Maggie went on her first hike yesterday! We packed up both dogs and strapped on her tennis shoes and headed out to the only trail system within decent distance of us. She did great! She walked much of the way herself, zigzagging back and forth from one side of the trail to the other. Stopping occasionally to pick up a decomposing leaf or a pine cone. Pointing and signing “poop” when we ran across lumps of horse manure. Brushing her hands off when she stumbled and jogging on down the trail again. We brought the backpack for when she got tired and wanted to space out, but really she wanted to either be walking for herself or be carried upside down so she could look at the trees silhouetted against the gray sky. We didn’t get lost in the maze of poorly marked trails and celebrated the whole occasion with omelets and Irish soda bread at our local diner. What a big girl!
Maggnificent Monday
Eye. Ear. Nose. Teeth. She’s very good at the pointing to facial features game. Teeth is a recent one. We started it with these new guys coming in so that we could maybe sneak a peek back there and look at their progress (to see if we would be getting sleep any time soon). I figure now it’s practice for going to the dentist and letting someone poke around. She is an awesome tooth brusher, by the way. She lets me get right in there and brush the fronts and backs and even go over the new molars. Then she rinses her toothbrush herself and washes off her face. No cavities for this one!
The teeth extravaganza has calmed down. Mostly things are back to normal. Sleeping. Eating. Patience. She still has a few left over new behaviors — like staying rigid as a board when she doesn’t want to be picked up or laid down, or biting the closest available item when she gets too excited or frustrated — but we’re trying to work on extinguishing those guys. If she doesn’t get anything positive out of it, I figure she’ll drop it eventually.
Yesterday we drove to Springfield for Great Grammy Strauss’s 90th birthday party. Maggie was a star. She didn’t let anyone pick her up and cuddle her (surprise surprise), but she did allow some pictures if I was holding her on my lap, and she ran around a lot looking oh so cute. She was really interested in watching the other kids play and even followed them around a little bit; but as the youngest of them was 5, she didn’t have a very active roll in their games. It did make us excited for when she gets to go to school and join in. She’ll really have fun, we think. The two hour car ride in the rain in the dark was a bit of a stretch for Maggie, but it was really good practice for our trek out to Colorado. We’ve learned now not to plan more than two hours of driving at a time. We just have a party animal on our hands!
Countdown
In a TV show that I particularly like, one of the characters is a very bad driver. For instance, when parking on the street, instead of parallel parking, she just pulls up to the curb nose first, so that she’s perpendicular to all the other cars parked and the direction of traffic.
Someone did this in front of me today while I was driving to the post office. We’re talking Boston streets here, so it’s very confusing to visualize, but I was veering to the right fork in the road (on a green light) while she was coming from the other direction taking her left fork and going to the road which would have been a hard right for me. Basically it’s like I was going straight (on a green light) and she was making a left-hand turn across traffic. I’m pretty darned sure I had the right of way. But no big deal, really, because there was plenty of time for her to make her turn and continue on down that street with me just taking my foot of the gas.
Except she didn’t continue on. She swung wide in order to just pull up to the curb right at the corner. In her Large American SUV, this created a little bit of an oh-my-god adrenaline tickle for me. We were never in any danger of crashing metal against metal, but there was enough of a situation that I did suddenly try my brakes out and swerved a little to the left. And I could see the surprise and shock register on her face too as she glanced out of the passenger side window, knowing that she was having to slow down to park (in her ingenious arrangement) and couldn’t move way out of my way quickly.
As I drove past, she was turning her head to look at me and I smiled at her, ready to forgive this weird driving faux pas. I know that driving around here can be super confusing, and there are also so many people that sometimes you just have to make something up in order to get where you want to be. I would have appreciated it if she had waited until there wasn’t on-coming traffic (namely, me) before implementing this little bit of ad lib driving. But like I said, no harm no foul; I was ready to let it go for her. She was even mouthing her apology to me as I moved on. “Sorry, ” I saw her mouth begin. But no. “Sah-loww down” is actually what she was saying. Excuse me? You think that was my fault?
How many days until we move to small-town Colorado?
Maggnificent Monday
Why don’t I ever learn? If you say something is wonderful, you automatically doom it to become terrible. So Maggie is in the process of cutting four new teeth right now. Four at the same time. Four big ones too, on the bottom near the back. So sleeping? Not so much. Eating? A delicate affair. Patience? At near zero (hers, not mine, yet). Mostly we just feel sorry for her. It’s obvious it doesn’t feel good, and she won’t do any of those things you’re supposed to do when you’re teething, like suck on ice chips or chew frozen bagels or suck a wet washcloth or take your pick. She will drool like crazy and eat frozen yogurt and throw a tantrum in the middle of Target though. Poor thing. Not her best week.
She has gotten interested lately in trying to learn and pronounce words for things. So far her repertoire includes cup, watch, up, ring, bib, and probably a few more things that I’m forgetting. Cup, up, and bib are all pronounced “bup” and watch sounds like “d tsch.” It’s interesting to notice what she pays attention to; the last sounds of words are the part she tries hardest to mimic accurately. Then you add a “b” or “d” to the beggining and you have a whole new word!
And you asked for it, so here’s a little clip of Mags walking some more. It’s getting increasingly difficult to get pictures of her still. There may be more videos for Maggnificent Monday than pictures in the future. Anyway, she likes to play chase, both in pursuit and as the chasee. There’s a whole new set of games we can play now that she’s confident on her feet.
Maggnificent Monday
Maggie is doing awesome. Even though it’s February and we’re all getting cabin fever or the winter blues or SAD or whatever you want to call it, Maggie’s just great. She’s walking walking walking. We had one “incident” where she fell rather hard and bit her lip. A little blood, but a quick recovery and back on her feet right away. It’s remarkable that she’s been at this for really only a week. She’s an awesome walker! Still on her tiptoes, but balanced and happy. I had this thought that if we gave her high heels at least her whole foot would be supported. Then we could give her a pair with lower heels. And then a lower pair. And so on until she’s in flats. What dya think?
And naptime has become routine now too. It used to be she screamed for up to half an hour with nothing able to comfort her. Now she gets her diaper changed, a book read, and into her crib. Maybe two minutes of fussing, then she talks to herself for awhile, and then she’s asleep for almost two hours. There are some things that Maggie excels at; eating and sleeping routines are a couple. And walking. Good things for a baby to be good at.
Magrilless 