New and improved videos

I've figured out how to post videos with better audio on YouTube. I haven't figured out how to make the pictures better (although I think that the current videos might be better than the earlier ones), but the audio now matches up with the video. So for those of you who are really baby junkies (is there anyone out there since we don't get any comments!?!), you should revisit the videos in earlier posts. Personally, I think that the videos are now completely different (!) since the appropriate audio makes a world of difference.

I did get a random comment from some 21 year old saying "Cool dog... Aussie?" regarding one of my YouTube videos of Margaret and Maddie, but nothing from the dedicated (sic) crew of baby blog readers........

Comfort measures in the crib

Margaret currently sleeps with four things in her crib, all of which can be seen in the picture above: a circle of nuk-nuks (pacifiers), GiGi the Giraffe (care of her second cousin Ann), Tommy the Toad, and a small Cubs blanket (care of her Great Aunt Mary.) She has always loved the nuk-nuks, perhaps too much. The ladies at the dog park liken her reaction to a nuk-nuk to that of a smoker getting a much needed puff - a big exhale and slumping of the shoulders once the nuk-nuk is inserted as if to say, "Ah yeah, that's the stuff."

I'm curious about when casual attachment to a familiar item turns into clear affection. For example, Margaret's cousin Andrew was a big fan of lovies (cloth diapers.) When did that really develop? At this point, Margaret seems most fond of GiGi since she'll sometimes be hugging it when we check on her. But she doesn't seem to want GiGi at other times, although early on, she was able to identify and grab GiGi when asked about it. So we'll see if GiGi, or any of the other items, becomes a "must have" accessory. I bet that it will, but when, and how, does that happen?

Maddie, on the other hand, clearly has her preferred toys. Tennis balls, tennis balls and more tennis balls. With some prompting, she'll take the frisbee or a stick or some other toy, but it's quite clear that she LOVES tennis balls above everything else. She's a bit stiff today after playing with random people at the park for the last few days (Korean kids from the nearby Catholic Church on Sunday, some other guy who wants a dog yesterday), but she's always ready to play play play when there's a ball around.

Margaret's first "Occurrence Report" at daycare

Margaret had her first "event" that required a report at daycare on Thursday. According to the report, it occurred at 4:10 and was witnessed by Ms. LaDonya and Ms. Jakki. Exciting exerpts of the report are as follows:

"Describe in detail, i.e., what the child was doing when injured; specific center location:
In the infant room, Margaret was pulling up on the rocking chair when she let go and bumped her head on the chair."

"Describe injury in detail, i.e. what part of the child was injured; nature and degree of injury; child's condition:
There is a small bump on her forehead."

"Type of first aid administered: Ice pack"

"Description of corrective action taken to prevent a similar occurrence:
Next time we will watch Margaret more carefully when pulling up on the furniture."

I had to sign the form to verify that I'd received it. I was actually surprised that they even bothered with a report - you could barely notice the bump and Margaret didn't seem to be fazed at all. In fact, they said that, unlike almost all of the other kids, she seemed to like the icepack. Until she finally works out the kinks in her walking, we probably should anticipate more minor dings and exciting event reports.

Other developments of interest:

• If you look closely at the picture of Mama and Margaret (you may need to click on it to enlarge it), you'll notice two top teeth. She's had the bottom two for a couple months now, and we've been waiting with bated breath for the next two. Now that they're here, it's a bit anticlimatic. Still, it does mean that charming toothless grins will soon be a thing of the past.

• Margaret has learned to vigorously shake her head "No!" In fact, she seems to (generally) understand the appropriate context in which to use the gesture. She's done eating gets a shake of the head as does rejection of the nuk-nuk (pacifier) when she's feeling fussy. Come to think of it, so do lots of other things. We just have to hope that this isn't evidence of a strong contrarian streak.

• We took Margaret to another restaurant for dinner with some friends, albeit a fancier one here in DC (our regular babysitter, a sophomore at G'town U. was out of the country for spring break.) Apparently, she actually helped us get a table since, while I was parking the car, everyone else got a table that had been reserved for someone else. Who can resist a cute baby (and the danger of a meltdown in the event that seating issues aren't resolved quickly)? And once again, she was a complete champ - loved the bread that they served and ate Cheerios and applesauce while bobbing and looking around at everyone and everything. However, while the waiter and backwaiters had fun making eyes at her, everyone else seemed either apathetic or even aghast that their dinner might be disturbed by a baby. Such a contrast between provincial, friendly Pittsburgh and cosmopolitan DC!

• Today, Mama and Margaret went to a "playgroup" at the Volta Park community center that Abby organized on the "Georgetown Moms" webgroup in which she participates. I have no idea what a "playgroup" entails since Maddie and I went to the grocery store and then played frisbee while waiting for the playgroup to finish, but anything involving "Georgetown Moms" sounds ominous. Still, when I stuck my head in to tell Abby that the dog and I were going to go play frisbee, everyone seemed quite happy.
  

One small step for a kid, one giant leap for our family

Margaret literally made a big step today at daycare. She's been pulling herself up for probably 3 months or so and has been standing on her own for about a month and a half. But she hasn't really taken that first big step on her own other than a quick lurch from one handhold to another. She's not a terribly cautious baby, so it's a bit surprising that it's taken so long to walk. Everytime I think she's about to do it, she stands there, wobbles a bit, and then plops down to crawl wherever she's headed.

But today, she took two steps on her own at daycare. Ms. Jakki told me that they expected her to do her standard plop down move when she instead wobbled forward with a couple of steps. We'll see how long it takes for a repeat performance and whether she'll do her new trick for Mama and Papa, but she's getting there.

And as befits our stellar offspring, she's naturally walking earlier than all of her compatriots in daycare.

"She's the best baby ever!"

We went to Pittsburgh this weekend so that Abby could attend a friend's baby shower. Margaret and I tagged along since we didn't have anything better to do. It turns out that Margaret made quite an impression on Joe and Mike, our P'burgh friends at whose place we stayed. "She's the best baby ever!" they kept saying. A positive impression? Yep. A misleading impression? Perhaps, but we've also decided that, for no discernable reason, we have a pretty happy, sociable and well-behaved kid. On our way home, Abby and I kept talking about how Margaret had been a "perfect little trooper." But the best baby ever? Well, I wouldn't go quite THAT far, since Mike and Joe clearly experienced a long period of calm between many little (and bigger) storms. But I am pretty happy with our little experiment so far.

To begin with, the drive to P'burgh on Saturday was as good as a long drive could be. Margaret slept for 3 hours of the 4 hour drive and spent her time awake giggling at me rather than fussing. When we left DC, it was a beautiful sunny day, but as befits a visit to P'burgh, the sky got cloudy and it started spitting snow on us shortly after we crossed into Pennsylvania. In fact, it was cold with gray skies and flurries for the rest of the weekend, and it didn't clear up until we got near the Pennsylvania-Maryland border on the way home. But you know what? It wouldn't be P'burgh without gloomy weather and snow.

A visit to P'burgh also wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Strip district and a stop at our favorite P'burgh store, the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company. One of my Italian colleagues used to say that you can get things at Penn Mac that you can't get anywhere else outside of Italy, like Italian sea salt with bizarre English descriptions of the contents (someone was using a strange Italian-English dictionary when making the packaging.) While Abby and Joe went to the baby shower, Mike and I took Margaret down to the Strip to buy olive oil and other stuff at Penn Mac. The Strip is crowded on Saturday, full of the type of people that make P'burgh a place to love - friendly without a hint of pretension - and hate - overweight, big hair, and so on. I carried Margaret around in the Baby Bjorn, and Mike kept remarking about how many people grinned at her as we made our way through the Strip. Although it was tempting to eat at the old P'burgh standby, Primanti Brothers, I wasn't sure that my heart could take all that grease, so instead we ate lunch at a diner called Pamela's. It's a really greasy spoon (which says something about Primanti Brothers that I chose Pamela's), and in the future, we really need one of those portable placemats so that we can stick finger foods on the table for Margaret. A paper napkin doesn't work since ripping it up is a fun pasttime that defeats the purpose of putting the food on the napkin. So I ended up putting Cheerios right on the marginally clean table, and Margaret had a grand time looking around and eating the occasional Cheerio while shredding napkin after napkin. As we were leaving, I apologized to the waitress for the mess we'd left behind. "No problem," she said. "That's nothing compared to the mess that the policemen make when they eat here."

Margaret fell asleep on the way back to Joe and Mike's place, and I was able to manuever her into the house without waking her. After she woke up, we spent the next hour or so watching TV while waiting for mom and Joe to get back. Perhaps it was the size of their TV or maybe the fact that it was an HDTV, but Margaret cuddled up with me on the couch. She's really not a cuddly baby unless she has a fever like she had at Xmas in Chicago, but she was perfectly happy to sit with me while watching the boob tube and occasionally giggling as she tried to stick her fingers in my nose and mouth. This was around the time that Mike started saying that he'd never seen such a happy, well-behaved baby. My chest swelled with such parental pride! But it couldn't last, could it? Not a chance since a meltdown was inevitable.

But it actually got even better. Once Joe and Abby got home, we headed out to dinner at a place called C.C.'s in Sharpsburg which is just north (or west or northwest - I could never keep my sense of direction in P'burgh) of the city. C.C.'s is a quintessential P'burgh restaurant - just a step above a hole in the wall place with decent, but unpretentious Italian food served by the friendliest Yinzers you've ever met to the friendliest Yinzers you'd ever want to meet. It was getting pretty close to Margaret's bedtime, and we had to wait a while for a table, so there was some trepidation about whether our luck would hold out. But after sucking down a record 10 ounce bottle while waiting in the bar for our table, she was happy as a clam, although she was also getting a bit sleepy. Once we got to our table, we stuck her in her stroller and fed her some Cheerios. Even though it took a long time to get our food, she was sooo happy to spend time making googly eyes at the people at all of the nearby tables. One guy, who was reciprocating lots of googly eyes, said, "Your baby is a good judge of character. Most kids are afraid of me." After 30 minutes of grinning at random strangers all around us, she promptly fell asleep in her stroller which led to even more grins and ahh-would-you-look-at-that glances in our direction. "She's really not like this," I told some people at neighboring tables as we left the restaurant. After all, she's a busy girl! Never wants to sit still!

But I think that Margaret is getting very social and has learned that she can get fun reactions from people when she smiles, waves and bounces around. Not only did she show off at C.C.'s, but she continued her performance at the deli that we went to for brunch on Sunday by which point Mike and Joe were absolutely gushing over Margaret as she shredded more napkins and chortled at the people in the booth next to us. Our run of good luck even lasted until we went to the Safeway back in DC upon getting home. As we pushed Margaret around in the seat on the shopping cart (for the first time!), she was giggling and having a ball. "Heh, heh, heh," she said with a clear sense of pleasure about her situation. Then again, maybe it was just extreme fatigue. But it still led a random woman in the produce department to lean in from behind her to say "Heh, heh, heh" in response.

Another baby video

It's a beautiful, sunny, spring-like day here in DC. While the cold, snowy weather has been fun, it's good to see some signs of spring like the daffodils coming up on the hillside below the Rose Park that runs down to Rock Creek. In the summer, that hillside is a jungle while it's barren during the winter. But for one month out of the year, lots of daffodils pop up for the enjoyment mainly of drivers on the parkway.

Unfortunately, we haven't planted any daffodils or tulips of our own, unlike those in the yard of our old house in Pittsburgh. And we certainly don't have a backyard in the summer like we had in Pittsburgh, because even though our backyard there was small and shady, our current back patio is even smaller and shadier.
Maybe once we move to our new place in a month, we'll find that its sunnier. The house itself certainly will be since it has windows on three sides instead of two like we have now, but the back patio is even smaller so we'll see.

But you're not here to read musings about backyard gardens and spring flowers. You're here for a baby fix! After the excitement of having a new fridge delivered (I told the deliverymen that they were "superstars" for being able to get the old one up and the new one down our front stairs), we walked around with Maddie and our friend Rodah from Pittsburgh before stopping at the park to play on the swings. Margaret was actually more interested in watching the big kids running around the park than swinging or playing with me. Afterwards, we headed home where Margaret played with her favorite Xmas present (care of Aunt Eleanor) and her favority puppy dog. Here's the resulting video

Dinner with Dad

Since Mom has been late getting home the last two days, we've had dinner with Dad. Dad would really rather watch G'town play basketball than feed the kid, so Margaret has spent a fair amount of time in her highchair messing around with Cheerios. It turns out that we've discovered a few things in the process.

First, food can be fun! In particular, when lots of Cheerios are plopped on our tray, they don't have to go into our mouth. Instead, we can throw them all over the place! Such entertainment! Especially when Dad admonishes us: "NO!" gets a pause and a perplexed look in response followed by more tossing of Cheerios. Dad has learned to limit the number of items put on the tray at one time since a rapid movement of the arm can quickly clear away a few dozen Cheerios. However, Maddie sure seems to enjoy that game.

Second, the highchair itself can be a source of entertainment. Especially when Dad pops up and down from underneath the tray going "BOO!" Such shenanigans lead to peals of laughter as does tickling of the feet underneath the tray. Of course, it's all probably exacerbated by extreme fatigue (which Dad also doesn't worry about too much during a good basketball game.)

Here comes trouble

Videos!!!!

It's so exciting to be able to use YouTube......

So the sound isn't well tied to the video, but it's free so who can complain?

Margaret in the command post on 12/28



Margaret in her high chair on 12/30



And best of all, Margaret playing with Maddie on 1/28

Daddy-daughter day

Margaret and I spent a day puttering around the suburbs of DC out near where Abby works. Since we had to get the car serviced at a dealer out there anyway, we figured that we'd spend the day going to the outlets (to buy baby clothes) and, gasp, Walmart (to buy cheap diapers and wipes.)

After the oil and front headlight were changed, we stopped at a Petco to get food for Maddie. Although Margaret fell asleep in her captain's seat in the car (Abby likens it to a Barcalounger since it's so plush) and I managed to transition her from the car to the Baby Bjorn without waking her up, I just had to wake her in Petco to see the ferrets and other animals. The fish got a giggle as did the birds, but the big hit was the hamsters, especially those running on their wheels and the ones messing around on the glass to check us out. We also met Samson, a very frisky golden retriever puppy whose owner kept trying to reign him in as Margaret giggled uncontrollably while he sniffed her.

Our trip to the outlets was uneventful with a few purchases of baby wear and some minor fussing, the latter of which probably stemmed from Dad's hesitance to bother with the changing room. Given that it's so cold and Margaret's bundled up, it's difficult to justify a full scale visit to the "family bathroom" without a really pressing concern (i.e. a stinky diaper.) A diaper change in these conditions involves 5 minutes of clothes removal which inevitably makes everyone involved unhappy. The result of this inattention on Dad's part led to a wet diaper that weighed about 2 pounds by the time that we got around to changing it. But I don't think that Margaret was too uncomfortable since the technology behind diapers is amazing at this point (something that I never appreciated before her arrival.)

Beyond appreciation for the advanced technology of baby hygiene, another new development is the type of stores that we visit when we go shopping. There appears to be an entire genre of stores that I never ever ever frequented before Margaret's appearance, but that now comprises our primary destinations and serves as the site of our little shopping triumphs - we got a Osh Kosh B'gosh winter coat for next season for $9.99? Whooo hooo. There's a Little Me outlet? Carters? Baby Gap?!?! I start hyperventilating when I think about how much money we can save compared to the outrageous mark-ups that are charged on baby clothes at retail. Funny how priorities change, although as befits the genes that I inherited from my maternal grandfather, I've always been, ahem, frugal.

While waiting for Abby to get off work, we did another exciting first: a car wash! Margaret wasn't pleased to be in her car seat at that time of the day and the line for the car wash was long, so to keep things from getting really unpleasant, I reclined my seat and kept inserting Cheerios into her mouth to keep her happy. When we got into the car wash, there was an initial moment of apprehension after which she seemed to be trying to figure out what the heck was going on. She wasn't really entertained (or scared) so much as she was perplexed. But she was engaged as she kept looking back at forth while the big mats when swish-swish over and around the car. Before getting Mom, we then stopped to eat some kiddie food in a Burger King parking lot at which point, as I was talking with a friend on the phone, Margaret, with a full mouth of mixed-up raspberries, pears and cereal, looked at me, grinned and gave me a big bronx cheer.

Margaret at day care

Although it's now a few months old, this is Margaret's first "class picture" from day care in the GSA building (you can click on the picture to enlarge it.) Kids transition into the toddler room on a regular enough basis that the class list is pretty fluid, but on the front row (from left to right), you've got Yuta, Ms. Kiran, Erin, our little Margaret, Ms. Jakki, Brooke, some kid I can't remember, Ms. Krystal, and sleepy little Sean. The back row has goofy Kevin, Ms. Claire, Katie, Big Ben, Ms. Dominique, Mickey, Katherine, Ms. LaDonya, and Wyatt. It's funny, but I know almost all of the kids by name (and they recognize me too based on the big grins I get when I come to visit or pick up Margaret), but I know none of their parents. This seems to be the case for other parents too since while we recognize each other and exchange pleasantries, they all know Margaret by name. Frankly, some of the kids can be pills, crying and fussing a lot. But all of the caretakers seem to really like Margaret. She's a "busy girl!" they say, always messing around with stuff, especially stealing toys from other kids. She doesn't nap very well (never has) and fusses when she's hungry, but I think that they view her as a pretty happy, good humored kid. My Jakki likes to "dance" with her, while Ms. LaDonya says that they have "serious conversations." And Ms. Kiran likes to sing standard kiddie songs, albeit in a droning sort of style reminiscent of south Asian music. Lately, I think that they've given up on getting her to nap more than once during the day, so she has been zonking out while bundled up in the Baby Bjorn during the walk home.

Turns out that Ms. Jakki is pregnant, so I told her "You know, Ms. Jakki, kids can be difficult." As Wyatt was precariously climbing on top of a toybox, Sebastian was having a meltdown, and Sean was putting some unidentified thing in his mouth. She just gave me a beatific smile while Ms. LaDonya giggled.