margaretyagan

The excitement today centered around Uncle Danny’s arrival!  It was great to have Uncle Danny around.  We got to hang out a bunch and he got to practice doing a bunch of things like feeding me!

We also had a trip to the house where Dad and Uncle Danny grew up in Bourbonnais, IL.  Nana and Grandpa lived there until a couple weeks ago when they moved up to Chicago.  We rode down in Nana’s and Grandpa’s car which is much more comfortable that Mom’s and Dad’s!  I slept the whole way. 

When we got there, Dad & Uncle Danny started loading up a truck with things to take to Nana’s and Grandpa’s apartment.  I mostly hung out with Grandpa while Nana got things organized for the people who will be renting the house.

We had a mini-disaster at dinner, though.  Grandpa was feeding me, but we had a perfect storm: I was a little bit flustered by the new environment, I was starting a new food (quinoa) with a texture I had never had before, and I didn’t have a high chair to sit at.  So, I gagged on the quinoa a couple times and wasn’t even interested in the blueberries that Dad packed for dessert.

Uncle D drove back and, not surprisingly, I slept all the way home!

Monday was a fun day.  Dad was working from home and so I got to see him whenever he came upstairs.  My days (especially weekdays) are starting to get more structured and predictable.  My morning nap now comes at just about 9:00, by which time I’ve already had my early morning bottle (around 6:00) and breakfast (at 7:30 or 7:45).  Mom had a doctor’s appointment and so was home extra early.

Tuesday was my birthday!  To celebrate, I think, I got to start a new really yummy fruit: cherries!  Also, Mom & Nana decided to try going down to seven ounces per bottle (6:00 am, 3:00 pm, and 7:00 pm).  Also, now that Grandpa & Nana have an apartment in Chicago, they aren’t always both at home with me; in fact, they are starting to split shifts a little more, with Grandpa often covering the late afternoon until Mom gets home.

Wednesday was cold and rainy — and I’m getting the sense that I should be expecting a lot more of this to come.  I didn’t get to leave the house for even a second today. 

Thursday was cold, but dry and sunny.  I finally got to sport my new winter coat, hat, and mittens.   Nana and I went to say goodbye to Wicker Park, just in case it isn’t a fun destination in the winter.

I’m definitely moving around a lot more now.  I can scoot backward really well and often find myself pinned under, behind, around something I can’t get away from!

Mom & Dad seem to have gotten pretty serious about Maggie-proofing the house this weekend.  Dad even co-opted my services to help!  As you can see, I was in charge of hanging on to the painter’s tape while Dad installed the very first baby gate in our house.

The one he installed was the one that Great Grandma Droste gave me before I was even born — at my baby shower.  He put it in the hallway downstairs, so it cuts off the office from all the dangerous stuff — the two sets of stairs, the bathroom, the bedroom, the laundry room, and the mechanical closet!

Then, right before bedtime, I decided to practice shrieking — a new skill I’ve picked up recently.  Dad thought a doo-rag was a good idea.  Um, no.

Mom & Dad decided that today would be the day to go family coat  shopping.  Well, not for Dad, but for me and Mom. We looked at a bunch of places (Old Navy, Gap, Carter’s), but everything for little girls was pink or frilly, and for some reason Mom & Dad didn’t go for those.  I tried a few coats on (to figure out what size would be best) and then eventually Mom & Dad decided to buy it online.

Then Mom got into the act and we looked for a coat for her.  I was surprised that they didn’t have ANY pink or frilly coats for her!  She ended up getting a really long black coat from Patagonia.

Today was a pretty regular day.  I’ll leave it to the pictures!

I came downstairs at 6:45 in a great mood.  I played with Nana until breakfast, with even more walking than usual.  After my usual breakfast of cereal and prunes, I was still in a great mood.  I had a pretty big meal for lunch and then took a nice long nap in the afternoon.

We didn’t get to go outside at all today because it was raining all day and it definitely feels like it’s getting colder!

I was up and at ’em like usual this morning, but I started getting sleepy by 7:00.  I managed to stay up to have breakfast and then took an almost two hour nap.  The weather has stayed nice, so Nana and I went for a walk.  There were a ton of kids in the park and it was the first time that Nana let me get on the swing (Mom & Dad put me in a swing weeks ago, but I haven’t been back since!).  I devoured my lunch (including yummy apricots) and took another nice long nap in the afternoon. Grandpa took over around 3:45 and we hung out until Mom got home.

Today got off to a highly unorthodox start.  I woke to Mom being quite a bit more frenetic than usual.  She didn’t even change me out of my pajamas before whisking me downstairs and rolling me out the door in my stroller.  We headed up to Wicker Park where hundreds of people were standing in line to get into the gymnasium.  Even more confusingly, Dad was already in line, right up at the front.  Mom and I cut the line to meet up with him (I’m pretty sure that without me, Mom would have gotten a lot of flak for heading straight for the front of the line).  Once we got into the gym, I got to vote for the very first time — well, I got to help Dad vote, anyway.  Dad had been reconsidering his vote, but he knew I wanted him to vote for Obama, so he did.

Starbucks was giving away free coffee to people who voted, so Mom, Dad, and I swung by and got two coffees (one for nana!) and a chai latte.  Chai latte?  That sounds elitist, Mom!

Nana was waiting for me when we got home.  I changed into my regular clothes and, after all the excitement, promptly fell asleep.  We had a baby-proofing safety consultant come by the house and make recommendations about how to “Maggie-proof” (hey!) the house.  Apparently, any given thing in the house is a potential risk.  Dad didn’t look very happy.  Then a couple guys came by to estimate doing some work on the floor.  It made an already hectic day even more so.

Around 3:00, Grandpa took over for Nana and we got to hang out for much of the afternoon.  Mom was working from home, so she was able to hang out with me much earlier in the evening since she didn’t have to drive all the way home.

I fell asleep before anything was known about the election, but at around 11:00 there was a lot of honking and loud blasts all over the city of Chicago.  Go Barack!

Dad woke up with me around 6:00 this morning and then after some pretty brief play time, we hopped in the car and headed out to our weekly trip to Dominick’s.  As usual at that hour, I was in a really good mood (Mom & Dad are lucky I’m a morning person!).  We got what we needed and then headed back home where Mom was waiting for us with lots of excitement.  We played for a while, I ate breakfast, and then I took a nap.

When I got up it was almost lunch time and boy was I in for a surprise.  I thought I had eaten some pretty adventurous food — I mean, I bet most people have never eaten millet!  But this was crazy — turkey!  I had never eaten meat before; so much for a life of vegetarianism!  I have to say, the turkey wasn’t exactly delicious.  Luckily it was immersed in pear bath, so I was able to get it down.

After lunch, Mom, Dad, and I took off to run some errands.  It was a beautiful day — even bordering on hot.  We went to J. Crew, Banana Republic, Carter’s Ann Taylor Loft, Anthropologie, Dominick’s, and Target.  We eventually got back home and Mom and Dad took turns playing with me until dinner time.  Dad gave me my bath (I can’t remember the last time he did) and then put me to bed.

My Saturday was pretty unusual, in that I woke with Mom and Dad was nowhere to be seen.  I hung out with Mom all morning.  After I got up from my afternoon nap and bottle, Mom put me in the car and we headed downtown — a place I rarely go.  It turns out that Nana and Grandpa had just moved to a new home in Chicago (which explains Dad’s absence).  Everyone was kind of stressed out, but — even without my magic dragon outfit — I managed to cheer everyone up!  All of a sudden Nana and Grandpa were in a great mood!

I like their new apartment, especially because there are lots of new things to look at out their windows and lots of new things to discover in the apartment.  We hung out there until I got tired around 7:00 and then we headed home, where I went to bed pretty much as soon as I could.