Words!

I'd post video, but I can't find the cable to get the magic moving pictures off of the camera. So, you'll just have to take my word for it that Margot has mastered language.

On her first birthday, she could say "hi!", shake her head "no", and make a sign for "more". Each of these were subtle and humorous. For hi, Margot will hold her hand up to her ear like she's on the phone. No was only used correctly 75% of the time. We frequently were heard to say "by no, you mean yes" when feeding her something she really did want. And more was an interesting case of "I want more food, but not the kind you're giving me" and was signed repeatedly while accompanied by a face that said "what sort of idiot are you for giving me more cheerios".

A month and 10 days later, Margot's vocabulary has exploded! She has added:

- ball (bah!)
- up - This meant both up and down for a long time. After repeating "you mean down" enough times, she will sometimes say "gow" for down, but she says it in a tone like she's only humoring your crazy belief that up isn't appropriate in that situation.
- buh bye (frequently waving her hand towards herself while she does this)
- apple (her new word for food, which almost never ever means she wants an apple)
- pointing at her mouth to indicate that she wants food, frequently followed closely by the word "apple"
- puppy (pronounced pup-oh)
- cracker (quack-ewh)
- cookie (cuh-cooh)
- she pats her head and says "ca" when she wants her hat
- she pats wherever she wants you to sit, like next to her on the couch, on a pillow on the floor, or on a rock in the yard
- she twists her torso back and forth when she wants to dance or hears the word dance

And, today Lisa has taught her that "shoe" is the word for those things Margot is obsessed with. This kid will spend hours reorganizing our shoes, making creative piles of them, and carrying them over to anyone who is nearby.

Tag Sale Find #1: Pink Hoodie

Cute details you might not be able to notice are a little butterfly on the zipper pull, ruffles at the pockets, and striped tape on the inside edge of the hood. All in all, adorable and well worth the $4.

More Child Labor

During bath time, Margot has taken to cleaning herself, mostly by rubbing soap on her legs. She has now translated this into house cleaning behavior. After dinner, she took a napkin and started rubbing it on the table and then on her toys. I'm not sure who has taught her this, because I'm not a cleaning role model, but I would like to thank whoever it was. If this cleaning thing becomes a habit, having a kid just got a huge plus added to the pro column!

Not at all Cranky

After a full morning of attending the semi-annual kids-stuff tag sale here in Acton, we swung by Maynard for breakfast and a visit to the farmers market. There are only 2 weekends left for the farmer's market, so we're trying to get in all of the great local vegetables and fruit. In spite of all the moving around and not having eaten, Margot was still in a great mood.

It was 37 degrees out (!) when we went for the puppy walk, so Margot got to bundle up for the first time this fall. This is a jacket that she wore last year and managed to squeeze into one more time. We got some cute actually-her-size options at the tag sale this morning. If you're lucky and real nice, she'll do a fashion show of them here.

Meanwhile, here's Margot in the midst of enjoying a cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese.

"Gardening"

At the end of Friday, Margot helped me tend the veggie garden. She spent at least 5 minutes diligently bending down and removing things from this one patch of the garden. It was helpful when she took out the first few leaves from nearby maple tree, but she didn't stop there. Apparently large clumps of dirt, small pieces of rock, and everything else that makes up dirt all needed to be taken out. Luckily, she did the entire removal process (bend down over the garden, select offending object, stand up, bend down outside of the garden, place offending object on the grass) for each individual thing that she found, so all of her hard work didn't result in any actual damage.

1st Birthday Preview

I've been getting requests for a post about the birthday extravaganza that happened last week. I won't spoil any of the surprise, but here's a picture to tide you over until we get a full post together.

Great-Grandad Smith

Margot's great-grandfather, Robert, came up to visit and spend a little quality time with the small one and the rest of the family. Margot's in a shy, suspicious-of-people-who-aren't-mom-or-dad phase, so we were curious to see how their time together would go. They basically marveled at each other and smiled a bunch. I'd call it a great success!

Now that Robert has returned to Florida, we're all missing him and counting the days until his winter trip back this way.

Here's a shot of Robert, Margot, and Murray for your viewing pleasure.

More New Toy

Margot's obviously getting better and better at the walking push-toy that was featured last post. Evidence follows:

Actually, in all seriousness, she's great at standing and walking with the stroller, and is starting to want to go faster. In this case, I don't even know what she managed to hit to "catch an edge" and go straight over on top of it this time. She's so good natured: given that nothing actually went bump on the floor or got pinched or anything, we had time to grab the camera like good, caring parents and snap a picture of her in this state. Awesome Parenting Magazine, here we come!

New Toy

Once again, Margot's friend Soren has generously allowed her to borrow a gently used toy.  Thanks, Soren!

In this case, as we head for the 11-month mark, Margot has been getting more and more interested in spending time standing, and she's pretty good at sidling around the coffee table or around the couch, or recently even "finger walking" holding onto Mom or Dad's hands.  So, we figured it was time for a "walker" toy that she could clomp along behind.  Over the last week, she's gone from rank amateur to being really pretty good with the toy.  Which is OBVIOUSLY how she got herself into this photo-opportunity:

hello?

Margot has been fascinated with phones and computers for a few weeks now. She has noticed that I spend all of my time on them and she's been trying to figure out what the attraction is. The result is that Margot now picking up my cell phone and holds it to her ear while saying "hi". This seems like a much more complex level of mimicking us than banging on the computer keyboard or repeating sounds that we make. She has figured out both how to interact with the phone (hold to ear) and that you say hello into it. (And, yes, I do actually answer the phone "hi" if I know who it is from caller id.) She's cute and a genius!