Baby's First Marginal Annotation

You know, there are milestones that everyone talks about, like baby's first step, and first tooth, and sleeping through the night, and walking and talking and all those things, but do you know what no one talks about?  When baby learns to read actively and take notes.*

Ellie's sick, and so I am skipping class tomorrow to stay at home with her, and that meant that I had to get my class prep done early, because I am currently at school at a parent conference night, and I needed to get my lesson materials on the desk for the sub tomorrow.  This meant that I needed to do some reading.  So since Ellie is the nicest baby in the world, she hung out and played around my feet while I read and underlined things in 1 Henry 4.

And when I was done, she wanted to play.

I can only imagine what will happen when she figures out how to take the cap off of the pen.  Anyway,  she thinks that the way to read is with a pen in your hand.  She was doing this to board books later on, which was completely adorable.  I like to think that she was jotting down possible corrections, because quite frankly Sandra Boynton needs a good editor. Or a bad editor.  Just some sort of editor.

*The reason for this, of course, might be that lots of kids don't know how to read actively as college students, but that is a blog post for another day, on another blog, with far more ranting in all-caps than is appropriate this venue.

Sad Panda

Ellie is sick again.  Not as badly as last time (and actually, the illness alluded to in that post was the antepenultimate illness.  The penultimate was a nasty stomach bug that Ellie got after her birthday party.   Which means that she may now have bad associations with chocolate cake.  I hope I haven't given her a lifelong complex.

She is so snotty that I think the snot is coming out her eyes.  And she has a fever.  And is -- when she refuses to take my advice and nap -- kind of miserable.  But ever-so snuggly, so we're giving her a pass.

But also pathetic.  (And actually, I took this photo because I was trying to see if she was asleep, and I couldn't see her face.  She wasn't, and she saw my phone, and decided that she Needed It Now, Thank You, Mommy, and the attempted naptime came to an abrupt end.  Humph.)

In the Ba-a-ath, in the Baaaaaaaaath

For those of you who are not familiar with the source material for my title, you may find enlightenment, or perhaps simply information, here.

It's the second track included there, but the first one is also funny, and will make you a better person if you listen to it.

Anyway, this morning, Margaret and Ellie found much simple pleasure in the bath.  They've* gotten big enough that I can give them a bath together, which is both more efficient and more work than bathing them separately.  Work that one out if you dare.

Anyway, they like it.

 Particularly Margaret, who was having so much fun that she demanded that I take a picture of her for Nana, because Nana would like to have a picture of Margaret mailed to her at 7 in the morning, said Margaret.  Forcefully.  So I took the picture.

Baths really are marvelous.  Ellie enjoyed hers too, not least because of the snot-loosening effects of warm steam.  She also, however, noted that it gave her some time to work on her basketball game.  With washcloths.

She was playing with washcloths, which is a kind of an odd choice, but she made it work.  Since she is, at this very moment, deeply into putting things into other things, and then taking them out and putting  them in again, the basketball hoop was a very, very exciting toy.  I had to pry her away from it (and for once I am not employing hyperbole) when her toes started to prune.  And that is why there is no picture of Ellie enjoying herself.  Well, that and the fact that she kept her pacifier glued to her jaws through the whole adventure.  Because heaven forbid that I be able to wash behind the binky.

Anyway, world peace, here we come.  In the bath.  In the bath.

*Ellie, mainly, but Margaret is also old enough to be a bit careful.

Up and About and Feeling Just Fine

After her overdramatic croup experience last weekend, Ellie has been doing well.  She's crawling around everywhere and occasionally taking forays into walking.  She climbs, as well.  At Leo's parents' house last night, we discovered that she knows how to climb stairs.  So things are doing well.

See?

She was trying to go up the slide, while Margaret was coming down.  Because she likes to live dangerously.

Almost 3 Going to College

One of the things that I remember very clearly from my days of teaching at the university level is the ubiquity of Ugg boots and sweatpants as the midwinter uniform of the female college freshman in early morning classes.

And then the other day, I looked at Margaret coming down the stairs, and realized that she was a very, very precocious young woman.

 

But she's very cute, and for that one, brief moment, was wearing pants, so I didn't want to pick a fight over the boots.

We have, however, clearly passed the point where I can pick out her clothes for her.  I think we'll send her to a school that has a uniform policy.

Great Escape

Day 1081: The rules we impose on Margaret are beginning to irritate her, and she suspects that the gate on the yard is not, as she has previously believed, impregnable.

Her attempts to break through are noticed, though, so she moves to another area and mounts a sneak attack on the defenses.

Having failed in her solo efforts, Margaret calls a conference, and the two detainees discuss their escape plans.

Keeping Things Exciting

A plague has swept through our house, a plague of coughing, hacking, snotting, sneezing, not sleeping properly and going through industrial size boxes of kleenex as if they were candy.

See?  Ellie helped.

It is important to blow your ears.  It's actually very cute, though, because she has no idea of the mechanics of nose blowing, but she has a very good sense of the sound, so when she holds the kleenex up to her ear, she makes a "pppbbbbtttthhhh" sound with her mouth.

Anyway, to return to the original thread of my narrative.  We were all swimming in phlegm, and it was unpleasant.  And then Ellie, who thought, no doubt, that she was being too easy-going, woke up Sunday afternoon sounding like she had been sneaking out during her naps for the past 30 years and smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes each time.

And that's how we ended up spending Sunday afternoon in the ER.  They gave her a nasty dose of epinephrine, and then steroids, and it was all very traumatic.  So she snuggled down on my chest and went to sleep, since she had to stay there for two hours for observation.

Notice the tear on her cheek.  So sad.

And then, after she'd slept off her anger and irritation and what have you, she still had bunches of adrenalin coursing through her veins, so she was up and about and raring to go.  

The problem was, of course, that we were in a hospital, where God-knows-who had gotten God-knows -what on the floors, and so I didn't want her crawling around on them, and she certainly didn't want to sit quietly for an hour.

Luckily, she was willing to occupy her time by learning to walk.  She took her first steps in the ER.  On the 20th of January, which means that she took her first steps 1 day earlier than Margaret, adjusted for birthdate.

(Not that I keep track, mind you).