We did not, until recently, comment too much about Margaret’s chubby cheeks, but a few nights ago, Leo said “chubby cheeks” to Margaret, and her response was very cute, so we’ve been saying it more and more.
She also likes pinching other people’s cheeks, but she pinches hard. Leo is braver than I am.
Margaret’s been being put to work, and the poor thing seems to like it. I mentioned a few months ago that she likes to sweep, and now she seems to have developed a mania for watering plants.
And with that little watering can, it takes FOREVER to get enough water for the roses, poor thing.
Actually, the small watering can is a recent addition, because she was so fond of the big one. While we were housesitting for Leo’s parents, Margaret would go and get the watering can every morning and quietly nag me until I went and watered the roses. (It was a good reminder, but being nagged by your one-year-old to do chores is a little odd – I mean, she may be in charge, but she doesn’t have to be so obvious about it). So she now has her own little watering can so that she can help, and perhaps the responsibility will cure her of reminding me to do things.
I am traumatized.
Terribly, deeply traumatized.
Also, my hands smell like alcohol, and not the fun kind.
Anyway, this morning, I was out in the yard with Margaret, and she was wandering around, picking things up and bringing them to me. You know, sticks, leaves, rocks, etc.
So I was videoing her.
Guess what she brought me?
A RABBIT EYE.
Puck had dismembered a rabbit, and Margaret brought me a piece of it.
Ugh.
We are still washing our hands.
And Margaret has been sanitized beyond sense and reason.
Ugh.
Margaret is a big fan of bags, buckets, cups, watering cans – really anything that you can put something else into. Added bonus points if said thing has a handle that she can sling over her shoulder. In fact, when she says “bye-bye” (you know, if going to go across the room or around a corner or even just over there) she likes it best if there is some receptacle that she can sling on her back. It adds verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative, don’t you know.
Of course, with a bucket, you pretty much just have to carry it by the handle, particularly if it’s a very small bucket.
Another great love of her existence is, as has been mentioned in these virtual pages before, gumballs. She is also fond of sticks, leaves, and very small rocks.*
And this morning, she combined all these loves together.
She seemed very proud of herself.
Notice the Large Rock in the foreground.
She’s also very careful not to get overwhelmed with too much work. She’s very good at taking a step back and looking at the big picture.
*Actually, she likes large rocks too, and tries to pick them up every chance she gets. We don’t have pictures of this, because when she does try to pick them up, instead of taking pictures, I rush over to stop her, because if she dropped it it would break her little foot, and that would be sad.
Baby sign language is a big thing, and in general, I approve. It’s really nice to be able to communicate with your child before she can actually talk, and it makes for a less frustrated baby. We taught Margaret the sign for “more,” which she interpreted to be the sign for “food,” which – as that was more or less what we were going for – we let slide.
It means that she has for months been able to mutter about being hungry while I pushed her around the grocery store.
She has recently learned to say “banana" (well, “nana,” but it means banana), and she loves that she can ask for a specific type of food. But I digress.
Anyway, all I have talked about is the upside of sign language, but last night, Leo made an interesting observation, which I will reproduce for posterity: he noticed that the problem with teaching your baby sign language is that it means that even when the baby’s mouth is stuffed so full that they can’t possibly fit another morsel into it, they can still ask for more. And they do.
I’d have taken a video of this, but it’s really best to be able to pick and choose your less messy shots. After all, immediately after this picture, she decided that it was just too much, took the partially chewed banana out of her mouth, and tried again, with greater success. You guys didn’t want to see that, did you?
One of the things that Margaret does a lot is dance, to whatever music is playing. We had Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 playing yesterday, and she was boogieing to it (it gets more boogieable later on, really it does).
Anyway, we have some video of her dancing to Woody Guthrie, but it’s a bit intermittent, since there were other distractions.
And apparently songs about the Columbia River make her want to a) pull her parents’ toes off; b) dance with her parents’ feet; or c) play the this little piggy game. Forcibly.
So don’t say you weren’t warned.
We experimented with hairstyles last night. Leo’s cousin is getting married in a few weeks, and Margaret’s hair has been getting longer and longer, and so we (well, I) decided to try out putting her hair in a couple of French braids.
Here are our conclusions from the experiment:
1) In order for this to succeed, one or both of us needs to be sedated. And it probably shouldn’t be just me, because an unsedated Margaret with a drugged up caregiver is not a good scene.
2) Margaret’s hair is really fine, and probably needs a lot of hairspray to go in a braid.
3) Rat tail combs, though useful in combing and separating hair, are deadly vicious in the hands of toddlers.
Anyway, there will be no French braids, but we did get Margaret’s hair up in a ponytail.
Which she then proceeded to tear out.
And then she tried to look innocent, which didn’t fool anyone.
I’m not sure that Margaret’s grandparents have read the memo we sent out about their various roles in her life, which is probably because we never sent the memo, because we thought that things were sufficiently clear without it.
For example, we didn’t think that this grandparent would be involved in introducing Margaret to the balance board:
Seriously, these grandparents are getting so difficult to control.
At least, not until after she’s had her milk. She notices that mommy and daddy drink drinks in the morning, and that makes them more awake, so she’s modeling that behavior. Or I just took an unflattering picture. One of those.
Margaret attempted to dodge around Leo while running full tilt towards a doorway. Leo was in the doorway. Margaret hit the corner of the wall. It was very sad.
I have often wondered about the doctor in that rhyme. I mean, think about it: the monkey falls out of the bed and breaks his head. The mother calls the doctor. The doctor says that monkeys shouldn’t jump on the bed. But apparently the doctor just ignores the poor, broken-headed monkey. It seems cruel. And probably a violation of the Hippocratic Oath, although it probably doesn’t say “First, don’t be an annoying idiot when someone calls you about a child’s injury.”
Though it should.
Anyway, we got Margaret an off-falling-proof bed, to avoid the irritating comments of doctors who like to state the obvious.
First, an apology. I have been having computer issues, and laziness issues, and vomiting issues (which is actually a pun, but perhaps it would be best not to parse too closely, because that would be needlessly graphic). So I haven’t been posting as many pictures as I ought to. I have been putting some up on facebook, so if people want to see pictures of Margaret, they can see them there.*
But that is a sad and pathetic excuse, even to me.
Anyway, it’s not like I have the excuse that Margaret is keeping me busy, because she’s becoming very self-sufficient. Just yesterday she made her own breakfast.
Of course, she has been assiduously following the news, so she checked the nutritional information on the Nutella first.
The somewhat high sugar content, plus the fact that her hands aren’t big enough to get the lid off, contributed to her bypassing the spread (for which our furniture thanked her) and just having bread and milk.
This breakfast was pleasing to her, but she still wanted to check out what other people were having.
*And Mom, while I think that your desire to not intrude on the private space for your children that is Facebook is laudable, you ought also to realize that we are friends with EMILY and TRENT, and so we are already filtering ourselves more than we would be talking to you, so there’s really no reason, unless you’re just trying to avoid friends you successfully shook off half a century ago, in which case stop using us as an excuse and admit that you’re being anti-social.
