A Day of Shopping

Madeline and I spent the morning doing a little shopping. Madeline points everything out she wants and pleads, "Peaz! Peaz!" Sometimes I'll let her look at some items but tell her that she is only looking and we are not going to buy it. Next come the, "Mama buy, peaz" or more recently, "Lynn buy" (Although we always call her Madeline or Maddie, she refers to herself as Lynn). My shopping mission for the day was to first head to a craft store for the makings of a Madeline calendar. (The boa in the picture was found, but not bought, at the craft store). Every day Madeline asks, "Dance shoes?" or "In the pool?" to know whether she will go to dance class or swim lessons. My friend, Tammy, gave me the wonderful idea of making a picture calendar to show her when her activities will be. In the mean time this will help introduce calendar/counting concepts to Madeline. Thank God Madeline likes to shop as I was in the craft store forever! I will try to post a picture of the finished project (I hope I stay motivated enough to complete it)

My second shopping mission was to scope out the Halloween costumes. We got a great hand-me-down costume from Madeline's cousin, Anna, but we still wanted to look around to see if there were any costumes out there of characters that Madeline follows more closely. Since we watch very little television here, those characters are limited but I thought I would look just in case we found a cool Cookie Monster or Elmo costume that doesn't make her look like a little boy. I did come across a monkey costume. I thought this was perfect because Madeline loves Curious George. Uncle Marty and Aunt Vicky got Madeline her first Curious George book and a stuffed monkey. We now have a few Curious George books and check more out each time we head to the library. Madeline kept snuggling with the costume in the store and dug it out of the bag when we got home. How absolutely perfect, I thought. That is until we tried to try it on! You would think I was torturing her. I told her she had to wear a costume in order to go Trick-or-Treating (which we have been "practicing" after dinner each night ever since Andrea introduced the idea to us). I have no idea what was going through Madeline's head. Did she think she was being eaten by George? I pulled out my photo album from last year and a Piglet figurine. I showed her the figurine and then pictures of herself in the Piglet costume. I put the monkey hood on my head to show her that it was a costume (to which she replied, "Too small, Mama"). I then grabbed the other costume from Anna and she tried it on with no problems. She saw herself in the mirror and liked looking at herself dressed up. I figured now that Madeline understands the idea of costumes she would be willing to try on the monkey costume. No go! Here is a clip of part of this afternoon.....(sorry the video isn't that clear, I took it on my cellphone)



So, now you know, Care Bear it'll be! Thanks for the great costume, Anna. I will make sure Madeline does the costume justice. Oh, and by the way, I didn't want Madeline to be afraid of George now so we read her "Curious George Goes to a Costume Party" book before her "nap". She was even more interested in the book than usual because she now understands costumes. However, she put George in for nap time in the guest bedroom today instead of his usual spot of honor, the top of her pillow. Hmmmmm......I think I started a monkey phobia.