Another underwhelming blog....

Last night we took Margaret out for her first trick or treating.  Overall she's a happy and social girl, but when new people are around, particularly men, it may take her 15 min or so to warm up to them.  Since trick or treating is almost 100% about new, often costumed, sometimes scary people, we really didn't know what to expect.

Margaret is to a stage now where she just points at things and says "Unh unh unh!" repeatedly until we give her what she's asking for. Liz and I don't want this stage to last any longer than necessary, so we're teaching her to say or sign "please", "more", or the word for what she's asking for if she knows it, like "water" or "milk", etc. She seems to understand, yet sometimes she's stubborn and resists for a good minute or two before finally breaking down and saying/signing her request. Watching her sign, though, is the cutest thing I can imagine at this stage of my life.

Margaret has always been interested in technology. Why not. Liz and I love it. She sees it all the time. It's amazing how well she understands it, though. I'm sure you've already seen her unlock the iPhone, which she's been doing since about 12 months.

Margaret doesn't kiss me very often.  Probably because I shave so rarely.  When she does kiss me, it's usually because I've asked her at least 20 times, and am holding her so that she can't get away from me.

She was pretty restless when I was putting her to sleep last night.  She talked, tossed and turned, and wrestled our pillows for close to an hour before she started to wear down.  It was pleasant, though.  So I layed on my back and just waited.  After a while, she layed on her back beside me, and was still and quiet for several minutes.

So lately Margaret has been picking up on little rituals and patterns in our daily lives.  For example, she knows that if I kick off my slippers and take off my glasses while holding her, that I'm about to put her to sleep, and she'll immediately start crying.  Luckily, she's almost always done within a minute or two of us actually laying down.

Margaret has picked up a few new tricks since the last time I wrote.  She now has a 5 word vocabulary:

We went to our neighbor's birthday party yesterday with Margaret.  It was at one of the local places with all of the big inflatable toys.  All the kids from the neighborhood showed up, which was really cool to see.  It reaffirms how happy we are with the neighborhood we live in.

It's been a while (maybe 2-3 months) since we've taken Margaret to a sit-down restaurant.  We used to have about a 50% success rate with it, but even when it worked,  it wasn't a ton of fun.  You sat there the whole time thinking that even though she was being good right then, that it could change any second.  You really didn't know if it was going to be a successful trip until it was over, and you'd been tense the whole time anyway.