A sunny, cold Sunday in DC

A fair amount to report, but not much energy or enthusiasm to do so. We went to the Natural History Museum today which Margaret loved, running around and pointing at everything. My response to the fossils was: "How does someone spot these things in the dirt? Or identify that the blip in the mud is the remains of a carbon-based life form?" Then Teddy woke up and got fussy, and Margaret got tired and fussy, so we had to cut our visit short. Then again, we were at the museum for an hour, so in light of the prevalence of fussiness in our life at this point (just ask Maddie), perhaps that's not so short in the big scheme of things.

I'll post more about Teddy at daycare (he did fine) and my time at home with Teddy (we're doing ok, but he has some issues) when I'm not as tired. Instead, I'll just offer some photos to placate readers who really follow this blog for the photos.

Share

Margaret's vocabulary is growing by the day, as I notice when we play a stream of consciousness, free association game when we walk down the street and I say whatever pops into my head. "Brick," I say. "Brick," she replies. "Fence." "Fence." "Tree." "Tree." "Truck." "Truck," she says in a way that sounds disturbingly like a certain curse word. She gets almost all of the one syllable words, although certain sounds that I have yet to isolate can cause problems. When I feel like challenging her, I toss is a two syllable word. "Stoplight." "Sewer." And so on. She gets most of those. Then we really ratchet it up and try some words with three syllables. In almost every case, she drops one of the syllables. So she has a clear wall in her verbal skills that she hasn't crossed yet. That's also evident in the "sentences" that she structures since "sit down" is a possibility while "I'll be back" becomes "I back."

But one of her favorite words at this point is "share." She appears to have learned it at school and will say it in a very serious, earnest way. "Share," she'll say as she grabs a toy. The problem, however, is that she doesn't really seem to understand what it means. To her, "share" seems to mean that you have something that I want and you should give it to me. So when we saw her younger friend Laura over the weekend and they were both tugging on a doll stroller, we would say "Share." And Maggie would response, "Share!" with solemn look on her face as she tugged at the handles. This, I think, is a difficult concept, so it's not surprising that she's a bit confused.

On other matters, today was the first daddy-Teddy day at home during my time off before he starts daycare fulltime. With Margaret, I took off a lot of time, but work issues and the fact that we're already paying for his daycare spot make that less feasible with Teddy. But over the next three to four weeks, I'll be spending around three days a week with him at home.

Today was our first day together. And it went pretty well. He did ok with the bottle, although he liked to snack and nap a bit as seems to be his style (he's also a sloppy eater as he'd dribble a lot of his bottle down his chin.) When he was awake, he didn't fuss too much since he'd either grin at me when I engaged him or would spend time looking at whatever I waved in his face when I was trying to read my book. He wasn't a good napper since he only slept for 45 minutes at a time, but in general, he seems to be a pretty happy baby, grinning a lot without the fussiness that accompanied his sister. I'm sure that will happen at some point, but he seems pretty pleasant. And not to toot my own horn, I'm probably better at dealing with the inevitable baby crises than I was with Margaret.

But tomorrow, I have to go to work. So Teddy will be spending his first day at daycare. They're very excited to have him, and I'm sure he'll do well, although he'll probably come home with a cold. In any case, stay tuned for a Teddy at daycare post.

Maddie's at the sanatorium

The fussiness of our eldest child and the stress that caused for Maddie have led us to ship her off with the grandparents to New England for some rest and relaxation. We debated whether to send her up until the moment that they pulled out of our garage with Maddie curled up in her bed next to Eleanor.

Maddie is probably having a blast. To begin with, the break from the kid has to be nice for her. In addition, she always likes to go to the "vacation home," a reference that inevitably makes her perk up. Historically, that term has been used for visits to my parents' house where Maddie would stay when we'd take a trip to someplace like Europe (alas, something that isn't in the cards anytime soon.) But the home of the CT grandparents also qualifies as a "vacation home," and I suspect that Maddie is having a ball.

However, not having her around is a bit of an adjustment for us. We go for a walk with the kids and come home, but there's no dog waiting for us. I get up in the morning and there's no jingling collar reminding me that I need to let Maddie out. I go for a walk to the corner store to get a lemon, and I don't have Maddie to take with me. And she's not waiting outside for me when I come out of the store. I mistakenly drop food on the floor while cooking dinner, and Maddie isn't there to clean up after me. And she's not there to lick Margaret's tray after dinner, even though Margaret yells for her, using a singsong cry of "Maddie" that probably mimics my summons, when something falls off her tray ("Uh oh, Maddie!") and when the tray is taken away after Margaret is done. Having the dog around is such an integral part of our life that we almost don't recognize it. A key part of our daily schedule involves trips to the park, primarily to play ball with Maddie, but now we're aimless. I run through the usual names when asking Margaret to point out Mama, Papa, and Teddy, but then I hit Maddie and, oops, she's not here.

Abby pointed out that it will probably be particularly hard on me since I'll be taking some time off over the next few weeks to spend time with Teddy before he goes to daycare. She's probably right about that, but even more, Maddie has always been my dog, first and foremost, for better or worse. She spent the first year of her life in almost constant company with me as I wrote my dissertation, and I suspect that I'm the focal point, and real source of stress, in her life. Her stressed reactions to Margaret probably mirror mine, but I'm able to divorce myself from them more than Maddie is. One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more low key around Maddie, but kid number one has something to say about that since Maddie can't seem to distinguish my barking at Margaret from my barking at her. Hopefully, Margaret will become less fussy in the next month or so, and Maddie will recuperate so that everyone will be happy when she comes home. But then, there's always Teddy and his coming fussy stage looming on the horizon.

Some photos:

A belated January post

My goodness, has it really been two weeks since I last posted something on this blog? The blogging muse seems to come and go for me, and over the last few weeks, she appears to have taken a hiatus.

And even now, do I have any "insights" into parenting? Or "funny" stories about what's been happening in our household? Not really. I do, however, have a bunch of pictures which is what most readers of this blog are looking for anyway. And here they are....

For those of you our there who simply must have hard copies of these photos, I refer you to my earlier post about getting pictures from Flickr.

What other news is there to report? Well, the CT grandparents have been in town for the last week and a half, helping us out with Teddy since Abby has gone back to work. The whole transition has gone much more smoothly than I would've expected, but that's probably due to the grandparent's presence more than anything else. As Abby says, once both of the kids are in daycare and I'm picking them up after work: "I worry about everyone's sanity." We'll see.

Margaret is a fusser. I don't think that there's a person in the world who would debate that characterization. Except, perhaps, the teachers at her daycare who inevitably tell us that she's such a little sweetheart. My suspicion is that this has something to do with "power plays" that she's working out in her little head.

She has reached the point where her communication swings between being the sweetest little kid ever and the biggest fussy pain in the arse. There's not much middle ground and, honestly, it's pretty darn annoying. You don't have to scream when you want a glass of milk, I try to tell her. And every little obstacle does not require an eruption. Which is especially problematic given the frequency at which little obstacles appear in her life. I want to ride on the tricycle. No, I want to push it. No, I want Papa to push it while carrying me. Each transition accompanied by a petulant whine at best or wail at worst.

How is Maddie taking this? Not well at all. Her doggie Prozac didn't seem to do the trick. In fact, she's probably worse than ever. When Margaret isn't around, Maddie is a pretty normal, albeit still somewhat high-strung and excitable. But toss Margaret into the mix, and Maddie starts to shake uncontrollably. It's really troubling. Maddie's problem is that she takes it all too personally, not realizing that Margaret's eruptions are temporary and almost always followed by a happy spell. Of course, the hapy spell doesn't always happen at which point Papa begins to shake uncontrollably. It's funny how one develops the "parent voice," something that I've observed in my sister. When Margaret fusses enough in her highchair, for example, I'll finally say "Ok Margaret, knock it off" in a stern voice. Margaret will stop and consider the situation. Depending on her mood, she may or may not actually knock it off. But the "parent voice" conveys the message that I'm (we're) not happy.

In any event, Maddie is still having serious problems adjusting to Margaret's fussiness. We're not sure what we'll do at this point, but we may send her off to the CT homestead with the grandparents for a few months to give her a break for a while. It's very sad. Margaret doesn't understand the ramifications of her actions, but I'm sure that if she did, she wouldn't want Maddie to leave. But that may end up happening for a while (and if it does, I'll be sure to bring this up sometime later in Margaret's life as an example of the sacrifices that we've made for her - kidding.)

As for Teddy, he's gone through a lot of changes too. Really bulked up. He no longer looks like a newborn, rather he looks like an infant. He's smiling and interacting with us a lot more than he was. And he's going through that stage where he's trying to get his extremeties under control. Flailing around with his arms, occasionally grabbing onto something. And, then, sometimes, getting that to his mouth. A series of accomplishments from his point of view, I would think.