Maddie words

She's been here for less than a week, and she never ceases to amaze me with her vocabulary. Whether it's the way she says words, like Jackskin (for Jackson, the cat), or her understanding of things (she told me out of the blue what the middle names of her aunts and uncles were), she's just adorable.

I have a billion stories that I wish I could recount here, but it could bore those of you who don't know her.

She named one of my old dolls JoyLan, after me, of course, and mistakenly called it Joy-a-Loin later that day. I was momentarily disgusted.

She used the word "despise" correctly a few days ago.

Ok, cutest and saddest story of the week. Well, there are two.
1) Maddie's going to bed for the night in the futon room. She starts bawling and Emily asks her what's the matter. "I'm nervous," she says, "About the dark." It was the first time ever that she's mentioned being afraid of the dark. That earned her the right to sleep in the yellow room with her mom for the night.
2) Maddie napped for a few hours yesterday afternoon. Em and I went to Wal-Mart, where there was an absurd amount of questionably strange people, and we had enough time before Katie and Maddie woke up to take a walk. When we got back, we found Maddie in the yellow room screaming and crying because she has locked herself in the bedroom. These are old fashioned door handles, meaning there is no key that fits and the hinges and screws are all on the inside. None of us are handy enough to know how to pick a lock and it's late on a Saturday evening. Emily talked to Maddie, trying to calm her and get her to unlock the door, which can be difficult even for an adult to do with these locks. Maddie couldn't do it. She was hysterical. Dad called the locksmith, and he was on his way, when Emily decided to assuage Maddie with some fruit snacks. She told her that, if she could unlock the door, she would be able to have some more. We heard the package of snacks crinkling behind the locked door, and then the handle rattled and, after a minute or so, she unlocked the door. She came tumbling into her mommy's arms, her face red and eyes swollen from crying.
Then she asked for another package of snacks. She's such a Gottschalk!