Margaret is a punk rocker

All of a sudden, Margaret has started to outgrow a lot of her clothes. As a result, the other day, she was wearing tight jeans and her Chucks along with a striped shirt. That outfit, along with her shaggy, unkempt hair (still no haircut yet) led me to say, "You know what? She looks like a Ramone." (Abby didn't really appreciate the likeness, but see here or here.) Of course, Joey, may he rest in peace, would've been wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket (and his Chucks probably wouldn't have been pink), but I think that we captured the basic gestalt of the whole thing. (Personally, I think that this would be a great Halloween costume. But not many people would get it. Then again, Mickey at Margaret's daycare was dressed up as a punk rocker complete with black fingernail polish, so who knows.)

Why, you might ask, are the above photos all funky? Were we also shooting for some avant-garde photo effect in the pictures? No. Instead, it appears that our digital camera is kaput. Which bodes ill for dedicated readers of this blog who really show up for the photos rather than my entertaining, insightful (sic) ramblings. Rest assured, however, that we'll be heading to Best Buy tomorrow to look at new digital cameras. After all, Teddy's starting to smile. A lot. Which must be documented ad infinitum.

In other news, we traveled to Ohio for Thanksgiving. We learned a number of lessons from that trip:

First, and most important, the readership of this blog is much more extensive that I ever would've imagined. I always figured that it just involved a subset of immediate relatives (e.g. grandparents, some siblings, a few aunts and uncles) along with a few other folks, but the audience is somewhat larger than that. Admittedly, it still involves extended family, but when my 18 year-old cousin comments on my blog posts, I know that I've tapped into something that is much bigger than me or this blog. Or something like that.

Our kids are pretty good travelers at this point. The trip to Ohio from DC, under ideal circumstances, would take about 6 hours. Our trip took about 9 hours each way. But 2.5 of those extra hours involved planned stops (i.e. a visit to P'burgh to visit some friends and pick up a marriage certificate - good news, we were officially married back in 2003 - on the way there, and then a stop for dinner in central PA with the Philly relatives on the way back.) In terms of fussing, we experienced about 30 minutes in each direction that involved sustained (and coordinated) fussing by the kids. They spent most of the time sleeping.

Margaret has a very strong "survival instinct" which leads her to avoid most new people. For example, everytime she was almost handed to my brother Steve, she would yell "No! No! No!" Luckily, he didn't take it personally. About the only people who she voluntarily will engage are my sister, her husband (Margaret ran to him with a big hug in parking lot of their central PA hotel - Joe said, "Wow, what a nice greeting." I pointed out that, after three hours in the car, she probably would've hugged anyone.), my Dad, and my Mom.

Speaking of my Mom, while Abby's parents are purveyors of fast food, my Mom appears to be the key source of sweets. Margaret's exposure to sweets has been pretty limited thus far, not due to any concerted effort on our part, but rather because we just don't eat many sweets. She would just as soon eat "pizza" or fruit rather than candy. However, on Thanksgiving, Margaret found out that she loves pumpkin pie, thanks to my mom. Then I caught Mom feeding her a chocolate chip cookie at my aunt and uncle's house. Now, I don't object to her eating such foods, but dangit, I should be the one who gets the adoration that accompanies sweets.

Teddy's latest (mundane) trick

In preparation for our Thanksgiving trip to Ohio later this week, we figured that we'd see if Teddy would eat from a bottle. The possible need to use a bottle in the car to calm him down, or if we happen to go "out" leaving him with the grandparents, might make eating from a bottle a useful skill.

Needless to say, he took to it like a champ. He was a bit sloppy with lots of dribbling. And it seemed that, if anything, he was getting too much food. But he wasn't like some other kids that we've heard about who refuse to take a bottle. In those cases, we've even heard about the dad sending the mom out for the day to remove her from the picture. Teddy, as befits his generally easygoing nature, had no major problems.

In celebration, Teddy produced three poopy diapers shortly after his first bottle feeding.

A smiling baby

No sooner do I call Teddy out for his disappointing lack of interesting facial expressions than guess what happens: He starts to smile. And not the type of smiles that are typically attributed to gastointestinal issues, although lord knows he probably generates those smiles too. Instead, honest-to-goodness smiles.

It happened yesterday morning while Abby was holding him in bed. I leaned over and said "Bonk" while tapping him on the nose with my index finger. I did it again. He started to grin. So I did it again. He grinned again. So I kept going "bonk, bonk, bonk" accompanied by tap, tap, tap on his nose and, I swear, he started to giggle. At some point, I asked Abby, "Is he actually laughing?" "I think so," she replied as I kept bonking him on the nose.

Just to verify that this wasn't a fluke involuntary response, I tried the same trick again later. That's the source of the above photos. Pretty cool. At Teddy's age, he doesn't interact with us very much. Doesn't watch his sister, doesn't seem to register the dog, doesn't really notice me. But now we may be reaching the point at which that type of fun interaction begins.

In the meantime, here are some more photos of his sister including some of her with her free Cat In the Hat backpack that we got for joining (in desperation for new books) the Dr. Seuss book club and some from our return today to the Air and Space Museum (Margaret didn't last nearly as long as she did on our previous trip.) FYI, the two photos of Margaret and me looking pensive outside near the end of the slideshow were taken as we watched two squirrels fight near the museum. And the thing on her head in other photos is my camping headlamp (also called a "ding lamp" by those in the know). That, along with her backpack, would suggest a little backpacker in training. Since her mom has shown no desire to engage in that type of activity, I can only hope that Maggie has inherited the backpacking gene from her Papa.

Pictures and Pizza

One problem with Teddy is the fact that, frankly, he's not terribly photogenic at this point. He's a bit spotty these days and just doesn't have the ability to work the camera the way that his sister does. Admittedly, he's only 6 weeks old, but the lack of a smile, or really any interesting face other than a slack-jawed, tongue-out blank gaze, is really holding back his presence in our photo collection. But it is tough when you're the second kid (we have tons of slack-jawed, tongue-out photos of Margaret) especially when your sister is so dang photogenic. (I went into a colleague's office the other day with a picture of Margaret that I'd printed and said, "You know, people are naturally biased towards thinking that their kid is cute. But you can't deny that this is one cute kid!" Naturally, he agreed, although I suppose he didn't have much of an option. We're currently trying to figure out from whom she inherited her smile. From me - ha! From Abby - more likely.)

One clear part of my genetic code that Margaret has inherited is a preference for olives. Currently, olives are one of Margaret's favorite foods. My family universally likes olives. Abby's family universally (I believe) does not. My sister and her kids all like olives. Her husband's family does not. Or at least doesn't show the obsession with olives that infects my sister, her kids and my extended family - put out a bowl of olives, preferably black olives not the high falutin' kalamata kind, and they'll be gone in five minutes whenever anyone from my side of the family is present. Consumption of olives literally involves strategic actions by me and my siblings (and now, our kids) - you don't want to seem like a glutton by eating too many olives, but if you place yourself correctly relative to the bowl of olives and are discrete enough, you can surreptitiously get 20 or so olives. This is a longstanding source of family competition which, it so happens, is especially relevant around Thanksgiving when olives invariably make an appearance.

So it seems clear that there is a gene in my family that leads to a fondness for olives even in the presence of conflicting genes from those who aren't as fond of them. Margaret likes them so much that she'll plead for more during dinner whenever they make a brief appearance.

But she calls them pizza. Don't ask me why, but when Margaret has a craving for olives, or spots even one of them, she cries "Pizza! Pizza!"

She also calls "Elmo" "Neemo." And a hippo is a "bippo." Given these persistent vocabulary problems, it's good that she's got that photogenic smile going for her.

One last thing: Teddy and I hung out for around 30 minutes this evening while his mom read books to his sister and put her to bed. The entire time, he just lay there and looked around with big eyes as I held him while reading the newspaper. At a similar age, his sister NEVER would have done that. So even if he currently doesn't have the photogenic smile (or vocabulary, however flawed) of his sister, he's a really pleasant kid to have around.

The poopy baby

As you may have gathered from my earlier posts, Teddy is a pretty easy baby, especially when compared to his sister at the same age (or now!) Of course, this impression partly arises due to our experience with babies since we don't jump at every squawk that he makes. But objectively, he doesn't squawk very much. Instead, he either eats and sleeps (napping and snacking, or nacking and snapping, we call it) or he enjoys lots of the contemplative quiet time that we have always read about in the books, but never experienced with his sister. For example, one book that we have describes the five S's which involve swaddling, side, shushing, swinging, and sucking to calm a fussy kid. We tried all of these tricks with Margaret with varying degrees of success. Swaddling worked ok - she was much calmer when we could keep her wrapped up so that she didn't bonk herself in the head. Swinging was key - for months, Margaret's longest episodes of sleep involved naps in the swing. And, given her continued fondness for the nuk-nuk, sucking has also been a winner. But with Teddy, we haven't had to employ ANY of those techniques. Nor have we had to walk him around the block to quiet him down (although he does nap well in the Baby Bjorn carrier.) The only thing that we've had to do with him is to put him to bed in his car seat rather than his crib. But, frankly, I don't care where he sleeps as long as he sleeps. And sleeping in the car seat is much more convenient for travelling since we're already bringing his bed along with us.

However, the key dimension in which he "outperforms" his sister is his gastrointestinal performance. He's one farty, poopy baby. I don't remember poopy diapers as a signature event of Margaret's first few months, but that, along with his pleasant demeanor, will be a primary memory that I'll retain for Teddy. This poopiness involves two things: A) frequent poopy diapers and B) LOUD announcement of their arrival. We recognized this tendency early on: A few pooplosions (as we've started to call them) that startle you from across the room really get your attention. The Philadelphia relatives tell stories about how Teddy's cousin, Andrew, was so loudly effusive that they had to move him out of the room so that they could sleep. But when we were up there last weekend, they agreed that Teddy could give Andrew a run for his money. For example, Teddy's lying on my chest while I'm lying on the couch reading a book. "Ppthhh." "Did you hear that one Joe?" "Yep." Then five minutes or so later: "Pppthhhhh." "Was that you or him?" "Him. That's my boy!"

Another example: Tonight I was changing Teddy's diaper before sending him down with Abby to watch "Project Runway." Now, I don't change many of his diapers. Partly this is because I'm not with him as much as Abby so I don't have to opportunity to do so, but it's also because I've changed lots of really messy diapers care of Margaret during the last month when Abby hasn't been able to pick up Margaret. I figure that kind of balances out.

Anyway, I was feeling magnanimous so I plopped Teddy down in his bed, pried off a (poopy) diaper, and tightened up a new one. As I picked him up and started to carry him out of the room, he got a very focused expression on his face. Now, generally his expressions are very unfocused at this point, with random looking around and scrunched up faces. So I thought that he may be registering my presence. "Do you see me?," I asked. "Will you smile for Papa?" He responded with a look of deep concentration followed by "Pppthhhhh." Needless to say, I had to change him again.

When I told Abby about his quick repeat performance of the poopy diaper, she said "Yeah, he does that a lot."

Birdland

There are two reasons for this soundtrack. First, we heard this song on the radio on our way out of Philly this weekend after paying a visit to the Philly relatives. We were tuned into the UPenn radio station, and when this song started playing (right around the point where our tire blew out the last time we went to Philly), I said "Are they actually playing 'Birdland'? I've never heard this on the radio." Abby, being understandably ignorant of these things, was silent. So I proceeded to give a lengthy description (helps kill time when driving to DC from Philly) of who 'Weather Report' was and how this song was a big hit in the discos of 1977 despite it's jazz roots.

Now the second reason for this song: Why, you ask, do we care? Well, we don't really except that my brother was stuck filling in for someone on a late night public radio show in Minneapolis. The person he was replacing apparently left him with a defective play list, so he was forced to wing it. Despite the focus of the show on techno music, something that my brother was not terribly familiar with, this song was stuck in my head so I said that I would have played "Birdland", and screw the response of the audience. But that song never would've entered my mind without the visit to Philly.

More on the Philly trip later

It's hard to be a toddler

Today, our morning began in typical fashion. Margaret woke up around 6:00, and I brought her into bed with us. At which point, she started to fuss and complain. She fussed when Abby read her books, she fussed when I brought her a piece of bread, and she fussed whenever anything generally "untoward" happened. About the only thing that kept her happy was Maddie. But Maddie gets very nervous around the kids since they're liable to start fussing at any moment which Maddie does not enjoy. It's a lovely predicament - Margaret is fussing so we call Maddie who doesn't like to be around when Margaret is fussing even though Maddie can quell the fussing. So you can understand the situation that we're dealing with these days.

It got even better later in the morning. Maddie, Margaret and I went to the park while Abby when to an open house at our local public elementary school. Despite the notorious state of most DC public schools, the reputation of our local school is surprisingly positive. Since we're starting to think about Margaret's future education, and correspondingly are considering where we'll live long term, we figured that Abby would check it out. But this digression deserves a post of it's own, so I'll get back to the main theme of today's post. Fussiness.

Once we all got back home, I put together an early lunch while Abby and Teddy hung out on the couch and Margaret wandered around in her usual way. At some point, that wandering degenerated into a display that I hadn't seen before - lying on the ground face down while kicking and screaming. A classic temper tantrum. While we watched Margaret voice her frustration with life, Abby noted that she'd seen this behavior once or twice before.

The really fun aspect of that tantrum, and others, is that it wasn't clear what actually set Margaret off. Actually, the immediate cause of the tantrum was clear (me eating one of her graham crackers), but the reason for its severity was tough to understand. It turns out that once Margaret starts ratcheting up her cries, the underlying cause isn't important - fussiness inevitably begets more fussiness.

Later, after a nap, we made the mistake of trying to get her photo taken for a passport. You would think that the photo guy and I were going to torture her on the stool given her response to being placed on it. Having two young kids of his own, the photo guy was quite sympathetic, but he also didn't want to hang around as she screamed every time he came near her and raised the camera. Margaret and I wandered around the store for a while before I finally got her to be reasonably calm on the stool. The photo guy gave me the camera, and I snapped the picture, although he told me that the passport people might object to the fact that you can't see both ears in the picture (dang anti-terrorism regulations.) But I think that both ears are reasonably visible, and I wasn't going to try for another one.

We then had fussiness when shopping for baby clothes. And when driving home. And then screaming and arching of the back when I put her in the stroller to take Maddie for a walk. And then more screaming during the bath - you'd think that I was waterboarding her given her response to the bath. (Torture would appear to be an apt metaphor for what happens to her on a daily basis given her response to the various slights that she experiences and impediments that she faces.)

All of this inevitably leads to plaintive cries as Margaret pleads for her pacifier while using one of her newest phrases: "Nuk, nuk." I have no idea how we're going to get rid of that dang thing.

As for Teddy, he fusses in his own way, but he's pretty easy to placate. And he's working on his smile.


In other news, Eleanor was in town last weekend, so here are some pics of that and other stuff:

Nursery rhymes

One of the new hits in our household is nursery rhymes. It all started with a board book that we picked up from Abby's Cali relatives during our trip there. Margaret enjoys them and has little routines that she goes through as we read them. "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake baker's man" gets hand movements and "Mary, Mary quite contrary" or "Mary had a little lamb" elicits cries of "Mary!"

But what I find interesting is how odd some nursery rhymes are. For example, "Peter, Peter pumpkin eater" sticking his wife in a pumpkin shell is strange. Even better are the medieval geo-political statements that some nursery rhymes contain. My current favorite (care of Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Ever) goes as follows:

Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a thief,
Taffy came to my house
And stole a piece of beef.

I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy wasn't in,
I jumped upon his Sunday hat
And poked it with a pin.

Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a sham,
Taffy came to my house
And stole a leg of lamb.

I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was away,
I stuffed his socks with sawdust
And filled his shoes with clay.

Taffy was a Welshman,
Taffy was a cheat,
Taffy came to my house
And stole a piece of meat.

I went to Taffy's house,
Taffy was in bed,
I took a marrow bone
And beat him on the head.

For good reason, it seems that this one hasn't entered the pantheon of classic nursery rhymes. I'm not sure what's up with the recurrent robberies and ensuing acts of revenge and violence, or what the deal is with bashing Welshmen, but I suspect that dissertations have been written analyzing the political statements in Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Abby and I giggle about these odd entries. I'm pretty sure that Margaret doesn't get it.

As for Teddy, he's still being a mellow kid and, frankly, isn't very interesting at this point. Except for his skill at creating poopy diapers, something that he does much more frequently (and more loudly) than his sister ever did.