Life with Margo

The Avidons had another spate of out-of-town visitors in October. First, Jake’s childhood friend, Ivan, swung by during a tour of California. Then, Grandma Elaine and Grandpa Richard spent a long weekend here. Ivan’s visit included a trip to one of the Avidons’ favorite (if windy) spots, Crissy Field.

Ivan, Jake & Margo at Crissy Field

With Elaine and Richard, the family explored some of Margo’s favorite parks, attended a concert by Asheba, a children’s musician, at local music spot Ashkenaz, and just enjoyed spending time together. Margo loved having her grandparents around, and applauded when they pulled up in front of the house. Richard and Elaine also took on Margo-duty alone for almost a full day and got to experience changing their first poopy diaper (fun!).

Margo, Richard, & Elaine

Margo is finding lots of new outlets in which to express her creativity. Maia and Margo have started taking a music class on Friday mornings through East Bay Music Together, an organization that leads music classes for children up to age 4 and their parents. The music classes were a birthday gift for Margo from her Great Grandma Miriam. There are 12 kids (ranging from 3 months old to 3 years old) in the class, which includes a mix of singing, dancing, and “playing” musical instruments. Margo especially likes playing the musical instruments and dancing. During the dancing part, she sways her body side to side and stomps her feet very quickly. She is a little less engaged in the singing part of the class and usually takes this time to go collect everyone’s shoes which they took off when they got to class (and then sometimes to try to put the shoes on other people’s feet). She also really enjoys it when the teacher, Andy, plays her guitar. Margo will go up to Andy, look at the guitar very closely, and very softly touch the strings. Here are a few pictures from a recent class.

Margo checks out the drum, while Andy plays guitar.

Margo surveys the scene during free dance.

Margo has also taken up drawing as one of her favorite activities. Maia and Jake try to keep most drawing confined to the kitchen, so as soon as Margo steps foot in the kitchen, she will start to say “draw, draw, pen, pen, Owen, Owen.” (For some unknown reason, Margo almost always talks about Owen, a kid in her daycare, when she draws.) Margo also knows where Maia and Jake store the scratch paper and will go get herself a piece if her parents aren’t quick enough to meet her needs. While coloring, Margo likes to ask for various colors of crayons, especially yellow (“lellow”), purple, blue, and orange. She doesn’t necessarily know which color crayon goes with each name, but she does like to say the color names. Margo also likes to have other people draw things for her, especially circles. Jake’s co-worker Lynn recently gave the Avidons a hand-me-down child-sized table and chairs (and washable crayons to protect the walls), so there will soon be an art center set up in the Avidon house.