Maggnificent Monday


The highlight of the week was a trip to another Boston suburb for a trip to the movies. We saw Ghost Writer, which was a fine movie; kind of run-of-the-mill action suspense kind of flick. The real treat was that this local theater reserves one showing a week for parents and their babies. It’s aptly called box office babies, and everyone comes with their little ones and parks their strollers in the lobby. It’s a place where you don’t have to be concerned about your baby disturbing anyone crying or talking; you can breastfeed unselfconsciously; and you can see how your baby measures up to others. Maggie, by the way, was very well-behaved, outshone many of the little tykes in attendance, and enjoyed watching the movie too.

A River Ran Through It

So there’s been a bit of rain here lately. Actually a lot of it. All the locals keep saying they’ve never seen anything like it. Days of constant heavy rainfall — no let up. The system has failed in a couple of places. On the interstate in places, water is up past the tops of tires. Just down the street a mile, the creek that runs through the neighborhood has become a rushing lake four houses wide. The air is filled with the sound of sump pumps doggedly working. Except at our house. Where there is no usable sump pump.

Or at least that used to be the case. I called the landlord when the basement looked like this on Sunday:

See the line at the bottom of the washing machine? That’s at least 4 inches of water on the basement floor. Now why is the sump pump unusable, you ask? Because the hole for it is uphill. Yeah. I know. But it only takes a few days of no rain for the water to seep back into the concrete and disappear. (The water level is actually the water table seeping up through the floor. If the foundation were not permeable the house could float away.) Okey dokey, Mr. Landlord.
Except that the water level rose to the hot water heater’s pilot light and extinguished that sucker. That got the landlord’s attention. He called his trusty plumber to come over with his portable pump (Home Depot ‘s rentals were all accounted for — all their for-sale ones too) to suck the place dry.

It only took hours for the floor to be flood-free and ready for installation of our new hot water heater. (This comes on the heels of our pre-Christmas destruction of the furnace and tankless water heater. We were acting on the landlord’s instructions — we were pretty sure — but the appliance had issues and apparently we had misunderstood the procedure for keeping hot water in the house, and kablooey. After that debacle he installed just a regular 40-gallon tank water heater.) He has an order in for the next available sump pump, with brand new hole to be drilled downhill. And we have a brand new 50-gallon flood-impermeable water heater. The landlord’s sarcastic instructions for use? “Try to break this one.” Sounds like a challenge to me.

Maggnificent Monday


Isn’t she cute? When it was springy out and we were walking outside not with the stroller and tons of blankets, which is before we are not outside at all because of the torrential rains . . . we realized that Maggie did not have a hat with a brim and thus our hands in front of her face (blocking the sun from her eyes) would be all she would ever see on walks. So when I happened to be near a kids’ clothing store and happened to see that there were brimmed hats, I just happened to buy one for her in nice pale pink lace. Isn’t she cute? Oh, I guess I already said that. But isn’t she?

Anyway, on to the real subject of this week: physical abnormalities. A kind of “get to know the babe like mom and dad do” session. Maggie has a couple of places that she’s just special. One of them used to be her left ear was kind of folded and fused above her earlobe, but she’s somehow rectified this and no longer has Grandpa Frosty ear. What she does have is a mole right on top of her head. When she was first born it was a red spot that we thought would just be a sort of birthmark type thing, but it’s become bumped up a bit and is certainly going to be her Great-Great Grandma Ingeborg mole. And right behind the mole she has one singular kinky white hair. It’s growing at the same rate as the rest of her hair and continues to grow kinky and white. I’m afraid it will fall out one day (like hairs do) and another one will fail to grow back. It’s like her little nod to the Grandma Sue curly hair. Our favorite little quirky thing of Maggie’s body is her butt crack. This may sound very strange, but hang with me. It’s crooked! Right at the very top of her bum, her little crack takes a jag to the right. One day she’ll hate me for broadcasting this to all the relatives, but it’s just so cute, and how else would you really find out about it. We didn’t even notice it until a full-family bath a couple weeks ago. And who does she get this trait from? Anybody going to fess up to having jagged crack?

Maggnificent Monday

It was a fun week! We schlepped the play pen from this autumn’s garage sale buy up from the basement. An hour or so later . . . we had a portable crib assembled in the living room. (By the way, now we know how it works, it will take about 45 seconds to put up in the future.) So Maggie’s gotten the chance to hang out in a bigger container than her Moses basket. Where she can practice rolling over and explore the possibility of crawling and kick around and flay her arms to her heart’s content. In honor of the occasion we brought out the lightweight rattles that she would be able to hold by herself. The rattles have been a big hit and she’s taken to reaching for them and holding them briefly before flinging them away. They also have (apparently) tickled her fancy so much that she’s laughed at them. I have yet to hear such a sound, but rumors are that Winnie the Pooh (pictured below in Maggie’s hand) makes her chuckle. All we do all day is play! What a life!