Magrilless

Up. Down. Up. Down. That’s Maggie’s story lately. In the Down category, she has decided she absolutely hates hates hates riding in her car seat. Hates it. I think it’s much to passive for her. She gets bored after two minutes and then starts squirming around which makes the straps cut into her. And she doesn’t do well just being bored. There was a lot of car riding this week: into Boston Wednesday for her 6-month check up (she’s healthy and quite petite); into Boston on Thursday for a urine sample analysis (she’s had smelly pee, which checks out just fine); around town errands on Friday; out of town errands on Saturday; into Boston for church Sunday. And we survived.

The Up category includes her first days at school. Okay. Not really school. But Gymboree classes. We went for music class on Thursday (thank you Montana Collinses!), and because of a summer promotional, we also get to go to play class on Wednesday and Friday for free! We did a lot of singing and dancing and clapping and smiling at other babies (she’s the cutest one, of course). My favorite activity is baby soccer, where the parent uses baby’s body to hit the beach balls back and forth. Live foos ball! Maggie’s a little bewildered so far, but it’s all very repetitive, so I think she’ll get into the routine of the fun stuff. And maybe we’ll make some friends too.

At least she’s still a good sleeper. She’s latched onto her bedtime routine with eagerness and lets us know if 8:00 has come without us noticing. And maybe some of this crankypuss behavior has to do with incoming teeth. Which means that it’ll pass soon, right?

When she blows raspberries she has to concentrate so hard. Her little brow gets furrowed and she looks so darned determined. It’s such a silly sound for such a serious face.

If she’s in he front carrier and you take a drink from a cup, she’ll turn her head all the way around and up to see what you’re doing with the mug.

When she’s gotten into the groove of breastfeeding, she’ll fold her hands (interlacing her fingers) and rub her feet together.

She loves it when stuff hits her on the head. She thinks it’s hilarious when something like a straw or paper towel roll that’s been tapping her arm suddenly bonks her on the head.

She has a favorite side for breastfeeding. If she started her meal on the other side, she’ll pet me when she gets to “the good one.”

After you take her spoon out of her mouth, she sometimes rolls her tongue. I guess she got the gene for making your tongue look like a cigar.

She is not a morning person. Before breakfast is about the only time she’ll let you just hold her and snuggle a little.

She smiles and looks you in the eye. It kills me every time.

This weekend I decided to implement an idea I had about how to make Maggie’s alcove a more separate area upstairs. I thought if we just hung a curtain across the space, then we could make it dark for her even if we had a light on elsewhere up there. Maybe it might muffle sounds a little too. Great. Sounds like a cinch. So I went to a chain bedroom/bathroom decor store and got myself a tension shower rod and a curtain that had big grommets to fit around it. I even splurged and got a $3 hook to mount halfway up the wall to anchor the curtain when it’s open. Maggie’s happy reading a book on the floor. Should be done in five minutes tops.

Four hours later it looks like this.

Ugly.

What went wrong? Well, basically everything. My measurements were wrong. Instead of being 72 in across, it’s more like 82. So the tension rod that goes up to 72 inches is a dud. I briefly toyed with the idea of padding each side with 5 inches of something nonslippery, but dismissed that as unsafe. I also decided against trying to get the flat ends of the shower rod to push against the slanted walls farther up (where it would be even less than 72 in). This seemed difficult as well as unsafe, not to mention there would then be areas on either side of the rod/curtain that would be open to light/noise.

The curtain I picked out (it was on sale!) is also too long and about half as wide. I didn’t pay attention to which measurement was which dimension. I read 84 by 54 and thought “perfect!” Other way around. Not perfect. So why not just flip the sucker on its side? Ah, those convenient grommets that would have made for such easy installation. Can’t have them on the side with nothing on the top to attach to the (now) hypothetical rod.

My solution in the end was to go down to the basement and raid the box of unused closet organizer hardware that the landlord left behind. If I put two skinny little rods together (which at some point I serendipitously discovered fit one inside the other — no twisty ties needed after all) it would span the opening just below the slanty part of one wall and just into the slanty part of the other (nothing is symmetrical upstairs). This is of course 3 gaping holes in the drywall later. Turns out I should have placed the rod a bit further into the alcove because as it is now there’s a good section of uncovered space between the alcove wall and the curtain. And the curtain hits the middle of the bucket of blankets and toys instead of between them and the crib.

Now all I have to do to fix this is move the rod back about a foot. And maybe replace the rod with one that doesn’t sag tremendously in the middle and is way too thin for the huge grommets of the curtain. And buy another segment of the curtain and hem them both to be the right length. Maybe another curtain altogether with another rod that matches it.

The best thing I can say about what I’ve done is that when the whole thing comes crashing down, it’s not over Maggie’s crib to smother her to death. Way to go, me.

We’ve implemented a new policy in the household: baby bedtime. At 8:00 Maggie gets a snack (either her usual liquid course or squash if it hasn’t been all that long since a full meal). Then we go upstairs immediately and she gets a clean diaper and pajamas. After that it’s lights out. If she complains, we pick her up. But the moment she’s calm again it’s back in the crib! When we started this routine, we’d have to go through a lot of pick-ups and put-downs. And singing and patting and rubbing. In the middle of the night too. Now she’s pretty much got it down. We stand at her crib with a hand on her back for a couple minutes and voila! Sleeping baby. She wakes up at 4 to eat, then goes right back to sleep without any complaint for at least another hour. And that, my friends, is a full night’s sleep and the recipe for happy parents.

Meanwhile, during waking hours, we’ve been taking her to the grocery store and church and shoe shopping. And people love to ogle her. We’ve even gotten one gasp, complete with a hand to the mouth, followed by “Oh she’s so precious!” Oh we’re so lucky!