Margaret's Recitation

Yesterday morning, Margaret came up to me with a plan.

"Mommy," she said, "you get out your phone and make a video, and I will sing, and then we will watch it and you can show it to Nana on your computer."

And so we did.  I think it's quite nice.  And you're lucky that she got out of her "little lamb, little lamb, little lamb" loop.  It's been known to go on for far, far longer, and it begins to sound very ominous when she keeps repeating it.

My Baaaaaaaaaybeeeeeee

Ellie has gotten very big in the last few weeks, what with the walking and the crazy hair and the yelling at Margaret when Margaret does something she doesn't like.

And she's gotten very interested in stairs.

See?

There ought to be rules against this sort of thing.  I mean, I like that she's learning and growing and developing, but she's also not big enough to be climbing stairs no matter what she may think.

Humph.

More Reading

So here's how the morning goes: I am sitting with one kid or another on some sort of seating arrangement, reading a story.  Which kid I'm with doesn't matter, because the minute I sit down with one kid and a book, it's as if a giant beacon has been lit, and no matter where the other child is, she will run (or toddle very fast) across the room with her own book, and either climb or make loud noises accompanied by emphatic arm-flappings until I lift her up, and park her caboose on the couch with me and the original child.  And then they will both read their books while swatting the other one.  I think it's sort of like playing together?

Or competitive playing with me.  But getting closer.  Doing the same thing at the same time is crucial to learning to play together, I feel.

Daddy's Hair

Ellie woke up this morning with an interesting plume of hair coming up off the top of her head.

I patted it down after I got her dressed, but it persisted.  I just put her down for a nap, and there it was, waving like a crest on the top of her head.

Incidentally, as we went out and about this morning, I got more than the usual number of "that's a cute baby" comments, so it's working for her.

Anyway, while Margaret was at school this morning, we ran some errands, and then since we only had 30 minutes before we were supposed to pick Margaret up, and the weather was not completely freezing, we went to the park.

Ellie enjoyed the walking around and investigating the ground.

The walking went well, although there were various hiccups.  She tipped over every so often, and since she had migrated over to the playground part of the park, she was falling on dirt and bark.  Her hands got dirty.  This was most frustrating for her.

When I didn't move fast enough, she tried pouting instead of just looking concerned.

Since I'm the kind of person that tries to help babies who are distressed by miniscule fragments of bark on their hands, I brushed her off, and that fixed what ailed her.

And then we went on the swing (well, Ellie did.  But I pushed, so it was a team effort) which did little to calm the waving tufts of Ellie's plumage.

Out for a Walk

Ellie has now adopted walking as her primary mode of locomotion, which is adorable, and amusing, and breath-takingly slow.

On Saturday morning, we went to the Botanical Garden, because we had been lulled by Friday's marvelous weather into making assumptions about the advent of Spring.  Leo went out early in the morning (because Ellie has not adjusted well to Daylight Savings Time, and so is getting us up at an ungodly hour) and he reported that it was rather warm.  In the time that we were at the Garden, the temperature dropped 10 degrees, from not warm but not cold to really terribly cold.

But while we were there, Ellie got out of her stroller and took a saunter all by herself.

Not that she's proud of herself, or anything.  After these pictures were taken, she promptly took a header on the uneven planks, and that got me thinking: did the fact that her shoes were nearly impossible to get on mean that they were too small?  So I went digging in the boxes of clothes for Margaret's old shoes, found them, and she is walking much more steadily in them.

In the meantime, Margaret attempted to jump off the bridge, no doubt because we were planning on taking away her outgrown shoes.

But she was really just kidding.  

Joy, and the Plotting

The weather today was lovely, and it felt like Spring.  It's not going to last; Sunday we're supposed to have some sort of wintry mix, and the temperature is going to be in the 30s again, but there was this lovely moment this afternoon when it was 70 degrees.

So of course, we and approximately 1,000 of our closest friends went to the park.  Actually, we did meet someone from Margaret's school, and they played for a little bit.  Or rather, Margaret ran around shouting "Lucy's here!  That's so fun!" and Lucy looked a little frightened by Margaret's exuberance.  Leo left work a little early (or else at 5 precisely, which isn't technically early, but also isn't when he usually leaves), and he joined us.  Fun was had by all.

Margaret tried out the big person swing.  That's what she called it.  I think it might more properly be referred to as the big kid swing, since I think that one's swinging days are usually concentrated between 1 and 12, but that is a quibble that can wait until later to sort out.

Because the point is, she loved it.

My attempts to teach her to pump were not entirely successful, however.   I am hoping that we can work on that.

Ellie got in on the action, but she was in a baby swing because she is not a big person or even a big kid, no matter what she might think.  And she thinks that she is.  Seriously, a kid learns to walk, and suddenly she thinks she has permission to feed herself with a spoon (which I would like her to learn how to do, but not before I've coated the area and her in plastic) and climb stairs and probably stay out late with boys.

I think she's plotting something.  Probably growing up.  Luckily, the plot doesn't have to be all that detailed, so the fact that she's only 1 won't hinder her too much.

A Successful Hug

Margaret and Ellie have been trying for weeks, if not months, to successfully complete a hug.  This period has been filled with incidents like this one.

But today, in the park, they managed a hug which they were both happy about, and at the end of it, no one was lying on the ground, so I called it a success.

See?

See?  They're getting it.  Soon they will be able to hug unsupervised.

Shocked

Ellie cannot believe that you would be so irresponsible as to do that thing that you did that was so shocking and made her make this face.

But she is a very busy toddler (eep!) and she doesn't have time to waste on you.

Also, her work makes her feel very smug.

More Margaret

I haven't checked out the stats, because I do (whatever you people may think) have better things to do than rereading my own prose, but it seems to me that Ellie has been getting more time on this space for the last month or so.

Of course, Margaret has a commanding two-year lead, so if you're dying for Margaret stories, there is a pretty good archive.

And Ellie is learning to do things, like walk and talk and all that good stuff, and Margaret is learning to do things like say her colors in Spanish, which she will only do when no one except me is watching, because why would she want to show off?  Also, I spend more time with Ellie, what with the not going to school thing that she's got going on.

Anyway, I've been feeling bad.  And possibly a bit defensive, not that anyone could tell because I think I hide it very well.

So this morning, I made sure to take some pictures of Margaret.  It was warm enough that she could put on some of her new summer clothes, which made her very excited, and she wanted her picture taken for Nana.  So she posed.

And then, to add to the excitement of the impromptu photo shoot, she put a wastepaper basket on her head.

I think it works for her, don't you?

More Pictures Which I Neglected to Post Previously

So the park trip had many adorable still shots (although not many of Margaret, because the glare from the setting sun combined with her perpetual motion made most of the shots blurry.  I don't want anyone to think that Margaret is getting shortchanged on this blog, but she goes to school during a decent chunk of the time that I'm not working, and she never stops moving, which makes picture-taking hard.  I will make more of an effort in the future).

Anyway, I forgot to post them in the earlier post, because I got all excited about the fact that I was writing posts in the evening instead of waiting for a school day, and I was pleased because the upload time wasn't years, and I got the video, and then I just ended to post without putting up pictures like this one of Ellie, where it appears that she's standing on one leg.

She isn't, of course.  She's just walking.  But it looks like she's doing Tai Chi or something.  Very advanced, that baby.

We also have pictures of Ellie standing at the slide wondering how you get to the top of these big ones, and Margaret standing across from her, exuding nameless ennui.  Except that it's not nameless.  It's the sort of ennui you get when you slide down the slide that still has puddles on it from the rainstorm earlier in the day, and so it's not so much ennui as it is damp nether regions.*

Eventually, I took pity on Ellie and her clear desire for a ride on a slide (she has great aspirations, that one) and took her over to the small slides, where we played a fun game of static charge the baby.

When I picked her up from this, she got a shock, and I got the dirtiest look ever.  This last picture is taken afterwards, and you can see the tear in the corner of her eye.  Life is hard, and mommies are cruel.

*And, you know, as a parenting aside, hallelujah that damp nether regions are a cause for glum looks.  This is a great stride in child development.  Hosannah, &etc.