There was work being done in our backyard today, and Margaret trooped outside to make certain that everything was done to her specifications, which are very precise. She’s somewhat hampered by her lack of language, but she can usually get across what she’s thinking.
“Try the hoe.”
“See, isn’t that easier?”
“Maybe a little more gravel would help.”
“I think you should scoop a little more out here.”
Margaret’s habit of walking like a drunken sailor, but often a drunken sailor in a terrible hurry, has been known to lead to some tumbles, and though we try to limit them, in general we try to help her learn from her mistakes in a constructive way. To whit, when she falls, we comfort her while pointing out that it was her own fault because she was trying to run as fast as she could over uneven ground. We are sure that this is very educational for her.
Today, she was wandering around outside, doing her usual circuits.
But at one point, she tried to run faster than the sidewalk, and it didn’t work out too well.
Actually, she tried to go off of a step that we were very careful of for a long time, but she was cautious, and so we trusted that she had learned some sense and wasn’t going to try. More fool us.
Anyway, she has a nasty goose egg, and skinned forehead, and a slightly banged-up lip.
This is not, however, stopping her from piling blueberries on top of her cup of milk. Because blueberries aren’t going to pile themselves, are they?*
*Should anyone witness blueberries piling themselves, I would urge them to report said phenomenon to the relevant authorities, though come to think about it, I’m not sure who those authorities would be. The Department of Agriculture, maybe?
We have a fenced backyard.
It is a beautiful thing, and I am very happy about it. Margaret likes it as well, but when we shut the gate at the end of the driveway, she likes to see if she can break out and run into the street.
Also, on the driveway leading down to the garage, there is a drop of about an inch between two squares of concrete. In this next video, Margaret is VERY CAREFUL about both getting down and up. But of course, the drop doesn’t show on the video, so she looks kind of silly. Rest assured that she’s just being careful about falling.
Again, crummy picture because of the light in the room, but a Very Important Milestone occurred here this morning, and I couldn’t be a prouder parent.
Margaret Fell Asleep Reading.
(I think I may cry, I’m so happy).
My reconstruction of the event is that she was sitting up reading with the book on her lap, and then she fell over and fell asleep.
So after Margaret’s last bath, I combed her hair into a very Gordon Gekko do.
From another angle:
And I made the joke about needing a nap, and Margaret (whose comprehension of words seems to be growing, in that she can both follow and willfully ignore directions, depending on her whim) took matters into her own hands.
Little did she know that those are caffeine-free, bought accidentally and now languishing in the back room, because no one sees any point in drinking them.
So we foiled her little schemes. For now.
*For those of you (Mom, I’m looking at you) who need this explained, there’s a movie that makes this really funny.
What would you do after it had rained and rained and rained and rained and the ground was wet, even if the sun was shining now?
If you answered “Go outside and sit on the ground and pick up soggy gumballs and try to eat them,” you’re probably Margaret, and why aren’t you taking your nap instead of reading the blog? Also, when did you learn to talk properly?*
Also, clutching gumballs to her chest and muddying her front was another pastime she favored.
I think the small person has stock in Tide. What she doesn’t know, since she doesn’t come into the basement with me when I’m doing laundry, is that her efforts are in vain, because I wash her clothes in Dreft.
*Incidentally, for those of you still unaware, Margaret has a consistent “word.” In the morning, when her brain is running at its peak, and she’s not interested in other things, she will say “tickle,” and make tickling motions on her tummy and armpits. It is adorable. Though I think that tickle is a ridiculous first word, and she should have paid better attention
Last night, we went out to Blueberry Hill to celebrate that I have gotten the nubbin of a real job (teaching high school! Part time! This is awesome! Pays twice as much as current job! Woohoo!).
Margaret continued her fascination with plastic Easter eggs.
Unfortunately, she has gotten the idea that she is supposed to eat them. This is worrisome, but she hasn’t gotten them lodged anywhere yet.
I am particularly fond of the somewhat absent-minded look she has here, which suggests that she has a soul above plastic eggs, and is only eating them absent-mindedly while contemplating the meaning of life or other such topics.
*Not really. We’ve had her checked, and she’s only got the one stomach.
So there aren’t enough pictures here, because, as I mentioned above, I did a crummy job of documenting today.
I’ll do better next year, because by then Margaret will be less likely to cause damage if I turn my back for a second. We hope.
Anyway, we do have a few pictures, which Leo took while I was manhandling a leg of lamb.
Leo’s aunt Betsy had thoughtfully given Margaret a basket to play with, and she thought this was great fun,since she could wander around and put things in baskets and take them out and occasionally take herself by the bowl of dog food and see if her parents had changed their minds about whether she should eat it.
We hadn’t.
Leo tried to take some pictures of her, but she was moving pretty fast, as she does these days.
Anyway, some day that is less fraught, I will put her back in her Easter outfits and take better pictures. Promise.
Some weekend mornings, Leo and Margaret and I venture out to some local place to get some breakfast and coffee and enjoy the outdoors. We did this a bit last summer, but Margaret wasn’t as interested as she could have been.
When we went to the park this time, however, she was able to eat our food and sit at a picnic table that was built for small people.
She seemed to think that it was pretty cool.
Leo may not have liked it as much, but he should have looked on the bright side – he could rest his chin and his elbows on his knees if he wanted. Though perhaps not at the same time.
It’s been far too long since I posted, and I have no really good excuse except that I’ve been working hard and Margaret has become highly intolerant of computers that she can see but not bang on, so I am limited to her naptimes and the evening, and during her naptime, I frequently have to email students who persist in asking me questions that they could answer by looking at their syllabuses, but it’s apparently far easier to ask me to look at mine, and in the evenings I’m tired and I don’t want to look for the cord to transfer the pictures to the computer (and anyway, Margaret probably has taken it away to be a telephone in her own bizarre world of make-believe where everything is a telephone.
So I don’t post, and then I haven’t posted in so long that it’s a chore to do it because I have to write a long explanation explaining my hiatus to my scores* of readers, and it’s just so tiring.
But this morning, Margaret did something incredibly cute, and I decided to show as many people as possible.
The reason that this has gotten me blogging is that it was so very Calvin and Hobbes-ish.
See?
Also, Margaret is learning to hug, and she hugs her tiger. Very cute.
*We’re assuming that my mother is, as we all know, a legion unto herself, and a legion was about 6,000 people (though it’s not entirely stable throughout Roman history). That makes it 300 score who are reading this, even if the rest of you don’t.
Margaret is committed to eating local.
Well, actually Margaret is committed to eating, and so she’s on board with eating local because that is included in her appreciation of eating.
But she does enjoy the Farmer’s Market on Wednesdays, probably because there are lots of people for her to watch.
And before we go, she can grab the reusable shopping bag and make a break for it.
She doesn’t get as far as she would like, because I keep darting around her, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.
One of the things about Margaret which I find perpetually pleasing is her willingness to behave well in restaurants.*
Last night after we picked Leo up, we went out for Thai food, and Margaret ordered potstickers. She really likes potstickers. She likes them so much that she hangs onto them with grim determination when people try to move them away from her.
And she cleans her plate. Really, a quite charming dining companion.
*I said one of the things. There are lots of things that I find perpetually pleasing. Her cheeks, for example.
This isn’t the best picture, but Leo and Margaret were doing cute things in a sunbeam, and it seemed difficult to ask them to move into better light.
Anyway, on the weekends, Leo gets up with Margaret at whatever ungodly hour she decides to wake up, and I get to sleep in catch up on all the sleep I missed during the week.
When I woke up this morning and came out of the bedroom, Margaret and Leo were working.
He was writing some legal thing, and she was reading Dr. Seuss’s Foot Book.
But they were doing it in a sunbeam, so the picture’s kind of cruddy.
Humph.
