Picky kid

While things might look pretty peaceful on the homefront, as reflected in the lack of recent posts (what is there to write about when there are no bumps in the road), Margaret is still picky about her Papa's cooking. Tonight, I cooked a pot roast in Barolo wine which was a ridiculously complicated recipe (the above photo was taken during part of the preparation while Mama and Maggie snoozed.) As the following video indicates (certainly of interest only to Grandparents and other hardcore fans), Margaret had little interest in the roast. Instead, she stuffed her face with bread while Maddie stood by waiting for the remnants. But please note how well behaved Maddie is, even when Margaret offers her some scraps from the high chair.

Thump thump, bump bump, kabonk, etc.

So I felt the new kid kicking for the first time today. Apparently, s/he has been moving around for a few weeks at this point, but never at a time that I was around. But tonight, s/he was exercising and kicking around a bit. My requests for more movement, spurred by calls of "Hey baby!!" up against Abby's tummy, didn't get any noticeable response.

By the way, we "know" the new kid's gender. Specifically, at the last ultrasound, we were torn about whether or not to learn the gender. On the one hand, knowing the gender would make things much easier - we would only have to decide on one name and would know whether we needed to buy a new wardrobe (although since we didn't know Maggie's gender, we'd be fine for the first few months regardless of the new kid's gender.) And in any case, it can be a surprise now or a suprise later - what's the difference?

But on the other hand, it's kind of exciting to have the doctor yell "We've got a girl!" (or boy!) at the moment of birth. As I may have mentioned in a long ago post, everyone who gave an opinion was convinced that Maggie was a boy. For example, during intermission at a show at the Kennedy Center, a random woman came up and said "Are you having a boy?" When we told her that we didn't know, she said that she was sure our's was a boy since her son "rode" exactly the same way - up high and centered - when she was pregnant. So when Dr. Burke said that she was a girl after pulling her out, my initial reaction was "You must be joking. A girl?" (My follow-up reaction was "Ugh"since as a c-section kid, she was pretty pale and goopy until they suctioned her out at which point she started to wail and pinked up.) All of which was complicated by the fact that, due to our "confidence" about the gender, we had settled on a single boy name, but had (at least) two girl names. At some point while Abby was a bit out of it, I made the executive decision that she was Margaret Claire, and there it was. In any event, it can be exciting to hold off and find out when everything finally happens.

The sense in which we "know" the gender is that we eventually asked the technician to write the gender on a piece of paper and put it in an envelope. I've been carrying around that envelope for the last month or so in a pocket of my gym bag. Abby has said that she would have opened it long ago while my friends at work are stunned that I haven't opened it (and have threatened to steal and open it themselves were it not stored in my gym bag), but I've been able to show an amazing degree of self-restraint. In the end, we may or may not open it, at which point I may or may not post the result on this blog. Stay tuned.

The Wizard of Oz arrives in Philadelphia

We drove to Philadelphia this past weekend. The main reason for the visit was to attend the first performance involving the newest thespian in the family - Alex played one of the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz presented by the Wolf Performing Arts Center. Due to Grandma Mary's presence (another contributing factor to our visit), Abby and I were able to attend the Saturday night show along with Rach and Andrew. While the show was a bit long, we all had a great time, and Alex appeared to be born to play a munchkin at this point in her life.

We also had lots of fun hanging out with the relatives in Philly. On Saturday, we went to the Smith Memorial Playground which is an amazing place.

Cool Slideshows!

Nowadays, most playgrounds are pretty boring since all of the interesting (i.e. dangerous) installations have been removed, but the Smith Playground has all sorts of cool stuff like the big wooden slide pictured above that Andrew, Margaret and I used for racing. Margaret was too young for most of the stuff, but the family munchkin was able to climb all over the place. Best of all, depending on your point of view about these things, we got to see a performance by Ronald McDonald that accompanied a donation made by the Ronald McDonald fund to the park. Actually, only Andrew and I watched most of the show as everyone else quickly lost interest. Come to think of it, Andrew was the only real fan, but he clapped so enthusiastically after each trick that I couldn't bring myself to take him away. He had also strategically positioned himself on some stairs right in front of the show so that to extract him, I would have had to say, "Umm, excuse me Ronald... Andrew, c'mon let's go." Couldn't bring myself to do it.

During this visit, Margaret showed a great deal more interest in her cousins than she has in the past. For instance, while watching a Muppet Show DVD, some skit drew gales of laughter from the cousins. Now, Margaret isn't sophisticated enough for almost anything on TV, much less the high-brow humor of the Muppet Show, but she duly chimed in with her own guffaws. Margaret thinks Andrew is quite the clown as seen during the trip that they shared in our back seat to Smith Park. Margaret kept grinning at Andrew and looking at me with a somewhat incredulous expression as if to say "Can you believe this guy?" while I threatened to toss Andrew out of the window if he fulfilled his own threat to throw out one of Margaret's toys. Lizzie, the youngest cousin, is the one that, I think, Margaret finds the most interesting. Margaret would watch and mimic her including, according to my mom, an episode where Lizzie repeatedly ran back and forth across the living room. After watching and absorbing that activity for a few circuits, Margaret started "running" with her. This type of behavior, I suspect, is the beginning of a long era of worship devoted to the cousins especially the youngest one.

Cool Slideshows!

Spicy food

Long ago when Margaret was just a gleam in her mother's eye, I had a conversation with a friend in Chicago about life changes that followed the arrival of a baby. Some changes, he said, were major, but others became less dramatic over time. "Such as diapers, for example," I said, "You must be immune to stinky diapers at this point." "Sure, most of the time," he said, "But there are still those instances when you open a diaper and say 'Holy cow!'"

As hardcore fans of this blog know, Margaret has been a pretty fussy eater for the last few months. Won't really try new foods and seems averse to odd textures and flavors. In fact, we speculated that, in addition to being generally difficult for the sake of being difficult, she may not like unfamiliar flavors. But then tonight, I made chili. Really spicy chili with onions, garlic, lots of chili powder and even more cumin tossed in for extra flavor. On a whim, I gave Margaret some of the meat from the pot as the chili was cooking. The initial reaction indicated disapproval, but the funny face appeared to be due to "oven" heat rather than the spicy heat. Once it cooled, she scarfed it down. Hmm, I thought, how about some of the beans from the chili? Margaret never eats beans, rather she picks up, mashes and then drops them. But she devoured the beans as well. Completely inexplicable behavior that tempts me to make some other spicy food like a curry to see if she likes it as well.

To tie this eating episode back to the initial anecdote, after a few small servings of chili, I eventually told Abby, "That's probably enough. I bet that her tummy will feel strange later on tonight." Which led to my next thought, "I'm sure glad that I won't have to change her diapers tomorrow." Sorry Ms. Jakki, Ms. LaDonya, Ms. Kiran and Ms. Krystal.

"I just give in"

Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dave are in DC for the weekend which led to some reflection about how much better Margaret behaves for them when we're not around. As an example of her behavior when we're present, she tried to stick her foot through the child gate this morning. When Abby said "No!", she sat down, look a bit petulant, threw herself down on the ground, then sat back up and seemed to consider things. Apparently, she concluded that she was upset after all since she stuck out her lower lip, lay back down and began to wail. I later asked my mom whether Margaret had similar temper tantrums when we weren't around. "No," my mom said, "But then, I just give in." Which, I decided, is probably one reason why every kid loves their grandparents so much.

GiGi the Giraffe is back!

Thanks to my Aunt Mary, cousin Ann and Lisa at DLS Gifts in the heart of the Missouri Ozarks, Margaret now has a new GiGi the Giraffe after the last one disappeared under mysterious circumstances in LA. We're all very happy.

By the way, Margaret had another biting incident at day care today, so she has now entered the ranks of the serial biters.

An ignominious event

Apparently, a spate of biting has recently occurred at daycare. Margaret and the kids near her age such as Sean, Katie and Lucas have started to recognize that they can act as hindrances to each other. Most prominently, I want that toy that you have, but inconveniently, you currently have it. Most of the time, the standard reaction to such a confrontation for both parties is to scream. Which is loud and unpleasant, but not very effective. But one of her cohort seems to have learned that biting can serve as a more effective defense mechanism to ward off intrusions into personal space and attempts to appropriate a toy. Last week, Margaret was sent home with an "Occurrence Report" which informed us that Margaret had received a bite from one of her "good friends." Reportedly, Margaret wasn't too upset by the event, although she did have a small red ring on her arm that basically tracked a mouth. Per center policy, the perpetrator was not identified.

Ms. Jakki later informed me that they had experienced a rash of such episodes over the last week or so. While it started with one serial biter, other kids, being quick learners, also picked up the trick. She said that it was tough to deal with since you can't really discipline a 1 year old, so their strategy was to monitor closely the past offenders. It would appear that biting is an effective communication method for kids who generally lack the ability to communicate effectively. "Hmm, such a difficult problem," I clucked sympathetically (and not a little self-righteously.) "I'm glad that Margaret hasn't shown any tendency towards biting."

At least, that is, until today. When picking Margaret up today, I had a dreaded "Occurrence Report" waiting for me. Perhaps I should have anticipated it given her proclivity for smacking Mama or Papa on the head when pitching a fit, but we found out that "Margaret was playing with her friend. She also wanted the same toy that her friend was playing with." At which point "Margaret bit her friend's right hand." Such shame....

Beating the heat

For the last few days, we've had our first really warm and humid days of the summer. Unfortunately, the air conditioner in our new place doesn't appear to be working very well (although our landlord is so good that I'm sure we'll have it fixed soon - a good landlord is one of the real perks of renting), so we eventually set up Margaret's new wading pool on the back patio. Heading into such an event, who knows what the kid's reaction will be, but she had a grand time (just wait and the photos will enlarge as they rotate - or click on the photos to enlarge them, and click again to shrink them.)

Making do with Fluffy the Cat

We had a bit of a crisis during our recent trip to California that I was hesitant to write about until it had been resolved. In particular, we lost Margaret's favorite giraffe, GiGi. We're not quite sure what happened, but it involved one of the following: (worst case) GiGi was punted out of the stroller during a walk somewhere in Pasadena without being noticed by anyone, (best case, but increasingly unlikely) GiGi was misplaced in a suitcase somewhere, or (ok case, if the hotel staff pays attention, which is also increasingly unlikely) GiGi was mistakenly picked up by the cleaning lady when she made our bed in the hotel room. Regardless of the reason for her absence, we eventually left LA without GiGi.

Margaret is young enough that she hasn't really noticed GiGi's absence. She has always been very enthusiastic about GiGi's presence. For example, "Where's GiGi?" was one of the first phrases that elicited a legitimate response from her, similar to "Where's Maddie?" Both of which get a much more consistent response than "Where's Mama?" or "Where's Papa?" But we were not facing a complete disaster that could have materialized had Margaret been aware enough to ask her own question: "Where's GiGi?"

It turns out, however, that the people who really miss GiGi are the parents. It's very cute to see her grab for GiGi when asked and to cuddle up with it in her crib. Abby and I repeatedly bemoaned the loss of GiGi during the trip home. Upon getting home, I searched for GiGi on Beanie Baby websites since I figured that GiGi had to be a Beanie Baby. No luck. I was getting frustrated, so I fired off a desperate email to my aunt with the hope that my cousin who had given us the giraffe could remember her provenance. It turns out that GiGi is a TY Pluffie who is officially known as Towers the Giraffe (a much less catchy name, I believe.) Ann (my cousin) also pointed us to an Ebay seller who, after I bought GiGi II from her with a request for quick shipping, sent me an email:

Mark,
Don't worry. I will ship Towers to your wife's work address. It will go out in tomorrow's mail.
No 1 yr old daughter should be without her favorite TY Pluffie!!!!
Thanks for your business!
Lisa.

In the meantime, we've made do with a couple of other stuffed animals. First, Larry the Lion (I'm not sure why the names often have to involve alliteration) whose favorite trick, which is really Papa's favorite trick, is to ROAR whenever he makes an appearance. Margaret has also learned to ROAR after picking up Larry. And then Fluffy the Cat, a really cool cat puppet from some friends in Chicago, as pictured above. (BTW, Maddie does NOT like Fluffy due to her longstanding aversion to cats that started with her extended exposure to Auntie Eleanor's cat Martha during Maddie's first few months in Chicago - a long story involving a trip to South America, a breakup, inheritance by a sister of an older cat who didn't like dogs, and an inquisitive, but skittish puppy who would scurry under the couch at the first hint of a growl from the cat.) None of these have been perfect substitutes, so we're all looking forward to GiGi's return.