Well, folks, we're approaching the arrival of Thing 2. I'm surprisingly calm, probably because, for all of the bruhaha last time, the doctors managed to pull Maggie out with nary a scratch. Then again, I have also come to realize that I recall very little of what it's like to have a newborn around, so I'll probably be in for a rude awakening (quite literally) at some point in the next few nights. But Grandma Mary from IL is here to keep up with Margaret, so we shouldn't have to worry about her for a while.
Posts on this blog will probably be interrupted for a week or so. Or at least will be intermittent, with the key first post being the encounter between Thing 1 and Thing 2. Unless the hospital turns out to have wi-fi access, in which case, since I'll be taking my laptop to the hospital to do some "work," I may feel the call of the blogging muse at some point.
Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'll send out a mass email at some point tomorrow with the end result. By the way, random strangers are again predicting a boy based on the way that Abby's carrying the kid. But that was such a bad prediction last time that I'm leaning towards the new one being a girl. Gentlemen, place your bets.
We bought a doll for Margaret as preparation for the arrival of Thing 2. She generally likes it, but especially likes to spend time fiddling around with it in ways that she finds familiar. For example, last week after I got her dressed in the morning, Margaret pulled out her portable changing pad and a diaper. I couldn't figure out what she was doing until she plopped her doll down on the pad and started trying to "change" its diaper. More evidence that unexpected things are percolating in her little head.
Tonight, she and Abby dressed and undressed the doll with particular attention to shoes and socks. Margaret was very distressed (and, given her cries of despair, appeared to directly blame us) that her shoes would not stay on the doll's feet. She has no idea what she's in for (do any of us?), but at least she knows what a baby is now.
By the way, it appears that we have a name picked out for each possible gender. But you'll have to wait to find out what those might be.
And it also appears that the Cubs will go down to the D-backs as its 4-1 in the 8th with the Cubs behind. Since both the Cubs and Phillies are not making good showings in the playoffs, I may have to turn to the more successful Indians as my team.
So my earlier post in which I claimed that the Cubs would win the division barring a "monumental collapse" turned out to be a bit more prescient that I expected - the Cubs let it get way too close for comfort. But at the end of the day, they pulled it out. So we may cram Maggie into a 12 month Cubs onesie tomorrow to celebrate since that's the only Cubs baby gear that we have on hand. And although it may be premature for such stuff, here's a song for this post:
Now, we can only hope that the Phillies pull it out as well. Why? A) So brother-in-law/uncle Joe S. in Wynnewood will be happy. B) So my colleague Dave, who is also a huge Phillies fan, will be happy. And C) So that the Mets, rather than the Cubs, suffer a monumental collapse. Unlike most people, I don't hope for bad things to happen to NYC teams, but watching the Yankees lose 4 in a row after winning the first 3 against the BoSox a few years ago was a sublime experience (first time ever, in any sport, that happened in a 7 game series.) Same would be true if the Mets can lose a lead of 6.5 (or 7.5, whatever) games in September.
But what would really be interesting is the inter-family tension that would arise if the Cubs play the Phillies at some point in the playoffs. But we'll deal with that conflict when (and if) it happens. In the meantime, Cubs win! Cubs win! Cubs win!
My nephew from the Shaker Hts. clan recently went to Abby's alma mater, Dartmouth, for a college visit. Apparently, he's quite the star. When the people at the dog park saw Margaret's t-shirt and asked if I had gone to Dartmouth, I responded "What, are you kidding me? Like an Ivy League school would even open my application envelope." In any case, they sent us a couple of t-shirts from their visit. Margaret is wearing the first. The second is slightly smaller and is labeled "Thing 2." So you can imagine what our Xmas photo will be this year, particularly given the festive color of the shirts.
And some random thoughts:
Fittingly, Margaret and I read "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" before I put her to bed tonight. My review: THAT BOOK MAKES ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE! I don't even mean that there is a lot of nonsense in the book. After all, I would have anticipated lots of gobbledygook given my recollections of Dr. Seuss. But, OF, TF, RF, BF has absolutely no narrative thread. None. Just a bunch of completely random nonsense pieced together. I did like the rhymes and rhythm (and basically started "rapping" the book to her in my own way) which always makes a book more successful in my opinion, but some overall point would have been nice. Perhaps I'm being too much of a literalist. Naturally, Margaret had a ball. Until she started to conk out at the end (it's actually an astonishingly long book for something that doesn't have a point.)
The kid's outfits involve a very particular pattern depending on who dresses her in the morning. When Mama chooses the clothes, she tends to wear pink or purple and is much more likely to wear a dress. But when Papa chooses the clothes, she often wears blue jeans and green or yellow tops. The people at the dog park have quickly learned to guess the source of the clothes. The above photo illustrates a "Papa outfit."
Margaret has crushed another milestone for kids of her age: the what-sound-does-a-___-make trick. She's been working on it for a while, but now has the following animals down cold: dog, cat, cow, horse, sheep, lion, rooster, frog. Although interpretation of some of the harder multi-syllable sounds (e.g. the rooster or frog) does require some creative license on the part of Mama or Papa.
She has also learned the names of some of the dogs at the park. Bob (a brown lab who loves to chase balls) and Molly (a somewhat rotund, but very devious Border Collie who likes to edge away slowly while no one is watching before making a break for it.) She also waves goodbye to everyone at the park when we leave which gets an almost universally enthusiastic response from everyone sitting at the "dog" picnic table. The sight of 6 people sitting at the table, all waving wildly at us as we leave, is pretty funny.
The position of the kid relative to the kitchen counter in the above photo illustrates another recent development: Margaret's assistance during the preparation of dinner. Since Abby tends to get home after we've started the dinner preparations and since I'm the one who does those anyway given my comparative, nay absolute, advantage in that aspect of home production (geez, such an economist), in the past, Margaret spent a lot of time wallowing in misery around my legs while I cut stuff up and started cooking. Pretty annoying behavior. So I have started to plop her on chair, give her a dull butter knife to fiddle with, and push veggie remnants in front of her to mess around with. Since those remnants are obviously food, she tends to taste them, but most, such as raw garlic or onions, come back out pretty quickly. Still, she seems to be much happier. Up at the counter with Papa, messing around with important things - much better than being left on the floor by Papa's legs. And she seems to have a general affinity for messing around with "kitchen stuff" as I noted when I picked her up yesterday from the preschool room (yep, she was in the preschool room since she's obviously an advanced child) where she was fiddling around in the pretend kitchen. It looks like we may to have get her a kiddie kitchen set at some point. (By the way, I actually like cooking even though I tend to complain about always having to do it. A guy at the dog park who also cooks for his family summed it up perfectly: "It's something concrete that I can actually finish every day.")
I went to Chicago this past weekend to watch the Cubs last homestand of the year against the Pirates. Since they won the Saturday and Sunday games against the Bucs, it currently appears that, barring a monumental collapse (knock on wood), the Cubs will win the division. But the best moment of the weekend happened on Sunday. The Brewers (the team chasing the Cubs) had taken a 4-1 lead against the Braves through the 7th inning. When the manual scoreboard at Wrigley showed that the Braves had put up 4 runs in the bottom of the 7th to take a 5-4 lead, everyone at Wrigley started to do the "Tomahawk Chop." They then did it again when the Braves expanded the lead to 7-4 and when the score was posted as a final. It was pretty cool. As I told one of my friends at the game, "I've always hated the Tomahawk Chop, but I'll do it today."
Abby is pretty darn big at this point due to the new kid. S/he is also starting to yield some interesting bumps in Abby's tummy. Tonight, we played "Is it the head or shoulder?" as we tried to figure out what was bulging out. While she's scheduled to deliver on 10/8, let's all hope that it doesn't happen sooner. Especially not this weekend while I'm in Chicago for the Cubs last homestand of the year.
As for Margaret, her new word is "No." She doesn't really understand the true meaning of "No", but she does understand that it is an appropriate response to a question. Thus, I ask "Would you like to go to the park?" and I get "No" in reponse. A quiet, lilting "No", but a "No" nonetheless. I'm sure that, in a short time, it will becomes an emphatic, definitive "NO!" But currently it is pretty funny to ask various non-sensical questions to get cute little "No" in response.
Our current battle revolves around the nuk-nuk (known in some circles as the binky or paci.) We've been trying to wean Margaret of her nuk-nuk, and the caretakers in Toddler I say that they don't use it at all. In fact, when I asked Ms. Karen, one of her new caretakers, whether she ever used the nuk-nuk for Margaret, she seemed a bit surprised. "I never would've known that she used a pacifier," said Ms. Karen. "She plays great and naps well, all without a paci." But as soon as we leave the GSA building, it's "Maa maa", Margaret's universal cry for "I want" which, in this case, clearly means that she wants her nuk-nuk. I've tried to feed her saltines, take her by the fountains outside the IMF, point out airplanes and other kids. All temporary distractions. We always get back to "Maa maa" followed by petulant crying if she doesn't get her nuk-nuk. It's so unpleasant that I've been giving in recently, sticking the nuk-nuk in her mouth right after we leave the building. One of our friends at the dog park pointed out that she knew a kid with a close sibling who ended up using her paci until she was three. We hope that won't be the case for Maggie, but the impending arrival of No. 2 might give her some leverage in these types of battles.
Here are some photos from our recent trip to CT for Grandma Nancy's retirement shindig. Including some photos from our visit to a corn maze.
My blogging muse has deserted me, as indicated by the lack of recent posts. I've been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson lately, which has made me reconsider my general writing style. A need to inject a certain level of agitation into the posts. Excitement. Odd and bizarre insights. Random tangential connections between our day-to-day life and the terrible and foul society in which we live. Indeed. (That's all a joke for those of you who haven't read HST.)
But basically, there hasn't been much to write about. A Washington Post writer has been loitering around the dog park with the intent of writing an article about the contrast between NoVa (northern VA) and DC in terms of official dog parks. Ours is a very unofficial one that involves a core group of about 20 or so dogs (and 15 or so dog owners), so the writer has been heavily lobbied not to identify our location by name since we don't want to draw attention from the Park Service Police and don't want lots of interlopers trying to "join" our park group (this is Georgetown, after all, so we're pretty exclusive.) The writer basically understood, but today a Post photographer showed up to take some shots of the park denizens and dogs, ostensibly because our group is the "best looking" that the writer had encountered in her visits to DC dog parks. But of course - this is Georgetown, after all, where everyone, including the dogs, is beautiful. In any event, the photographer took some pics of Maggie with the dogs, so if they show up in the Post, I'll be sure to pass along a link.
But some other more or less important details:
(1) Kid no. 2 is officially scheduled to arrive on 10/8. That is THE date, since this one will be coming out the side exit as Margaret did. No name yet, although we plan to sort that out during our 7 hour drive to Connecticut this weekend for Grandma Nancy's retirement party. But we have spent the last week or so getting ready for the arrival in other ways. Getting another crib from the relatives in Philly, sorting the infant clothes (by size and gender), buying stroller attachments to handle a second kid, etc. Grandma Mary from IL will be coming for the first week (which basically means that she'll get to spend lots of time with kid no. 1 and the dog) after which she'll tag out with the CT grandparents until Abby gets back on her feet. (For those guys, we've rearranged the room in the basement to make it more inhabitable.)
(2) I have no idea why the Flickr slideshows sometimes work, but sometimes don't. It's quite random and is perhaps related to issues on their servers. If you're determined to view the slideshows, my suggestion would be to hit "reload" a few times in whatever browser you're using. Eventually, that appears to get the slideshows up.
(3) Our old Sunrocket phone number should now be back in action. As a glutton for punishment, I've signed up for another Voip startup, in this case VoipYourLife, and had our old Sunrocket number ported over. After some hiccups with the quality of the service and some time to get the porting done, we're all set. For now. Indeed.
Do we have a baby photo for you baby photo junkies? Here's one of Maggie and her cousin Lizzie....
Reviewing the blog, I've experienced some difficulties viewing the Flickr picture slideshows (the error says something like "No such photos found.") The following approaches appear to fix the problem, but if you find that they don't work (or have a better solution, or don't encounter any problems at all) let me know.
We're heading up to Philly tomorrow to spend the Labor Day weekend with the cousins, but in the meantime, Margaret paid some attention to her sibling even though s/he is still pretty quiet at this point. (Abby told me not to post pics of her with her big belly, but these are just too cute to pass up.)
We went to Baltimore today to hit the aquarium there. (Maggie and I went to the DC aquarium in the basement of the Dept of Commerce a week or so ago. Frankly, it was a huge disappointment for me. Too small, no really big or interesting fish, etc. But we were warned by all of the guidebooks which say: "Go to the aquarium in Baltimore since the one in DC is a letdown." Margaret did have fun in the DC aquarium, running around and pointing at all of the interesting sights, but I was bored.) We thought that a trip to Baltimore was a good idea since it was high time we went to that city to see the "rebirth" of the inner harbor area and, more importantly, to beat the heat since it was horribly hot and humid in DC.
Unfortunately, lots of other people had the same idea, so we would have had to wait for a substantial amount of time to get in unless we were willing to fork over a substantial sum to become members. Tempting as that was, we decided that the aquarium wasn't in the cards for the day. Which led to some fussing about having driven so far, getting stuck in traffic and so on without doing anything in the end except standing in the heat in Baltimore harbor. Margaret and Abby, on the other hand, were handling things pretty well.
While looking for parking after arriving in Baltimore, we spotted something called Port Discovery, the kids museum of Baltimore. A fortuitous sighting since we headed there after deciding not to wait for the aquarium. And, boy oh boy, did Maggie have a blast. She walked in and froze, apparently stunned by the chaos that she was witnessing. Port Discovery is a three story museum in an old warehouse with a big netted climbing thing in the center. Margaret was too young for that, but it looked right up the alley of the Philly cousins (although I had to wonder how often kids got stuck and started panicking in certain parts of the netting - I'm sure the people working there have some unbelievable stories.) But other parts of the museum were great for her. And kids of all ages everywhere! Running, yelling and fiddling with everything while parents followed close behind admonishing them to behave, watch out for the baby, slow down, etc. Margaret conked out almost immediately after we left, completely exhausted by all of the stimulation. Our introduction to kids' museums which, I have to say, appear to be pretty cool since you don't have to worry about social graces at all. My kid's nose is all snotty? That's ok, so is yours. My kid is yelling? Someone else will surely be louder. (We tried to hit the kids' museum in DC a month or so ago which ended with Maggie and me wandering around a somewhat sketchy neighborhood north of Union Station in the heat ago only to discover that the kids' museum here is closed until 2008.)
By the way, I heard calls to at least one Maggie and one Margaret while we were there so our old-fashioned name might be catching on.
But the key piece of entertainment for this post is the following movie. We got a new toy from our relatives in Shaker Heights after their college visit to Abby's alma mater, Dartmouth. Both Maggie and Maddie think that it's a blast. You really need to pay attention at the end of this video when Maggie starts to dance. Alas, I started to laugh and had to stop filming, so I didn't capture all of her cavorting. Abby has harangued me repeatedly for my failure as a filmmaker, but it's still pretty funny.
(Here's the attempt to upload the same video directly to Blogger. We'll see whether this works better than YouTube.)
First, a soundtrack. For those of you who are older or feel like listening to something that is completely silly:
But for those looking for the real deal:
Margaret has not had a haircut yet. We've put that event off to make sure that we eventually avoid issues of gender confusion that appear to be inevitable with infants. Even when Maggie is dressed head to toe in pink, people often ask "How old is he?" The lack of a haircut has led to two developments regarding her hair. First, curls in the back and sides. We're not sure about the genetic source of her curls as both Abby and I have really straight hair. (My brother, Dan, did have curls in the back when he had his wicked soccer mullet, so there is some precendent in the family.) Second, her hair in the front has started to fall into her eyes. This gives her a pretty hip, almost Beatlesque, look. Something that teenagers really work to develop, I'd wager (although my sense of what the kids find hip these days is lacking.) When will she get her first haircut? I dunno, but rest assured the readers of this blog will hear ALL about it.
Her further teenage tendencies are as follows. (1) She likes to bellow when we try to keep her away from her pacifier. They don't use it in the toddler room, and she seems fine with that, but put her in the stroller and it's a litany of loud demands for her nuk-nuk. Can't have what you want? Object vociferously! A teenage tendency if I've ever seen one. (2) She's developed a persistent "smoker's cough" (as the people at the dog park call it), probably due to her exposure to lots of great new germs in the toddler room. (3) She wears jeans a lot since Papa has been dressing her lately in the morning. Tends to look fairly grubby leading Mama to question Papa's sense of style. (4) She's becoming oh so independent, something that the toddler room teachers, for better or worse, like to encourage.
My feeling is that this just foreshadows our experience 15 or so years from now. But I do know that her curfew will never be later than midnight since, as my maternal grandfather has always said, nothing good happens after midnight. Oh, the battles we'll have....
Apparently, Margaret has been learning some songs at day care. She hasn't "transitioned" to the toddler room yet since we were told that she was "emotionally unprepared" to do so. We weren't sure what that meant - could our exceptional child be falling behind in some way? Especially troubling was the fact that Sean appears to be spending a lot of time in the toddler room. Now, Sean is a nice, very good humored kid. But he's a month younger than Margaret. And does he know the names of all of his classmates?!? Can he holler (somewhat nonsensical) orders to his caretakers?!? Do all of the caretakers rave about how "smart" he is?!?!? "Margaret is a genius!," I've heard Ms. LaDonya say a number of times. Do they also say that about Sean? I think not!
But after calming down a little bit, it turns out that Margaret is having some separation problems associated with the caretakers from the infant room. When one of them accompanies her to the toddler room, she's fine and starts playing with the other kids. But when she's on her own, she's unhappy. In the last week, however, she appears to be doing better in the toddler room, so it should just be matter of time before she's there for good.
But, to get back to the initial topic of this post, she seems to have learned some songs during her time in the toddler room. They've written notes on the reports that we take home about how Margaret has learned a new song, but I wasn't quite sure what that meant. Until she started babbling in a sing-song way while putting her thumb and forefinger together. The itsy-bitsy spider climbing the water spout, I realized. She especially likes to sing in the stroller - I'll hear a quiet lilting sound which, why you really listen to it, is quite clearly a rendition of the itsy bitsy spider. You do have to be fairly liberal in your interpretation of her vocalizing, but she's clearly singing and, given her superior intellectual skills, which obviously warrant a place of honor in the toddler room, there's no doubt that she's singing a specific song, namely the itsy bitsy spider.
(She also yelled - and I mean YELLED - "hiiii" and "bye bye" to numerous random people during an early morning trip to Safeway. It was cute until I realized that we were passing the same people again and again, and in any event, everyone within three aisles could hear her so she wasn't really making new friends with her enthusiastic vocalizing.)
