Dimino Family: Happy Mother's Day

I LOVE being a mommy! What a lucky person I am to be Maddie's mommy.

Many days I find myself second guessing decisions and wondering if I'm doing the very best for Maddie. I have a new found respect for my own mom as I realize what a hard job being a good mommy really is. Wheat bread vs white bread, not such a tough decision, but handling tantrums, and "unreasonable" outburts (and aren't they all?! - hee hee) certainly can make for a long day. Soooo when we have day like today, despite no nap, Maddie was shining as the star of the party, it makes all those tears and boogies so worth it. I'm truly impressed with the little girl she's becoming and it seems to be happening so very fast! She's 18 months already, yikes!

I'm glad to have a day like today to reflect on my new life as a mommy and realize my best IS what's best for Maddie. She's such a joy to have and I can't even begin to express the amount of love I have for her. Hopefully one day when she's a mommy she'll realize what I see now. There is no stronger love than between a parent and child. Makes me miss my mom even more. I love you mom!

I received an amazing gift this morning... a HD digital video camera that is sure to survive a one foot toilet drop, some drool, and most anything else a toddler could think to do with it. It's water proof and built for rugged handling. It's a Kodak Playsport and takes pretty good quality videos and still photos (still working on figuring out all the settings though). The best part is it's as small as a cell phone so hopefully I can catch Maddie being her cute self without being caught.. once she sees a camera of any sort, she wants to see photos and video of herself and doesn't care that she's the star of any new videos. One of those new mommy skills is heading off crying fits before they start.. not by giving in but by distracting as best as possible.

Anyhoo, I may not know how to send or receive a text message, but now I can record our lives in HD! :)

We were invited to brunch at Auntie Pam and Alyx's house and Maddie quickly became the bell of the ball as Pam's family fawned over her every quirky smile and word. She was LOVING it! She especially loved seeing her buddy Cobie, their dog.
She was quite a funny girl showing them how very smart she is and learning new tricks like the fist bump and perfecting her high five.

She didn't get a nap today and that really started to show just before dinner time, but she did so well for the couple of hours we were there and best of all, she was so busy with everyone else's attention, mommy got a break. :)

Happy Mother's Day (Daddy)!

Yesterday at a Cinco de Mayo party, Crista was telling another friend that Maddie could count to ten.. Yeh right! I laughed at her, until she showed us.. I still can't believe it. Thank you Elmo for teaching her. Elmo is a good mommy too! :)