My Big Girl

My Sweet Girl, my little love, is walking unassisted. I am such a proud Mama. It was like night and day; one day she was scared to take more than a couple of steps and the next she was walking all around. I still can't believe it when I see her toddling around with her arms in the air like Frankenstein. How far she's come in the past 21 months!

Every day my heart hurts from all the cute. Margaret's little personality is coming out full force these days. I guess it is the willfulness of her age. She is defiant and cranky and opinionated. Then in the next minute she is the sweetest little girl in the world, full of hugs and kisses. I love all of it.

Right now her favorite toy is some magnetic letters David got her from the dollar store. She has been obsessed with the alphabet for quite some time. I estimate that she knew all her letters by the time she was 15 months adjusted, maybe earlier. And now at 18 months adjusted, I'm almost certain she knows the order, too. At first, her extreme interest and skill at learning these scared me. I was a afraid that she was showing signs of hyperlexia. These days, though, it has become apparent that she is truly not showing any other signs of this disorder so I have been able to breathe easier and just enjoy her playing with her letters while repeating their names to herself, "coo", "sssss", "Eeee!!!", "ahh", "exsh", "huh", etc.

Margaret has also learned all of her numbers (digits) in the past couple of weeks. She has a favorite number, seven. She will sit in front of the fridge with the seven in one hand and another letter or number in the other and the two have little conversations. This little dialog invariably leads to her "hugging" the seven between her shoulder and jaw and carrying it all around the kitchen in this position. Other times if I ask her where seven is, she will grab it off the fridge and hug it while cooing like she is loving on it.

I told you, so cute, it hurts.

Happy Mardi Gras

Had a wonderful weekend! Did we do anything Mardi Gras related? Nope.

My Mom, brother, and sister-in-law were in town for a visit. Sunday my family took care of the children giving David and me a break. He and I went to a hotel, ate chili dogs for lunch, took a nap, spent some time in the whirlpool, took showers, and then another nap. It was the best gift I've ever been given, hands down. What a great day it was!

Of course, as soon as we got back to the house and my family left, it was bedlam again. Margaret would NOT go to bed and ended up staying up til almost midnight. And William started screaming even though he had been an angel all day. Figures.

Margaret has started standing and she thinks it is big fun. She would be much more successfull if she didn't wave her arms around and clap instead of using them to attempt to balance. But it is so cute, I can hardly bear it.

Climbing and Signing

Today Margaret showed me two new skills. She can now climb up on things that are the right height... namely the middle part of the sofa where I have removed the cushion.

Also, out of necessity, she is now signing and saying "down". She is so stinking proud of herself and gives me the biggest grin when she knows she has it right. Now, this isn't one of the signs we have been working on forever... I just looked this one up a few days ago so that she could use it when she gets stuck somewhere. I never expected her to learn and use it so rapidly. Especially since she has never signed anything other than "milk" even though we've used a handful of other signs for the past several months. (Right now she is so excited about her skills that she will not go to sleep!)

William and I have started attempting to nurse. So far he has done better than Margaret ever did. He will actually latch on and suck and swallow! I'm very hopeful that I will be able to nurse him!!! He still is not doing very well with the bottle... and this is our last hurdle before he can come home. I anticipate he will be in the hospital for at least another couple of weeks.

Cammatee

In the midst of all the craziness we have managed to put up the beginnings of our Christmas Tree. So far all we have on it are the lights. But no matter, Margaret thinks it is the best thing on the planet right now. And when I picked her up from daycare today, she was plain chatty and pointing to the Christmas trees they had set up.

Another big hit in our household lately is a fire in the fireplace. Lots of squealing, pointing, and "talking". Yes, we are always close to make sure that she doesn't actually launch herself into the fire... which she seems determined to do!

Her biggest most impressive "trick" lately is her ability to pick letters out on random things like on a Gatorade bottle. And she can do some letters both capital and lower case- particularly "A". Her best letters are A, M, O, and sometimes B. Margaret blows my socks off every day.

Living with Blackbeard

Margaret's "language" has taken on a new tone lately. It went from a sing-song romantic language to some strange German dialect and this week she has thrown in some pirate noises... her favorite being the classic "Aarrrrggg!" It is so funny to hear her doing this over and over while "reading" a book... where do they get these things???

Little Girl, Growing Up

Last night when David was getting Margaret ready for bed, I came in for just a second to comb her hair a little. After a few strokes, she grabbed the comb from me and attempted to comb her own hair. I nearly fell over it was so cute.

We have also started a little pediasure in her bottle for extra calories. Even when I add just an ounce to her 8 ounce bottle, it still makes it so sweet and vanilla-y. The first time I put some in Margaret's bottle, she started drinking it and promptly rolled her eyes into the back of her head while keeping them half open. She drank her entire bottle this way... looked like she was in pure ecstasy. I haven't seen that expression since her last bottle of breastmilk.