My Chubber-Floober-Flubber Face

Next up is Madoc. As I was looking through the pictures from the last several months I realized that most of the pictures of Madoc were self-portraits or taken by Sadie. So these pictures aren't great but they are typical of real life around here.

Madoc is my buddy. He is not a mama's boy but he definitely likes his mama. I love when he wakes up from naps because he comes straight to me to cuddle and give me love. 

He is starting kindergarten in the fall. I'm interested to see how that turns out. He and Sadie are so different and I've no idea what to expect from him. He is very smart but has very little interest in learning to read. Sadie could read before kindergarten. I've asked him if he wanted to learn to read like Sadie and he said no. He's still very interested in looking at books and being read to. And his interest has increased a little bit of late. He loves math though because it's useful. Today he was telling me all sorts of addition problems as he requested how many pieces of waffle he wanted.

Here  you can see Madoc's blankie and bear. He needs bear, hippo, Eddie and Spunky (both dogs), and his blankie to go to bed. He also thinks they need to go with him in the car everywhere. We've often been late for carpool in the morning because "I forgot Eddie!" You can also see him with Charlotte. I already mentioned that they are the best of friends. Just tonight he was crying on the stairs about something like not being able to take off his shoes and Charlotte came up to him and tried tickling him to fix it.

 Currently Madoc really enjoys playing outside, riding bikes and scooters, computer games, movies, playing imaginary games that are very boyish, growling, yelling, jumping, running, climbing the furniture, and generally causing mayhem. He likes playing with Sadie but they're either playing really well together or else fighting like cats and dogs. There is no middle ground with those two. And he really likes space and the ocean. He'll look at books on these over and over. A member of our bishopric (who is a high school science teacher) was over for dinner the other night and quizzing him on fish and ocean creatures and Madoc knew a LOT.

Madoc likes to talk about what he's going to be when he grows up. He's got a lot of plans and he generally divides everything up by when he's a daddy and when he's a grandpa. For awhile he was an engineer like Dad and a fireman like Grandpa. But lately the occupations topping the list have been: Boy Scout, stick collector (for building fires), paleontologist, ornithologist, and astronaut.

And now for a few random things about Madoc:

He is very particular about clothes. He currently only has one pair of shorts that he really likes to wear and he would only wear jeans all winter long. Once his favorites are all dirty he has a fit and getting dressed is very painful.

Neil will tease the kids about not liking things they love. He might get out the ice cream and announce, "Oh, but Madoc doesn't like ice cream so I'll eat his." To which Madoc responds, "No, it's Sadie that doesn't like ice cream!"

He used to be pretty shy but that's all over. He'll talk to anybody. We often have old people (there are LOTS of OLD people here) stop to admire Charlotte and Madoc will tell them all about everything they never wanted to know about his birthday or camping or starting kindergarten...

Madoc's sense of fair is really skewed. Basically it means that things aren't going the way he wants them to, fair or not. And he's very vocal about it. This was evidenced in abundance this last weekend as he proceeded to complain that it wasn't fair that Sadie got to go to Wal-Mart or watch a movie or anything else really despite the fact that he spent the whole weekend camping with his dad. It's always his turn (even when it isn't) and Sadie gets everything and his life is just miserable even if he did get ice cream and play computer games that day. And slightly somewhat related is his inability to regulate his emotions or self-control or put anything in perspective. He's really good at throwing tantrums and everything is my fault (or Dad's if he happens to be home).
I love listening to him pray. They are so random and yet so sincere that Heavenly Father must like his much more than mine. Unless prompted to say otherwise, everything starts with "please bless." Please bless that I really liked my dinner tonight. And please bless that Sadie was mean to me and I hit her and got in trouble. And please bless I won't have to make my bed anymore...
So that's Madoc. He's a handful and all-boy and really tests my patience but he's also one of the sweetest kids around.