An Ace at Sitting

Given the previous post, I thought it was only fair to Margot that I post an example of her sitting well. She's doing a lot of expert sitting these days! Not only can she exist happily on the floor by herself (and even scoot around some, though usually not in an intended direction), she's capable of riding in her stroller or a shopping cart seat without the car-seat, and even sits in the high-chairs in restaurants comfortably. Actually, she loves the high-chairs, because usually she can then get a taste of the table by just leaning into it and gnawing.

I love the following shot, 'cause I think it looks like she's focused on making a good selection in the store. Although, about 60 seconds after this shot I pointed out to Christi that Margot was leaning sideways to bite on the horizontal metal bar at the side of the cart! Yay, teething...

Think she's ready for a career as a sitting-model? ACE Hardware ad copy, here we come...

Grace Happens

Margot's fancy stroller comes has a bar across the front that is at first used to secure the car-seat in the stroller, but then becomes the anchor for the snack/drink tray once she is big enough to sit in the stroller properly. However, "properly" may not be the right word, since she's come up with her own favorite method now that the tray is in place. She's a delicate flower!

A Margot Trap

Margot was making unhappy noises, so I looked down to see what toy had moved out of reach. Instead, I was surprised to see Margot caught with her hand in the shape toy (you put the right shapes in the right holes). Margot had stuck her hand in to get a shape and wouldn't let go of it, so she couldn't get her hand out. Being the caring parent that I am, my first reaction was "we need a picture of this" rather than, say, helping her. At least events like this will be nicely documented for any future therapy sessions.

Margot and Pop-Pop, 4/19/2008

Margot's Grammy and Pop-Pop came to visit ten days ago. She's sitting up tremendously, and looking at the world and the people and things in it with a whole new intensity and attention, at least to my eye. I think you can see a bit of it in this photo. I think Christi's working on some posts as well, so I won't spoil some other recent developments yet. Stay tuned!

Margot and Daddy at the Playground, 4/19/2008

Hay?

Pop quiz - What did I spread all over my yard this weekend?

I'll make a straw-man proposal: it's straw, man. This weekend we aerated most of the back yard, seeded, fertilized, and spread milky spore to cut down on the japanese beetles. Christi found info on the web saying that a layer of straw is good for keeping warmth and moisture down on the grass seed/sprouts, and can be mowed in as compost once the lawn starts to grow. I'm just hoping that the whole exercise goes better than last year, when I tried to re-seed half the yard WAY too late in the summer and ended up with scorched earth for the rest of the year.

Things I've learned in the process:

• hay has seeds, straw doesn't
• straw/hay generates lots of very fine dust when you break up the bales
• this dust is not pleasant to breathe
• my back yard can be covered using approximately 1.25 large bales of straw
• I can be covered with dust using much less straw

In related news, we handled the trickiest spot in the yard (over the top of the septic tank, average depth 1.5 inches of crappy topsoil) by planting a quick flower garden in a few inches of new topsoil/manure/peet mixture contained with a couple of 4x4s pulled out of the scrap pile. Thanks to C&K for bringing us some of the lilies torn out of their garden - the new centerpiece for ours!

(Note the straw all around the new garden, and the hose for the sprinkler setup to water the yard obsessively until the grass gets going. Went to the hardware store for an extra hose-splitter so that we could run three hoses/sprinklers and have full coverage without walking on the grass seeds to re-set the sprinklers. And I only soaked myself twice setting up the sprinklers!)

Cutting Her Teeth

Literally.

Margot's having a rough few days with what looks like four new teeth coming in. Four!

Teeth shift out and in, so we won't know for while how many are out for good. We'll try to document her new toothy smile when we're past the worst of it.

Here is a photo from the other day in which, if you look closely, you can see her existing two bottom teeth poking up.

More than Half In the Bag

Margot got pretty caught up in doing the laundry the other day...

But, at least she seemed to have fun with it...

6 Months!

Well folks, we've made it to six months. Margot has become so much fun and has entirely taken our hearts. I'd swear that she was the greatest person ever born, but I've been around the block to know that every parent feels that. What a wonderful treat the biology of parenthood is! If you don't have kids, it's hard to understand. Try imagining the gloriousness of the first time you fell in love and then multiply it a million fold. That gets close to how indescribably incredible it is when I look at Margot. And this sort of magic happens every day around the world between parents and children. Who knew! This "having children" thing is pretty darn great. I'd say that I'm for it.

Anyhow, enough gushing. You're probably wondering what has been happening in the A-S household. Well, month number five brought a lot of new adventures. The biggest and most exciting of which is FOOD! Yes, Margot has entered the realm of those-who-eat-from-a-bowl. The eating sequence is hysterical. It starts with an excitedly open mouth like so:












Next comes the negotiation of the spoon:












Then the food is contemplated. I especially like this stage because the mood switches from an eager "I want to eat that!" look to a "why is there something in my mouth?!?" look.












Another excitement was M's first train trip (as documented on mom's cell phone). We took the Acela down to New York for a business meeting. The little bean was a model traveler once she was taught not to eat the ticket. Getting on the train, some guys said "I don't want to sit near the baby" and I found myself being offended. Then I'm thinking, "wait, I've been on enough of these trains to know that you business guys talk on your phone loudly the whole time. Margot makes a lot less noise than that!" And, I was right. She barely peeped until 20 minutes outside of Manhattan when she became all chatty. So, 4 hours on the train and no crying. I call that a real accomplishment. Maybe we'll try a big plane ride next!

Apart from that, Margot has been sitting up somewhat unaided. She's not the most stable baby, but she's doing well given that my technique for getting work done has been to hold her rather than do things like tummy time. If Margot never sits up on her own, you can blame my company. I'm sure she'll understand the sacrifice.

Separation anxiety has hit. People who aren't mom are now highly suspect. They might take her away and THAT WOULD BE BAD. This is actually a fascinating stage to watch. She can now anticipate things and will grab tighter on to me when someone comes to take her out of my arms or I move to put her down. I'd say that she:
1. knows what is coming (not being attached to mom)
2. has an idea of what to do about it (hold on tighter)
Developmentally, those seem like big steps to make. I'm not saying she's unusual in anyway, just that it's interesting to see her develop. Part of me thinks that this parenting thing is an incredible experiment in observing biological development. It's amazing to watch.

Our Own Brand of Dog Whispering

Any of you who have watched Cesar Milan, The Dog Whisperer, know that he practices Dog Psychology. In our life with Jolly, we have been forced to develop to Dog Reverse Psychology.

Jolly is scared of our stairs. They are unusually steep and pretty slippery for his little paws. The wreckless abandon with which he flings himself at them has led to some glorious wipeouts. Now, I wouldn't care if he never came upstairs again, but he whines at bed time when he is separated from the pack. Again, I wouldn't even let this bother me (I'm cold-hearted like that), but he stands in the hallway that connects to our neighbor's unit and the sound reverberates and is amplified by the space. In order to have our wonderful neighbor not hate us, we try to coax him up the stairs ever night. In a fit of extreme frustration the other night, I stopped trying to get him up the stairs and instead created the "get in the living room" command. In dog language, this must translate as "go climb up those stairs that you're more than happy to climb when you think we're leaving you alone in the house for the day" because he raced right upstairs.

I was able to use this command again last night to great effect. Now I just need to figure out the opposite of everything else I want him to do and he'll be a perfect dog!