Magrilless

What is Maggie doing in all that laundry, you ask? Are we packing up and moving early? Engaging in a huge quilting project? Having a garage sale? No, folks, these are clothes moving in. These are all Maggie’s new hand-me-downs from a friend of a friend. This friend’s friend had a lucrative job which allowed her to purchase all sorts of designer wear for her baby girl, clothes that probably she only wore once or twice because there were so many pieces to choose from. So the friend of a friend handed over all these outfits when the friend had a baby girl, so that she could wear the designer clothes once or twice. Now that that baby girl is having a baby brother, Maggie gets the twice handed down clothes for herself. Since there are so many of them in the collection (really people, you’re probably looking at $2000 worth of baby clothes, at least), they’re very lightly worn, mostly look brand-new, and will only be worn a couple of times in order to get through every piece before Maggie grows out of them. Luckily she’s a small baby and so she can still squeeze into most of the 3-6 month clothes for one lookiloo at how cute she is. I also have the feeling that the girliest of the girly clothes are the ones we got, since some of the more unisex ones could be saved for the aforementioned baby brother. So everything is pink pink pink with frills and flowers and bows. Oh boy; no one’s going to mistake Maggie for a boy anymore.

In other news, Maggie has now waved hello or bye-bye a couple times. She won’t do it every time and not to everyone, but she’s kind of getting the idea. When we were downtown last week, staying at the hotel where Bill was attending a conference, because it was free and we could — when were were at the hotel she waved with consistency at the fishes in the lobby tank. And she’ll wave to the baby in the mirror, who always waves back. It’s exciting that she’s learning a societal nicety. Right now if she sees someone unfamiliar or someone she hasn’t seen for a period of time, she just stares. Stares hard and long. At least when she learns to wave she can do something appropriate while she’s staring.

And a couple weeks ago you got to see what kind of friends Maggie and Kaibab are. This time you get to see how she and Eliza get along.

Maggie is an expert crawler now. She can get wherever she wants to go. She’s also a pro at pulling herself up on things: coffee table, play kitchen, canister of dog food, entertainment center, you name it. We’re working on “no” as a concept. It’s important for things like the carbon monoxide detector upstairs (where there are no outlets except at baby level), the dog dishes, and things that move easily (like the ottoman) on the hardwood floors. She may understand, but so far she doesn’t obey. Guess that’s the difference between a dog and a baby. There have been a few face plants resulting in a few bruises, but thankfully her next doctor’s appointment is far enough away for those to heal a bit first.

Her repertoire of food has expanded a bit. She now does some protein: tofu and lentils. She will eat green beans again (yay for green food!), but she has turned her nose up at watermelon. What sort of child is this that will eat tofu but not watermelon or avocados? We also discovered what formula she should not eat (the free stuff we got in the hospital that we were mixing with mashed potatoes and lentils). She has also gotten so good at chewing that she can have chunks of bananas and peaches and slices of cooked carrots now. This potentially makes going out easier, as we can just bring an actual piece of food instead of being worried about bringing frozen pureed stuff and keeping it frozen and ordering hot water and hoping the ziplock bag has no holes and then hoping it’s not too hot after being in the hot water and then shoveling in half spoonfuls trying to make it last as long as possible. Now we order a side of banana slices and she’s happy for a long time.

Our first order of business was to find a set of keys in a car trunk. The car was sitting in the driveway with all the doors shut, and the house was similarly not showing signs of departure preparations. The gentleman who answered the doorbell was grateful when he heard where we had found his keys, although I think he might have checked the trunk after we were out of sight.

Several times there have been dogs that ran into the street with traffic approaching (once the owner was totally oblivious–too busy fiddling with his giant earphones). I’ve stepped into the street with my hand extended in universal “Halt!” signal and led the dogs back to safety.

This morning we found three separate sets of keys in the street or in lawns. With no identifying keyrings, nothing to do except set them in the middle of the sidewalk where they’re hopefully more visible.

Our most dramatic effort at being helpful neighbors came when we put out a fire in someone’s front yard. As we ran past, there was the unmistakable odor of burning (which I interpreted as cozy fireplace smells and thought “mmmm”) and Bill noticed puffs of smoke hovering near the sidewalk (and thought “danger!”). Closer inspection revealed slowly smoldering mulch (becoming bright red sparks before our very eyes) around a cigarette butt. Even though the door and windows were open, no one answered the doorbell, knocks, or bellowed hellos. So we availed ourselves of the watering can on the back porch and the visible hose next door. Two full buckets later, it was still smoking and super hot to the touch, so we told a neighbor across the street who said he’d call the owner (on her morning constitutional) to let her know the situation. Six minutes out of our run to save a house’s life. (We think. We haven’t repeated that route, actually. )

And we keep tabs on the local groundhog and turkey flock. What did they ever do around here before we moved in?

It feels like things are beginning to go back to “normal.” Maggie’s starting to sleep again on her chosen schedule; she’s cheerful during the day; and Mommy and Daddy are feeling less like zombies on the edge. That must mean things are about to change again and become unpredictable, right?

Maggie has a new sound that she’s making these days. I think it’s supposed to be kisses. She purses her lips, or at least makes an “ooo” shape, and then clucks her tongue so it makes approximately the same noise as kisses make. She mostly does this when staring at the dogs. Very cute.

And speaking of dogs, she and Kaibab are great friends, as you can see below:

There’s a new resident in our household: The Mother. A dove has inhabited the nest on top of our gutter drainpipe. The nest has been there for years, according to the landlord, but we’ve never seen anyone in it until The Mother came and sat upon it earlier this month. So far she’s just been sitting and biding her time. She doesn’t care when we come out on the balcony to pick basil or ride the stationary bicycle or throw away diapers. She’s set up residence and we are awaiting her bundles of joy. Anyone know how long a bird sits on eggs so we can have the car gassed up and ready for delivery at any time?