Maggnificent Monday

Maggie stats:

Favorite position of the week — standing up on her own. You can tell when she takes on most of her weight herself; she gets a big open-mouthed smile.

Favorite hand — right. She’s beginning to reach out for objects in her line of sight. Looks like she’s gonna be right-handed.

Favorite toy — Mr. Bumblefly. It’s a teething toy that half of us think is a bee and the other half thinks is a butterfly. Maggie thinks it’s her new best friend. She tells him all her troubles and will just stare into his beady eyes without end.

Favorite game — Quiddler. The cards look interesting and are light enough to easily hold between her fingers.

Average time asleep at night — 5 hours. This is awesome. She’ll eat every 3 hours during the day with little catnaps in between, and then she’ll go much longer at night with only a half hour or so of play after a meal. This feels like a full night’s sleep!

Favorite activity — baths. Therefore one of our favorites too.

Most important message of the week — Happy Valentine’s Day!

Maggnificent Monday


A week of ups and a week of downs. The downs: Thursday was vaccination day at the doctor. An oral vaccine against polio and then 3 shots for various assorted terrible diseases. The needles aren’t little baby sized shots, either. They’re, like, big people sized. Regular when you think of needles and serum sized. And here’s this nurse saying she’s going to stick them into little Maggie, and stick them in she did. So sad. The shock registers on her little perfect face and then she turns purple and she screams and screams. So sad. But she rallied quickly and by the time we were back at the car she was her old self again. Later that evening she did run a bit of a fever, but infant acetaminophen sorted that out. She was a little touchy the rest of the day, but is back to normal again, thank goodness. So sad. But back to normal now, and disease free.

The ups: Uncle Pat came to visit this weekend and meet his niece. The first uncle she’s met! Maggie behaved herself almost perfectly, an ambassador for all babies. So we just hung around the house, playing games, catching up, cooking from the French Chef, and staring at Maggie. Geez, once you put all these Collinses next to each other, they all sure do look alike!


And . . . Maggie rolled over for the first time. From tummy to back, she can prop herself up on her elbows and let her head carry her body over. Actually the first time was at the doctor’s office in front of the doctor. She’s either a show-off, or she tests really really well. Either way, what a big girl she is!

Fromage

Over the weekend we engaged in one of our favorite activities: home cheese making. This time we made fromage blanc, a tangy soft cheese that tastes a bit like Greek yogurt but has the consistency of cream cheese. It’s super easy to make — just heat up the milk, add the starter culture, and after 12 hours let it drain for another 6 hours. Here’s our draining setup.

I just looked up recipes for fromage blanc, and yum yum is there a lot of good stuff to do. Apple butter cheesecake, pasta toppings, biscuits, vegetable dips. Mmmm. Now if only there were time for me to get in the kitchen for long periods and experiment. . . Maybe we’ll just have it on toast with jam on top. Or smoked salmon. Or dolloped on top of soups.
I’m so happy to be one of those sorts of people who doesn’t think it’s weird to make cheese at home by hanging it from a mop over your sink.

Maggnificent Monday

Things are starting to stabilize over here. We’re figuring out some patterns. Like when she gives a little barking cry, we know she’s tired. Then we start the rocking and quick squats to keep her from getting into full crying mode. Then she eventually drifts off, and five minutes later she wakes up and we do the rocking and dancing again. This one usually takes and she can go into her basket after awhile. This girl does not go down without a fight, afraid she’s going to miss something exciting. We think perhaps she’s going to have a, shall we say, strong personality.
She’s also really happy about standing up. She’s gotten so strong that she’s basically standing on her legs herself and trying to balance too. In no time at all this Maggie will be running around and we’ll be running after her. Oh boy! Maybe she’ll just skip sitting up and crawling and go straight to walking. We’ve got an Olympic athlete on our hands!