Jellyfish: Boo.

Today was another fun-filled day in Florida. When we awoke this morning, I asked Maddy if she remembered what we planned on doing for the day. She thought for a moment, gleefully clapped her hands, and shouted, "We're going to the beach! I can't wait!" Unfortunately for Maddy, the beach turned out not to be the most hospitable place. Besides the choppy surf, there was a warning of "dangerous marine life," which, upon further investigation, turned out to be jellyfish. We decided to brave the water a bit anyway, but our day was cut short when both Maddy and Daddy got stung. Both were relatively unhurt, but it was unnerving. We spent the rest of the day relaxing around the apartment, and Ethan and I had the chance to go out for a delicious dinner in downtown Delray.

There have been a few moments of hilarity these past few days. This morning, when Maddy asked me to go into the water with her, I told her it was Daddy's job. She proceeded to march over to Ethan and say, "Daddy: do your job!" It was very cute. Also, in accordance with her recent obsession with the Care Bears, Maddy has started to identify colors not by their actual name but by their Care Bear association; so, for instance, pink is not "pink," it's "Love-A-Lot Bear." Green is now "Good Luck Bear," blue is now "Wish Bear," red is now "Tenderheart Bear," and so on. These are the greatest, most joyful and precious (and fleeting) moments of childhood. There have been many that slipped past our records during the twelve-month hiatus from blogging. Maddy used to call stickers "she-shees." Now, she not only calls them "stickers," she can ask for the specific stickers she would like to use. She still calls band-aids "boo-boo blankets" and a few weeks ago started to tell me what she wanted to eat by saying something like, "Mommy! My tummy wants a Mickey Mouse pancake." Still, I know that soon enough she'll adopt a more traditional lexicon and we'll miss the days of her imaginative labels and coding. We must continue to enjoy her and do our best to keep track of all the funny and wonderful things she says!