Margo à la Maude

Some days, family life can be, though fulfilling, a touch monotonous. Wake up, dress the kids, feed them, park, diaper change, naps, etc.

Other day, like today, it's like they've been stashing away all the first and milestones to spring them on you all within a 24-hour period.

A quick recap.

2:00 a.m.-ish: Maude begins crying. We let her cry. There is absolutely no way that a healthy baby of her size can't go seven hours without feeding. We put her to bed in our bed, close the door, and when she wakes up around 11:00 p.m., Donna gives her a quick top up and we put her in another room so that we can go to bed. Last bedtime, she cried for 40 minutes or so. At 2 a.m. - and trust us, our resolve is less than 100% at 2 a.m. - she cried for another 30 minutes or more. The good news here is that she only cried once last night. This is down from four times a couple of nights ago. This is not a downward trend. There is no trend. There is no rhyme or reason. There is only Maude and her own, secret maudus operandi at play here.

6:30 a.m.: Both kids wake up. Margo has probably been awake for a few minutes already. The morning rolls out as normal.

7:00 a.m.: Out of curiosity, Donna measures Margo. She's been just shy of 1 m tall for weeks. Today, she's 100.5 cm. This is a first. This evening, I weighed her. She's 16.75 kg. She's a big, well-proportioned girl. Off the charts for height, and nearly so for weight.


8:30 a.m.: Donna puts Maude down for her morning nap. Maude cries for 40 minutes, hard. Gasping for breath hard. I ignore her, repeating a mantra of "short term pain, long term gain" to myself. After 35 minutes, I switch mantras to "you put the lime in the coconut, you mix it all up." This seems to work better, as she starts to peter out. Unfortunately, she only sleeps for... I don't know, 30-40 minutes, though she has been known to sleep for 3 hours in the morning.

8:45 a.m.: Donna and Margo go to the park, soccer ball in hand. Margo is ecstatic to be bringing the ball to the park, but it may have been a question of status symbol, as she apparently barely touches it. She does, though, get on other kids' tricycles at the park and completes full rotations when pedaling. This is a first, and a good sign for expanding our walkable zone.

10:00 a.m.: Donna has signed up for a class on quilting. She leaves, leaving me with both kids. We're playing, and, you know how these things happen, Maude ends up with a saltshaker lid stuck in her mouth, and it cuts either her tongue, gums or inner mouth, and she ends up with a mouthful of blood. This is a first. Not as much of a good sign. Margo retreats to the Fortress of Solitude that she has developed for herself in my closet, plugging her ears to block out the crying.

I don't know if anybody really appreciates what I just said, so I'll repeat it, slowly. Maude... cut herself... by getting... a saltshaker lid... stuck in her mouth.

Dr. Spock doesn't mention that shit.

10:30 a.m.: The three of us venture out to go to Parliament Hill by bus. This is also sort of a first. Margo (and Maude, I think), have been on buses before, but not in their conscious memories. Margo, though corrected incessantly, insists on calling it a school bus. She's really excited. One of the bus' "colourful characters" strikes up a conversation with me on how my carrying Maude in a chest carrier makes her look like the alien jumping out of the astronauts' bellies in the movie Alien. Margo is, um, less enthusiastic about that.

We ride the bus, Margo is entranced by everything that is happening: cityscape going by, the bus lurching back and forth, people getting on and off, someone in a wheelchair made use of the retractable seats to seat himself, the upholstery going was red, but coming back, it was blue. And she got to pull the yellow cord to ring the bell to stop the bus. Both ways. And both bus drivers said you're welcome in French when she said "thank you." Life... is... good...

11:00 a.m.: Parliament Hill. The Big Show. We got off the bus right across the street from the Hill, took two steps, and the bell in the Peace Tower started chiming. Margo, overwhelmed, assumed that it was coming from the unassuming abandoned 2-storey American embassy closest to her, rather than the 15-storey, neo-gothic stone Peace Tower across the street. Parliament Hill is made to have all eyes focus on the tower. All eyes, except a 2-year-old's. And a very sleepy 8-month-old's, whose only reaction is the occasional gasp for breath as the wind takes her breath away.

First stop was the Eternal Flame just as we enter the Hill. This is important, because it will set the tone for the rest of the day. Margo, it appears, is afraid of fire. Petrified of the Eternal Flame, symbol of the dream of a confederation that will stand the test of yadda yadda yadda. You'll never know if you'll be embarrassed until this happens to you, but I think I blushed in front of the proud Canadians (tourist come to Ottawa in waves: May brings Canadians and Russians, because it's still quite cool) as my eldest writhed out of my hands and bolted for the Parliamentary lawn, yelling at the top of her lungs, "NOOOO!!! IT BURNS ME!!! I DON'T WANT IT TO, IT MAKES ME HURT MY BODY IT HURTS ME NOOOOOOOOO!!!"

In context, she was never closer than 2 meters from the flame. Um... we stand on guard for thee.

The reason for the trip to the Hill is that there's a cat sanctuary at the back of the Parliament Buildings. I don't know if anyone ever thought of the optics of having "fat cats living off the public purse" or a "parliamentary cat house" when they allowed it, but whatever... it's kind of neat. Margo liked that, for about 30 seconds, then chased a slow-moving pigeon.

The Hill is littered with statues of famous Canadians and queens. Margo would point them out, and invariably say "Hey, look at dat guy, he's doing..." and then she would recreate the pose. That was fine for Queen Victoria, Georges Etienne Cartier, Diefenbaker. George Brown's statue was a little more allegorical, with Brown on a pedestal, and a man representing the tired masses yearning for elected representation stretching his hand up to receive the divine grace of Brown's foot. Margo's interpretation of it rivaled Audrey Hepburn's dance in Funny Face. Allegory, lost on 2-year-olds. Maude was still stoned in the carrier.

It was a windy day, and it the highest point of the walk around the buildings, the wind ripped Margo's hat from her head, violently, and it went spinning down the actual hill into the trees. Like... gone. Also a first. When she went to the edge of the hill to see it, she wasn't fond of the drop and the river. It's a big river. The elements weren't treating her well today. She's not so big on Earth, Wind and Fire.



Tired, hungry, scared... hatless... Margo's mood turned south from that point on. he couldn't stop talking about her fear of the fire. Nonstop. The bus ride was a little tiring, because she would just alternate between having me promise that we wouldn't go to the fire again, and how the upholstery was blue, not red like in the other bus.

1:30 p.m.: Dinner finished, Maude in bed with hardly a peep, Margo went down for a nap too. She was awake for a little bit, but at least she napped.

3:30 p.m.: Today was the first day of swimming lessons for Maude, and a new time slot for Margo. We had to wake both up to get ready. And this is where I have to make it perfectly clear to everyone: you don't... wake Margo... from a nap...

She was cranky. Throwing herself to the ground in tears inconsolable. We made a last-minute decision to keep her home, and I would go alone with Maude to the pool.

4:15 p.m.: More or less late for swimming, but Maude didn't seem to mind. She did seem really confused by everything, though. What is this giant bathtub? Why are we wearing special clothes? Why isn't papa wearing a shirt? Why am I floating?

I'm very, very happy to announce that Maude is GREAT at swimming, kicking her legs constantly, dipping her mouth underwater of her own accord, laughing. She doesn't like water in her ears, and cried once when we completely submerged, but all in all, loved it. Swimming is a first for Maude.

And when life gives you a shirtless papa, time to start getting pinchy and grabby with the chest hair. I think I have a bald patch on my right pec from one class. Cheaper than waxing, but more painful than iodine.

Getting changed was a little tricky. I'm a little gun-shy after having Margo fall on the tile floor when she was around Maude's age. And Maude is a lot more wriggly. Still, we managed.

6:30 p.m.: The rest of the evening went well. Bedtime went smoothly. And Maude didn't make a sound. This is a first in a long time.


I'm a little overwhelmed by all the activities and the firsts. Maybe Sunday will provide a welcomed return to the monotony; I'm exhausted. But proud. And very aware that flames and Margo don't mix.

- Michel

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 02, 2009 at 7:43 p.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.