Back at home after Xmas

We've made it back home after another grueling roadtrip. Actually, the trip back from CT wasn't quite as bad as the trip up since Teddy was more cooperative. He did cry from Baltimore to DC, right around the time that we couldn't justify a stop, and Margaret chimed in to get the stereo sound going, but both of them slept for a good part of the trip.

We have tons of photos. While I'm not terribly inclined to organize them too much, here is a basic breakdown.

Margaret showing off her outfit on Xmas Eve. (She was in a pretty fussy mood, so Dad used all of his powers to keep her happy.)

Opening presents on Xmas Day. Margaret had lots of fun with all of the commotion, although she didn't really seem to understand the significance of presents and lost interest after an hour or so.

But she did get to partake of peppermint stick ice cream, an Xmas tradition in the CT household.

Of course, we can't forget about Teddy who, just when it seemed that he wasn't getting enough attention, would yelp and cry to bring things back around to him.

And last, a movie of Margaret struggling with modern communications technology. As if her communication skills weren't handicapped enough as it is, she's also got this silly phone to deal with.

Xmas Eve in CT

We made it to CT on Saturday after a 10 hour trip that, pre-kids, would've taken somewhere between 6 and 7 hours. Given our recent experience during our trip to Ohio for Thanksgiving, that time loss was to be expected. But we had the misfortune of experiencing more traffic delays in conjunction with fussiness which was very pleasant. Teddy, in particular, showed some real skill in being able to sustain a full wail.

Margaret had a grand time yesterday unpacking boxes and putting presents under the tree. She has no idea what the presents actually are as she showed no interest in unwrapping them. Once that connection is made, we won't be able to give her freedom to bring the presents out and probably won't be able to leave them around in her presence at all. But boy did she have fun with all the colorful presents! She'd trundle back to a bedroom saying "More" and "Oh boy!" only to reappear with another present that she'd toss under the tree (anything fragile there? who knows) before running back for more.

More Maddie news

Today, I got a call from the vet who told me that something had come back positive in Maddie's heartworm test. My immediate thought was that she had heartworms which is very, very bad since the medicine to treat that condition is one of those that tries to kill the heartworms without killing the dog. But it turns out that she tested positive for Lyme disease. That doesn't mean that she has Lyme disease, but that she has evidence of the nasty little critters in her blood. I did pluck a few ticks off of her over the summer, so I suppose that's not inconceivable. Luckily, it doesn't sound like Lyme disease is a big deal in dogs, unlike with people. The disease can be similarly difficult to diagnose, but the vet's opinion was that it was worth putting her on a round of antibiotics given this positive test rather than doing additional, more accurate tests. Those antibiotics tend to clear up the disease in dogs (again, unlike for people) over a few weeks.

This may explain why Maddie has seemed a bit stiff lately. I chalked that stiffness up to her advancing age, but I suppose that it could be Lyme disease although she hasn't shown any of the severe symptoms associated with the disease (e.g. extreme lameness.) Hopefully, this treatment will help her recover some of her verve and vigor. Not that she's really lost it since she still loves to play ball (although we don't play frisbee anymore, leaving that pastime to poseurs at the dog park who Maddie would've put to shame in her prime.) But she has been taking more time going up the stairs and jumping into the car and onto the bed.

As for the kids, Teddy has started to display a disturbing tendency to cry inconsolably right around the time that I get home from work and start cooking dinner. We'll see if it continues at which point my dedicated readers can expect a full deconstruction of this behavior.

A big day!

A friend of mine was in town today to give a presentation at work. When he asked how the kids were, I mentioned how one of Margaret's first words was "No." But she also didn't quite understand how to use it. "Margaret do you want a bath?" "No." Ok, that's reasonable. But then "Margaret do you want a cookie?" "No." So it wasn't quite clear that she understood what she meant.

Lately, her No's have gotten quite a bit more emphatic. One of the key times that this arises has been when she has a dirty diaper. "Margaret, are you stinky?" we ask. "No" is the inevitable response. "Do you need to go potty?" we ask thinking that might encourage an interest in the potty. "No." (She will sometimes declare that she's stinky, but when we ask her, will then deny it.)

But today, we got a new response for the first time. "Margaret, are you stinky?" I asked. You could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she considered the question. Finally, she responded "Yessss." Then, "Did you go potty?" "Yessss." "Do you need to go potty?" "Yesss." I had to capture this momentous event for posterity, so see the following video (in which I also prompt her to announce herself as a menance.) And, at the end of the video, I get a clear admission that she's "stinky."

But at the end of the day, I'm not quite sure that she understands the proper use of the word yes since later on I asked "Do you want to read another book?" "Yesssss." Reasonable. "Do you want to get in bed?" That certainly warrants a No, but I got a "Yessss."

Kid and dog

I bashed DC pretty hard in my last post. But someone out there managed to beat even my currently low expectations. While taking Maddie and Margaret for a walk this morning (to let Abby sleep), we passed a house that had a nativity scene set up in their lower stairwell. With the exception of the baby Jesus. According to the note in the nativity scene, someone had stolen him. Lovely. Regardless of your religious inclinations, that's screwed up.

But on the upside, the Prozac for dogs already seems to be working for Maddie since she's doing a better job of dealing with the kids' fussing. She spent the entire day today with us on the main floor, although she slept for a lot of that time. For happier times, see the photos above of Maddie and Thing 1. As for Maddie in action, check out the following:

One of those days

Today was just difficult. Why don't we start at the end and work our way backwards...

The people two doors down invited us, kids and all, to their holiday party. We haven't gotten to know our neighbors very well since our time is dominated by other concerns (known as Thing 1 and Thing 2), so we were pleased to be invited and were excited to get to know them better. Since I didn't shave this morning because I decided to take the day off from work, I shaved just before we were going to leave. And managed to give myself an odd little nick on the nose (or as Margaret would call it, Noe-sss) which bled profusely and just wouldn't stop (a common occurrence with shaving wounds, but this was severe even though the cut itself wasn't.) Completely annoying - I couldn't go over to the party with blood dripping off my nose. Conveniently, Teddy decided to scream. So there I was running around with tissue paper attached to my nose while Teddy screamed, Abby tried to get ready to go, and Margaret messed around looking to get into trouble. In the end, I stayed home with a screaming Teddy and bloody nose while Margaret and Abby went to the party for 20 minutes or so, but boy was that a great end to the day.

Then earlier in the day, an "underemployed" friend of ours parked his car in our garage. His car isn't properly registered or inspected, so he needed some place to park it where the traffic cops wouldn't have access to it. In a fit of silly generosity, I offered to let him use our garage a few weeks ago, but he didn't take us up on it at the time, so we thought it might pass. But then he called up today and asked if the offer was still open. I told him that it had to be out by early January when Abby goes back to work so she won't have to look for parking at night when coming home, and he agreed, but it's still a pain to lose use of our garage for a few weeks, especially since the garage is great for loading the kids. This is one of those times when you ask yourself why you decided to be so generous.

Just before he called, I paid a visit to the DMV to get our car registration renewed. The DC DMV is a place unlike any other for the uniform (and wholly predictable) unpleasantness of the experience of going there. This time, the primary difficulty was that I had to document our new address in addition to getting the registration renewed. Although I took a stack of papers to try to verify our new address, I apparently didn't have the key document to show that we lived where we live. For example, our lease wasn't signed by our landlord since she happens to live in Italy. So that didn't count, although I could've "signed" her name to the document and they never would've known. Alternatively, I could've kept all of the registration listed for our old address and it wouldn't have mattered. But try to be an upstanding citizen and keep everything current and what happens? You get turned away by surly employees at the DC DMV. But I should have expected that outcome since it took four trips to the DMV to register our car the first time around. As Richard, our friend whose car is in our garage, said when I told him about what happened, "Of course you didn't have the right documents. What did you expect?"

Sometimes this city just gets annoying. A few days ago, Abby had to pick up a package from the post office that required a signature, but was addressed to Margaret. Now the signature verification requirement is a good idea in general since, damn this city, packages seem to disappear from our front porch. For example, the neighbors who were throwing the party tonight apparently dropped off a gift for Teddy shortly after he was born. Very nice of them, but we didn't get it (and we feel very bad for them that that happened.) Instead, someone else is using a towel with a monogram "Theodore." I hope they're enjoying it. And that they think about little Teddy every time they use it.

But back to the post office story, it seems that Abby could not pick up the package since she wasn't actually Margaret. "But she's my daughter and, in any case, she's only 1 1/2 years old so she couldn't sign her name anyway," Abby tried to point out. "But she's not you," was the response. "Where is she?" "In daycare!" The woman that Abby was dealing with almost sent the package back to the sender before a more reasonable USPS employee stepped in to sort things out. In hindsight, Abby should have just claimed that the kid in the Baby Bjorn was Margaret since who was going to check? Again, all of this just encourages us to lie. (My friends who live in Northern Virginia like to point out that government services are much more pleasant and efficient there than they are in DC. And no one ever steals a package off your front porch.)

Returning to events of the current day, this morning, Maddie and I visited the vet for a check-up. A few things have been going on in Maddie's life that have given us cause for concern. First, she gets very nervous when the kids cry, something that I've been meaning to write about for a while. This is problematic since, to be honest, the kids tend to cry and fuss a lot. Which is unpleasant for everyone, but especially, it seems, for Maddie. It's gotten to the point where Maddie doesn't seem to like to hang out with the rest of us and, when she does, will creep away when the inevitable crying starts. I actually thought about sending Maddie to get some R&R (relatively speaking) with the relatives in Philly for a few weeks. They're past the extreme fussing stage, so I thought that she might enjoy getting away from the "menace" known as Margaret (and, to a lesser extent, Teddy.)

The second development is that Maddie's vision has been deteriorating a bit. Nothing serious, but it's noticeable, especially when we play ball in the evening at the park. She has more trouble picking up the ball from a distance, and we invariably lose at least one ball since when she can't find it in the dark, neither can I. And when Abby is walking to meet us in the park and I ask "Where's Abby?," it takes Maddie a while to pick her up whereas, in the past, she would have taken off like a shot directly towards Abby (often before I even asked.)

I wanted to ask the vet if he had any suggestions about how to deal with these problems. For the first, he suggested that we try "Reconcile" which is basically Prozac for dogs and is primarily used to treat separation anxiety, although as he pointed out, it can be helpful for any type of anxiety. Now, I'm not too keen on dosing my dog with drugs just as I'm not a big fan of dosing people with drugs to deal with these types of problems. But it's gotten so depressing to watch Maddie that I figured we'd give it a shot for a month or so just to see if it helps.

Sigh. One of the things about Maddie is that when she and I go for walks alone in the evening, she's just like the puppy that she was years ago, prancing along and jumping up on things while inviting me to play. But toss Margaret into the mix (and to a lesser extent, Teddy) and Maddie becomes a much more tentative and obviously unhappy dog. Perhaps the real solution is to send Margaret to the Philly relatives for a few weeks so that Maddie can get some real R&R.

For the vision issues, the vet checked her eyes and said that he thinks that she's suffering from Progressive Retinal Atrophy (PRA). This is an untreatable genetic condition that, for dogs of Maddie's age, leads to progressive deterioration of vision with the end result of blindness. This is a very depressing diagnosis although as the link above describes, dogs with this condition don't experience physical pain and don't experience the same psychic trauma that people do when faced with a similar condition especially since the progression of the condition is sufficiently slow that the dog learns to adapt to it over time.

However, there is still a lot of uncertainty associated with this diagnosis. First, does she actually have PRA? Many of the websites that I found suggest that it's very rare in Border Collies and can often be misdiagnosed (which still leaves open the issue of what might be wrong with her vision and how that condition might proceed.) Second, how fast will it progress? Some resources suggest that it can proceed so slowly that things don't get much worse at all or, at least, the dog won't outlive the progression of the condition. To get more info about these issues, we might consult a pet opthamologist. Does she have PRA and, if not, what eye problems is she experiencing? How far along is she in the process and how might things proceed and at what rate?

In any case, any eye problems don't seem to be affecting Maddie very much at this point except for the nighttime rounds of ball. Her main issue at this point is how to deal with the kids, so we'll see if the doggie Prozac helps out on that front. And regardless of how things go with her vision, we'll deal with them. I was lucky that the first website that I read about the condition was the one listed above since that site has some good advice about how to deal with deterioration in vision of dogs, but if anyone wants to get us a depressing, but potentially useful book for Xmas, you could consider the one cited on that page. At the end of the day, this might turn out to be a boon for Maddie since the dog with eye problems is likely to get more sympathy than the petulant little kid.

Our day began with another depressing event. On our way back from buying diapers and Xmas tree lights at CVS (it seems that our Xmas tree lights only last a year and, lord knows, diapers don't last very long in our household), Abby spotted an elderly woman on her patio outside of her house. She had fallen and appeared to be completely disoriented. I went to help her, asking her whether she needed an ambulance. She wanted to get back into her house, but I wasn't strong enough to pick her up myself. We got a contractor from across the street to help me, and together we managed to get her inside the house. We asked whether she had someone to call or needed us to call someone, but she didn't want us to do so. She was still disoriented, but was thankful for our help and didn't seem to want any more. And to top it all off, I got a whiff of wine which the contractor apparently got in a greater dose. A completely troubling situation - we may check in on her tomorrow to see if she's ok and to make sure that she's not suffering from dementia or something like that.

The start of what turned out to be a very interesting day.

Because your Daddy loves you

We have a very standard routine when putting Margaret to bed. Following dinner, which invariably involves some sort of crisis when Margaret objects to the food that she's been given (often without trying it - "But I know you like peas! You can't live on raisins alone!"), we head upstairs, generally for a bath. As my previous post discussed, baths are not as traumatic as they once were. After the bath, we put on our PJs, a new word in Margaret's vocabulary, and then we read books. Lots and lots of books. As the actual reader of these books, one becomes quite the connoisseur of children's literature, as I think I've mentioned before. Good books have a number of characteristics.

First, a good rhythm. One of the recent books from the library that I really enjoyed was Hippos Go Berserk by one of the stalwarts of children's lit, Sandra Boynton. Not only does that book involve one of Margaret's favorite animals (Bippos!!), but it has a great rhyming rhythm. First page - "One hippo all alone." Second page - "Calls two hippos on the phone." Third page - "Three hippos at the door." Fourth page - "Bring along another four." And so on until the hippos all go berserk in a party that's more wild than any I remember from college. After which, the hippos start leaving and the cadence of the book changes. Still rhyming and rhythmic, but very different from the initial arrival of the hippos. Brilliant. I can see why the author is such a star among the kiddie set. (In my opinion, Abby could never quite get the cadence of this book, a problem that is present for lots of other books. Of course, such editorial comments only ensure that I'll be reading lots more kiddie books in the future. Whoops. But at least I'll read them right!)

The second key characteristic of a good book is one that induces responses from Margaret. For example, various Berenstain Bears books have facial expressions that Margaret likes to mimic. Or she'll point out characters such as Peter in "A Snowy Day" or the Mamas who show up in various texts. My parents brought us a whole series of books that were a hit in this respect entitled "Can You?" which involve photos of animals engaged in certain behavior along with questions like "Can You?" . . . "Stick out your tongue." Margaret likes the animals (another quality of a good book), but also likes to mimic them.

After working through a number of these books each night (I believe that I typically read Margaret more of them than Abby does - darnit another editorial comment that will come back to bite me - where's the "censor" button on these computers?), Margaret and I conclude with a book that someone out there gave us at some point: "Because your Daddy loves you." Now, this isn't a great rhyming book, and the pictures aren't that great. But there are drawings of a little girl and her Daddy which lead Margaret to point at the little girl and then herself when asked "Where's the little girl?" and to point at the Daddy and then me when asked "Where's the Daddy?" (which always gets a big bearhug from me after she does so.) What's really interesting about this book is the message that it's clearly sending to the Daddies of the world:

When you stop for ice cream on the way home and your cone
makes a big gooey mess, your daddy could say,
Now look what you've done!
But he doesn't.

He finds a paper napkin and he gets it wet at the drinking fountain.
He wipes off your mouth, then both of your
hands - one sticky finger at a time.

Basically, this is a book to prevent "child abuse," broadly defined. Of course I can't yell at Margaret after reading this book even if she's tearing up the house. Because her Daddy loves her. (I've been teaching her to say "menace" so that when I ask her "Margaret, what are you?" she'll reply "menace." She doesn't quite have it down yet.)

But the end is the best part. The Daddy carries the girl up to bed:

And then your daddy could say,
See you tomorrow,
or
Sleep tight,
or
Sweet dreams.
But he doesn't.
He says,
"I love you."

It's sickeningly sweet, but when we get to that last line, Margaret, knowing what's coming, "says" it too me, in her own garbled way. A few hugs and then she's in bed.

Thank you, Cousin Lizzie

The previous photos are the result of our attempts to get an Xmas photo of the kids for our Xmas cards. Going into this process, I envisioned tons of photos in which we tried to get the kids to sit still and/or to stop fussing. Luckily, they were both in a pretty good mood so we got a good series of shots. The ones above are a teaser since the best will be coming in our cards.

But the important news is that baths have become much more pleasant lately, at least for the oldest kid. In the past, baths have been a real chore - lots of crying and fussing with repeated complaints about soap and other stuff in the eyes. But recently, baths have been much more pleasant. I attribute the change to Margaret's cousin Lizzie. When we were last in Philly, Margaret and Lizzie took a few baths together. This was lots of fun and involved dumping water on one another. In the past, Margaret has not viewed this as a pleasant pastime, but when her older cousin does it, it's a lot of fun. So now, when we dump water on Maggie's head, we say "Like Lizzie!!" And Margaret not only finds this acceptable, she actually enjoys and encourages it. Thus far, this hasn't extended to other events (e.g. eat your broccoli - Like Lizzie!), but we'll see.

Our biggest fan

I called my Mom tonight (Thursday around 10:00 PM EST) and, during our conversation, she asked "Did you figure out what Margaret wanted?" "What are you talking about?," I responded. "Did you figure out what Margaret wanted when she was saying the F-word?" Now, I posted that story all of one hour ago, so my reaction was "I just wrote that. You've already read that post?" But of course, since it would appear that my Mom is our biggest fan.

The gauntlet has been thrown down, and we'll have to see if the other side of Margaret and Teddy's gene pool can keep up.

Margaret's new word

Our little angel revealed a new word in her vocabulary today. During one of her standard, pre-dinner meltdowns in which she requests food, she pointed at the shelves on which we store food and yelled "F*CK." "What did you say?," I asked. "F*CK, F*CK, F*CK," she kept yelling along with wild hand gestures.

Now what should I do in this situation? On the one hand, that's obviously a problematic word for a toddler to throw around. It's was pretty clear that she had a particular item in mind, something that she calls F*CK, but that others would call something else. (BTW, I don't know where she would've picked this up since Papa - the problem in our household - has cracked down on his cursing now that Margaret is a little copycat.) On the other hand, I didn't want to make a big deal about it since who knows what she would infer about a word that drew a big reaction from Dad.

So I ended up leaning out of the kitchen and telling Abby, "Guess what your daughter just yelled." Remarkably, Abby wasn't very accusatory about where the kid must have learned that word.

By request, solo Teddy pics

It has been brought to my attention, by a long-time, devoted reader, that I haven't posted enough solo Teddy pics. Due to her ability to infiltrate any scene, Margaret seems to be in too many of the photos that also include the boy.

In other news, I complained about Teddy's recent tendency to, well, cry a lot in my last post. He outdid himself last night, putting on an impressive 45 minute crying session for no apparent reason. Luckily, just when it appeared that Teddy's eyes would pop out of his head due to the effort behind his wailing, our thoughtful first child provided an ideal distraction. In particular, she barfed in her crib and managed to do a nice job of rolling in it. Lovely. As I carried barfy sheets and poor GiGi, an unfortunate victim of collateral damage, down to the washing machine in the middle of the night, I wished that someone would remind me why we had kids.

Of course, Margaret yells "Papa, papa!" with a big grin on her face when I get home today, and it's all ok.

Xmas Tree

We bought a Christmas tree today after driving to Best Buy to pick up a new camera. Margaret was suspicious of the tree at first, but seemed to catch the spirit, although it would be nice if a residual aversion to the tree will remain so that she won't yank it down. And the new camera means.... new photos! Yeah! We haven't quite figured out all of the new camera's tricks so far, but we (really, I) agonized over it for a long time before finally deciding to get a little Canon.

More importantly, Teddie has started to lose standing in my book as the "easy" kid. Last night, Abby went out with some friends, leaving me with the kids. "Sure, no problem," I said. But then he cried for an hour straight. And he continued that behavior today, at which point I realized that he tends to cry a lot. In fact, his sleeping appears to have deteriorated over the last few weeks.

Margaret, on the other hand, was a little champ last night, adding her own commentary to the books that I read (over Teddy's cries) and then cuddling up with me today. Admittedly, she had a 101 degree fever this morning, but that just made her even more cuddly. She collapsed on my chest and slept for an hour this morning which let me read the paper in peace while making occasional requests to Abby. Could you get me a drink? Hand me the phone? Your laptop? Very pleasant!

And Teddy? He cried. And cried some more. Not due to a fever, but because he's a demanding little guy. He did grin and gurgle at his mom this evening. A real sweetheart when he's in her hands. But pass him off to me and he inevitably starts to scream and turn bright red. So I'll take Margaret (ideally with a fever, but also without one) at this point over Teddy. Geez, I'm fickle.