Well, They Are Little

We've been spending a lot of time talking about what to call M.  (Besides M, that is, which as far as names associated with Margaret is the one that seems to be winning).  When we're speaking about her, we call her Margaret, but when talking to her, we call her M.*

When we're not calling her other silly nicknames.  Leo's been calling her Chunky Monkey, which (though she doesn't have the monkey ears some of us do) is at least fair on one hand, since she weighed in at 13 pounds this morning.  There are also many nicknames ending in "pants" such as "happy pants" and "fussy pants." And there are many diminutives.  In fact, having shortened her name to M, we end up calling her "little M" more often that not.  Also "kidlet" and many names ending in "-kins."

But then I think I went too far the other day.

First, the evidence:

You see a small pair of boots.**  So somehow I combined two nicknaming tropes, using an article of clothing and a word indicting small size, and came up with "Little Boots."  I'm almost positive that we shouldn't be calling her that.

*When I type about her, I call her M because I'm too lazy to type Margaret.  I suspect this is where the nickname came from, actually.

**Because you know, she needs boots for all the hiking she's going to do.  I think that the cutest things about baby clothes are the things they absolutely don't need, like pockets and shoes.

Hey, Kid - You Don't Need To Be Ashamed Of Your Ears

When M is about to wake up, she makes a series of disgruntled noises (which is interesting, because usually she's a very gruntled baby) and waves her arms around.  It's very endearing; it makes her look so grown up to be stretching and waking up.

Frequently, her attempts to wake up get foiled, and she falls asleep before putting her arms back where they belong.  They get marooned up near her head, covering her ears, and she sinks back into peaceful slumber.

 

I think it's some sort of ancestral memory encoded into the mitochondrial DNA; I blame her Nana.*  After all, her hair isn't long enough to cover her ears, and perhaps in sleep she is more susceptible to strange whispers from the past.

Or she's trying to tear her hair out, no doubt muttering to herself in baby talk "how did I come to be born into such a family of fools?"*

*It seems likely that she would think that my (our?) obsession with ears is foolish, but that is no doubt because she has not lived for years with honking great ears that stick out from her head.  And, unless she decides to have plastic surgery to impose that defect, never will, and so will never understand the problem of enormous, protuberant ears.  And she should be grateful.

Success!!

The thumb went in the mouth this morning on purpose, and it stayed there, being noisily and excitedly sucked, for long enough for me to grab the camera and get a picture.

 

And in close-up.

 

Too close?  Perhaps.

Also, those of you in my gene pool, she appears to have gotten the eyebrows.  Oh dear. 

Thrift, Horatio*

Apparently, I'm not above cheaply quoting Hamlet out of context.  There was something I didn't know about myself.

Anyway, it appears that M is very thrifty, in a sort of a conspicuous consumption sort of way.  I've been lamenting the wastefulness of clothes that she has grown out of so quickly that she only got one wearing out of them.  M appears to have heard and understood and decided to take steps to make certain that the clothes get worn more frequently.  Of course, she's also not interested in going on a diet.  Her solution is to go through as many sets of clothes as she possibly can.

Here she is at 7 this morning.

 

Notice how she's helping Leo with his work.  Very helpful baby we've got.

Here she is at 7:30

 

 

(Admittedly, she'd really only added clothes at this point; the jacket and the hat were put on prefatory to going outside into the cold, cold world.  But I really just wanted to put up a picture of her in her overly teddy-beared outfit.  I like to think of it as an experiment - at what point does adding extra ears to my child's clothing stop being cute and become creepy?)

Here she is at 10.

 

And here she is trying to make it look like she took the picture herself.  We haven't yet gotten her to take over this job; we're figuring a couple of months, tops.  

(I've just realized that I'm setting a high bar for myself next time I have a baby, because I'm creating a semi-public record of the pictures I'm taking of M, and if I don't measure up on subsequent offspring, they're sure to be upset about it.  Oh dear.)

*No one has used funeral baked meats for anything, so no one needs to worry

We Need a Dog

I mean, we don't really.  I'm just driven by certain scripts, and I noticed this morning after giving M her bath that she bore a striking resemblance to Herge's hero, Tintin. 

Well, look.

Tintin and his dog Snowy:

 

And then M this morning post-bath:

 

 

Admittedly, the resemblance is more striking from the side, where you can really see the similarity in hairstyle, but if her hair gets any redder, we're going to be in the market for a white terrier, a drunk sea captain, a mad professor, and a pair of detectives named Thompson and Thomson who wear bowler hats and look like twins.*

Because we're a family that is somewhat strongly governed by textual precedent.  

 

Here's a bonus picture, because it better shows off her hedgehog shirt, which is also cute.**

*For those of you who didn't spend your childhoods reading Tintin, first, be glad that you never experienced the anguish of Tintin in Tibet always being out (I still haven't read it, but I keep my eye out), and second, here is a brief description of what I'm talking about.

**And gets us into another textual precedent.  I did laundry this morning, though, and you're not going to catch me ironing handkerchiefs for the two simple reasons that I don't want to, and we haven't any handkerchiefs in the wash to iron if I did want to.

Too Big For Her Britches

We're all well aware that M is a big baby.*  But I really think that it's a bit ridiculous that her 0-3 month size clothes are probably going to last her all of another 2 weeks.

 

From here, it doesn't look so bad.  A little tight in places maybe, but not a horrible fit.  But when you get in closer, you see how close she is to bursting out.

 

 

It gets stretched quite tight across the stomach.  But the real point of tension is the snaps.

 

Notice the gaps.  It took a good bit of tugging to get the thing on her.  I think it's going to be retired.

But this rapid growth is going to cause a problem or two.  First, all the 6-month stuff that we got, fondly imagining that she would be wearing it between May and July, is going to come into play in mid-March.  Summer clothes aren't really appropriate for a St. Louis March.  (Nor are they appropriate for a Washington March, which is where they're going to get worn first.  The point could be made that summer clothes are pretty much never appropriate for Washington.  And this would be a valid point, but hardly one that runs counter to this post).

On the bright side, I suppose that I could go and search through sale racks for long-sleeved onesies and whatnot.  But I hold that beginning to outgrow 0-3 month clothes just shy of the 4 week mark is excessive. 

*Not in a pejorative sense, but a factual one.  She is, in fact, an infant of impressive girth.

Take Your Daddy To Work Day

This morning,  I had something I needed to print and scan at Leo's office, so I was going to drive him in to work, complete that task and come home.  We were all up and dressed and ready to walk out the door at 6:45.  Of course, we didn't walk out the door at 6:45, because Leo has misplaced his keys, and so we couldn't get into his office until the receptionist got there (luckily, they're moving in 4 weeks, so if we don't find the keys, it's not the end of the world).

So we sat around killing time.

 

I think she looks cuter in her suit than Leo does, but she has the advantage of small hands and feet and the superfluousness of her shoes and pockets.  I've been collecting a bunch of cute pictures of M and Leo over the last month, and this seems like a good place to put them.

In the hospital the day after she was born.  If you look closely, you can see her poor, sad arm all hampered with the IV.

 

This is the morning after we brought her home.  Notice the tousley hair; she hadn't learned to sleep quite yet.  Also, notice the pillow behind Leo; it really ties the picture together (it's like we planned it, but at that point we were quite incapable of planning much of anything).

 

M spends a lot of time lying on Leo's chest.  Less now that she has figured out how to kick her legs, and so can deliver a fairly stunning blow to the stomach.  As she has gotten more interested in pushing herself up off the chest and trying to dive off the side, we have altered our chest-lying strategies.  Also, that sleeper she's wearing?  The one that looks a bit big for her?  It's a tight squeeze now.  

 

When he gets home from work, the first thing he does (provided it was Friday and he's not wearing his dry clean only suit) is scoop M up and give her a cuddle.  You can tell that she's well aware of the distinction her confers on her.

 

I promise he's not actually holding her up by her ears in this photo.  We were trying to get a picture of her outfit (because it's an awesome outfit complete with very silly shoes) and the best picture we got

 

(see, a very nice picture of Leo and M) obscured the feet entirely.  So he held her up, and we ended up with a picture that looks a little like him holding up a gorilla by the ears.