I'm a baby

"maaa... maarg... mommy, does this word say "margaretta?" is this my cheese?"
"no, it says mozzarella. would you please not stand inside the fridge?!"
"oh, i wondered why those letters in there were so wiggley."

What has a more dangerous potential than two children with strong lungs and a case full of percussion instruments?

The answer: Two children, purportedly sleeping, being very, very quiet in the kitchen with a 1 pound bag of flour. :)

Maddie really doesn't seem that interested in talking, but she's a very apt communicator, getting by quite effectively with grunting, pointing, gesticulating, signing, etc.

She knows the melody to several songs, her favourite, which she will hum in it's entirety, being "ABCDEFG." She's actually even more moved by song and music than ever Margaret was, which I didn't think was possible.

She's also more independant than any baby I've ever met. We're apparently not allowed to feed her anymore, because she feeds herself with a fork. Even finger food needs a fork. We think it's because she's part british. She'll probably also grow to enjoy boiled cabbage, perpetual rain and dry humour.

Here are a few of the words that she is using:
Uhhooooh
Aja (one of our kitties)
Tehtehtehteh (Chester, also a kitty)
DuckDuck
Yay
Dadada
Hi

This week, Margaret has befriended all the living things in our yard. Today she went outside with her little cat to say good morning to the bugs, trees and wild onions while blowing kisses to the rock doves who took flight to avoid becoming Chester's breakfast. "The onions and trees don't have mouthies, but they say still good morning back to me."

Margaret's grandfather is going to help us start a small garden for her, so that she can learn about taking care of plants.

This afternoon it started raining again. Margaret had explained to us before, "the rain is very precious because it helps the trees get dinner and make their pretty leaves for us to look at." Today she announced excitedly, "The rain is raining on our house! It's about time this place grew some leaves out of it's top!"

margaret said, "look mommy, i have a chocolate beard. it's just like daddy's hair beard. do you not like beards?"

(true story)

Margaret is to the 'fascinated by robots' age. It seems like it just happens sooner and sooner with each passing generation (back in my day, dinosaurs were all the rage with pre-schoolers. I didn't get into robots until I was at least 5). In the afternoon she likes to sit and build boxy robots from wooden blocks and tell me all about their favourite snack foods--this time of year they prefer to drink seasonal eggnog from a green cup.

She told her father, "my friends at school go to school inside a big, big robot. you just take me to school with an old car." Hopefully the financing gods will smile on Margaret's mommy, who has her heart set on a big, big '07 Honda robot. Or more like a tiny roadster.

I think they teach them this stuff in baby school... within two days of being there, her new mantra became, "NO! I can do it myself!"

Margaret really loves cooking. She's made scrambled eggs for us twice, now--once at home and once at her grandparents house. Girlfriend can crack eggs better than I can, without shell and everything (quite honestly, I've never been able to crack eggs worth a shit). She also helped me with the cookies I made for her class, mixing the ingredients, stirring, dipping her entire, not necessarily the cleanest, hand in the dough to taste test, etc. Yesterday she begged to cook lunch (begged! replete with the requisite flailing and tears and melodrama), and, with minimal help, prepared her entire meal of crazybugs (like powdered mac&cheese). I let her stand on a barstool in order to reach the stove and she did about 90% of the work, and miraculously wasn't injured.

When she was done cooking, she dished some out at the table in a bowl for herself, and a tiny bit for her sister and her cat, neither of who had much interest in crazybugs. I'm either the best or the worst mother in the world to let my 2almost3-year-old play on the gas range with pot of boiling water.

Maddie has thrush, again. I'm really not sure how since we eat so little sugar or wheat in this household. I can only assume it's the fault of the antibiotics I took a couple weeks ago, and failing to follow up with the appropriate probiotics. Thrush is seriously one of, if not the, most excruciating thing I have ever experienced. Yes, worse than my back injury, treated this summer, which was more exquisitely painful than even childbirth.

I think it's high time I throw in the towel on this nursing thing. As something to which I credit Margaret's strong immune system, I had hoped to breastfeed Maddie for a year (a little over a month from now) but I believe the benefit is almost lost if it causes me so much suffering and grief. I gave it my best efforts. Maybe. I will feel guilty for life if she becomes sickly, but I'm seriously on the verge of an amateur, home mastectomy if I don't figure out how to make this quit.

On a happier, milestoney note, she has started toddling around calling out "Mae!," which is her baby rendition of "Maddie" or "Margaret," I'm not sure which. It's awfully cute though. I started calling her Mae.

in addition to waving and pointing, maddie uses the following words:
hi
daahdee
mama
tehteh
uhhoh!
yay!
bah!

she seems to understand when we address her. we really should be signing with her more.

maddie, is an 8 mos-er, now--such a grown up.
we've taken to calling her "madipillar."

her wellbaby visit with the pediatrician went swimmingly. she couldn't be healthier physically or developmentally. he weighed, measured and gave her the usual once over, assuring us that she has met or exceeded each of the prescribed milestones for her age. she is of perfectly average eight and head circumference (50th percentile) and is rather tall (90th percentile). it's such a joy not to have to focus any worry toward baby fattening. she also received her first two vaccinations--hib and DTaP. as a result, she slept for most of the day and ran a slight fever, but we kept ker sufficiently dosed with tylenol and chamomile.

she's enjoys solid mush and finger food for 3 of her 100 meals per day. in fact, she's a master-eatbaby, barely making a mess when she eats.

no walking, quite yet, but she's cruising and standing like a maniac--a maniac on the floor, as it were.

she choruses us with a stream of constant vocal noises. we are all convinced she says the name of our bravest cat, "teh teh ter," who plays teasing games with her. when her fine motor skills improve, the joke will be on him. she pretty consistently makes a sound which resembles his name in context, but it's hard to tell if she's not just experimenting with phonemes. parents have a tendency to mindread and make up kidwords.

she's such a different person than her sister, with such an entirely different demeanor. it's incredibly exciting to see her turn into a person. our babies sure are good people.

i feel as if i'm finally getting over the exhausting, crazed babyhump. did i mention how much i love toddlers? i'm glad to be entering this phase.

maddie stood, unassisted, for almost 10 seconds.

she pulled up on a laundry basket in the middle of the futbol room, and just stood there on her shaky, little legs, flashing her biggest, drooliest grin. margaret spied her in action, flew over, and grabbed both of her hands so that she wouldn't fall trying to sit down.

maddie is 7 months and 1 day old.

our girls are the greatest.

margaret is going to start school in a month and i'm thinking about taking a part time job or working freelance some. this leaves me with two concerns:

child care and illness.

we've been pretty lucky to have never truly dealt with any sort of colds or sickness, yet. i'm not worried about margaret, she's very sturdy, but maddie is so young and she's still nursing. is it inevitable that a child will suffer a constant barrage of colds and sickness if placed in childcare as an infant?

we've also chosen to delay some of maddie's inoculations. we made that decision with our midwife and pediatrician. we have good reasoning and a strong family history of severe vaccine reactions. i'm not intending to debate our choice at all, but since she may be enrolling in childcare, i'll reevaluate our plan at maddie's well checkup with her vet on the first of august. i understand this really limits the daycare facilities that will accept her, though. does anyone else have any experience with this?

the other option was to hire a part-time nanny for the hours that i will work (7a-2p). how does one go about finding and evaluating a nanny, or for that matter, an acceptable, affordable childcare center on semi-short notice? does anyone know of any professional nannies?

i just sat listening to two year old margaret count from 1 to 13, completely unprompted and unassisted. she's never done that before, and frankly, i had no idea she had been introduced to numbers beyond 5. i'm in shock. i wonder what else she knows about.

maddie will be 7 months old in less than a week.

• yesterday we noticed her first tooth--a minuscule right side, bottom one. even without teeth, she has been a champion chomper.
  
• over the weekend, while cruising around a low table at jack and sarah's, she turned around and took a half step to grab on to me. we think she will be up before margaret, who was an avid walker at 10 mos. she's not standing on her own, but she sure has been trying, if the little bumps on her head are any indication.
  
• she hates the carseat. HATES. it's babyjail. we even installed a new carset, because she outgrew her old infant bucket. i think we need to get her a tin can to scrape across the invisible bars. and a harmonica so she can sing the blues of oppression.
  
• aside from the carseat thing, and the teething and not wanting to sleep much thing, maddie is just a big sack of love. she pads around, puttering and playing and SMILING. she has the biggest, sweetest smile in the world and will flash it for anyone. especially her mommy. if you say, "maddie, do you want a kiss?" she'll smile her biggest, gummiest smile and crane her head in your direction.
  
• she is just as gentle with the cats as margaret. she has yet to pull or grab, but she pets them all, especially chester. chester enjoys playing teasing games with her and they curl up together for naps. this really says something in favour of letting a 1-year old raise a kitten.
  

margaret is gonna grow up to be a pedantic bibliophile. she knows when to use a and when to use an and will correct you if necessary--"AN owl; A rhino." she has one of her bedtime books memorized and will correct my line if i try to skip a page.

today when she woke up, she came scampering out to the livingroom where i was and asked for some milt (her word for chai almond milk). i said, "oh, good morning little margaret!" and she responded, "good morning little mommy!"

maddie started pulling up on things over the weekend. today, she no longer wants to be held or to nap on me. she wants to play on the floor with her sister and chester. i've been watching them do that for hours. according to margaret, she's not allowed to play with squares (wooden alphabet blocks), bubbles (bubblewrap), stuffed doggies or cookies "casue she's a baby." wuhhoh.

poor elric still has toothpaste on his back despite our best efforts in cleaning him off. he doesn't seem even slightly miffed about it. he's such a hobo.

maddie has discovered cats. they're quick, soft, fascinating and utterly hilarious. she's also developed somewhat of a death grip. even the sweetest of chesters aren't down with the death grip.

margaret is out for the afternoon with her grandfather. she's shopping for a tiny life jacket so that she can go canoeing. lucky girl!

margaret seems to have developed a great love for bugs over the summer summer. she especially enjoys catching pillbugs and letting them roll up into little balls in her hand. she seems to be very gentle with them and has yet to injure or squish anything she's caught (that i know of).

a few mornings ago, she brought me a catch, ala chester. it was furry and green. matt was up, but i was still slowly dragging myself out of bed. "morning, mommy! look," she said, "i have a pretty animal!" and she plucked a fat little catapillar out of her hand and plopped it down on my arm.

maddie has taken to sleeping with her head on my shoulder for her afternoon nap. margaret likes to come curl up in my lap when she notices maddie--she doesn't want to miss out on anything that might be special. it's nice, because she's at an age where she really doesn't have time to stop and notice me otherwise.

the downside is, sometimes my arm falls asleep. also, i get very bored.

did i mention that maddie crawls, now? forward, even. she sits up, too. what a little person!