game on tv. You crawled onto your tummy beside him on the end of our bed and acted completely carried away in the excitement of it. The score would pop up and you'd chant "123, 123," wildly. Whenever it showed the man at bat you'd chant, "battery, battery, 123, 123." And then "Oh, wow!" when he'd swing.

B) The video game. Evan has a handheld Leapster electronic game toy. When it was left in your room, you snuck out of your bed and played it late into the night until we discovered you hunched over it on your bed, the light from the screen glowing on your elated expression. You're too little to understand the game, so you just had the rabbit, who was supposed to be jumping on certain letters, landing in the water and splashing in error and you laughed and laughed at it;
Look at that bunny!"

3. Evan tried to take a doll from you the other day and you swung it away from him by its feet. As it circled your head by the ankles you yelled, "NO! It's MY baby!"

(I'd like to note here that that was NOT learned by example.)

4. Before we moved we had Dum Dums in a bowl on the counter, "out of reach." I found you with not one, not two, but three of them, unwrapped, bundled together, and pocketed (yes all THREE) in your cheek while you watched tv. Just moments before you used a blue marker to color your face like a member of Kiss.

5. Several weeks ago you and Evan came home from Sunday school with pictures of your family members. Evan had five cut-out peach-colored faces for each of us. You had a black father, a white mother, and a black brother. You yourself appeared Asian and Jack was- interestingly enough- left off the sheet altogether.

In this way, your being slightly color-blind is a good thing. I guess. So long as you can identify us in a mall if we ever get separated.

6. You say to me rather frequently, "C'mere, mommy. NOW!" It was cute at first.

7. You put everything in your mouth. Especially coins. (A literal walking piggy bank.) The other day you had something in there and I pried your mouth open and said "What are you eating?"

"My bracelet," you said as normal as if it were a Cheeto from under the couch.

8. A few weeks ago you asked for a hug and cuddled right in. You said, "mmmm" then- "get off of me."

9. When Evan was sick you came up to me with his plastic throw up bowl on your head and said, "Lookatme! I'm Buzz Lightyear! And beyond!" (You don't say the "to infinity" part. Who needs that part, it's wordy.)

10. You throw things in the pool. It's an obsession. The object flying through the air and landing on the water is simply fascinating and never ceases to amaze you. You're an addict. They need a support group for this kind of thing.

The Sugar

1. You love dress-up clothes. You love your sparkly shoes with the heels that Honey got you. You walk in them better than I walk in heels. You also love your squeaky shoes that grandma McD got you and we take them away from you as punishment. Because it works- "Madalyn, you be a good listener or we're gonna take away your red MaryJane's."

2. You love princesses. You love Ariel the mermaid, too. We draw her in sidewalk chalk. Well I draw her... and Ursula, Scuttle, King Tritan, Flounder, and Sebastian. Oh and the seahorse that doesn't have a name because Evan likes the seahorse.

You draw purple lines and tell me what they are. I think they're beautiful.

3. You have a crush on Uncle John. You turn inside out over him. Before Thanksgiving you talked him up so much beforehand that he was just too much in person. He was the only person you've ever been shy around because he was so built up at that point.

4. You're polite. If I hug you or Evan hugs you, or if we give you something you always say "thank you!" without prompting. If I tell you, "you're such a sweet sister, Madalyn" or just rub your back for a moment, you say "thank you, mommy," very seriously, as though you were needing that right at that moment.

You say "excuse me" when you burp.

5. You love flowers. You spend HOURS picking flowers (weeds) in our backyard. You pace the entire breadth and depth of the yard with a bouquet of weeds bouncing in one hand or the other. You climb ladders and play with sand and get on the swing, all while clutching your flowers.

6. You love your baby brother. You ask to help feed him baby food and you rub his head while I change him and help with his diaper tabs.

7. You're tender and sensitive to other people's feelings. You are the nurse of the house and the first to rub a back or inquire if someone's alright. You say "bless you" when we sneeze. I was cutting my toenails the other day and you came up behind me and rubbed my back gently and said, "ohh, mommy. aw, mommy." I guess you thought it hurt. I assured you it didn't.

You're still telling people Evan's sick. It was a big deal. You were very concerned. You gave him hugs and rubs frequently and he was very limp in his responses. "Hug me, Evan," you finally commanded him. I don't blame you. He's getting a little too accustomed to this "sick thing."

8. You nurse your baby dolls. This started two nights ago. You came up to me with a doll and said "My baby's really hungry," then lifted your shirt and shoved your baby's head under. "I'm feeding it my belly button," you said.

9. Evan rocks your world. You miss him when he's at school. You called for him in Target the other day and smiled because you knew he wasn't there. Wishful thinking.

10. You cuddle with me at night. You wrap your small arms around my neck and pull my face down to yours. We rub noses. You tell me you love me. You tell me thank you when I tell you I love you, too. We pray and sing. You smile wide as the horizon when you sing the words "yes, Jesus loves me," as if you know how much.

Do you? Do you know how much we love you? You couldn't possibly. To think He loves you even more! I need that thought. I need that truth like your flowers need rain-

He loves you most. I don't understand it. You won't understand it. But never forget it.

This brings me to the particular reason I'm thankful this Thanksgiving season; something we say we're thankful for all the time but that we really take for granted more often than not. This year I find myself especially grateful to the Lord for our general good health. I thank Him and praise Him deeply for that gift.

You know how when sickness hits it has a way of throwing every trivial and temporal thing out the back door, how it leaves you standing there with the very few things that really matter resting in the palms of your hand like magnified objects. When things are paired down for you like that, perspective settles on you like a soft snow, and a strange sort of peace and contentedness- a reverent appreciation- sets in. So as much as I hate- and I mean HATE- to watch my child suffer, I fervently pray that this past week will be fruitful. That it will help our family enter the advent season on a fresh foot, with what matters most on the forefront of our minds. Because this fever of Evan's sure has burned it into mine.