Life with Margo

Now that Margo has such a large vocabulary, it is possible to actually have a conversation with her. Here are some verbatim transcriptions of conversations between Maia and Margo.

Scene: Maia is giving Margo lunch. Margo has two bites of her grilled cheese sandwich, then stops eating.
Maia: Are you done?
(Margo waves hands back and forth to give the sign for all done.)
Maia: Do you want anything else?
Margo: Os (this means Cheerios).

Scene: Maia is putting Margo down for a nap.
Maia: Are ready for your rest?
Margo: Res.
Maia: Goodnight (puts Margo down in her crib).
Margo: Bye.

Scene: Maia is giving Margo a snack.
Margo: Mo-Mo (this means more)
Maia: Do you want more bread or more water?
Margo: Bre (this means bread).

Scene: Maia is carrying Margo.
Margo: Up, up, up, up, up.
Maia: Do you mean down?
Margo: Dow.

While it is very exciting to be able to communicate with Margo, Margo can now be very insistent about what she wants, especially when it comes to her bottle or her Os. Here is a video of her requesting Os.

One of the newest additions to Margo’s vocabulary is the word “bus.” Maia and Jake thought this might mean that Margo was following in her father’s footsteps with his love of all things transportation-related. But, Margo doesn’t use the word to refer to an actual bus, rather she uses it request that Jake sing one of her favorite songs — “The Margos on the Bus.” This is Jake’s version of “The Wheels on the Bus” that includes the following verses:

The Margos on the bus go up and down (lifts Margo up and down in the air)
The Margos on the bus go swish, swish, swish (moves Margo from side to side)
The Margos on the bus go bounce, bounce, bounce (bounces Margo on his knee)

However, there is still hope that Margo will take after her father. When reading a book about trains, Margo likes to make the sound of a train (chugga, chugga, chugga).

In addition to bus, Margo has picked up quite a few words since the last blog posting. In addition to “bus,” here are some others:

Water
Bath
Turtle
Os (to refer to Cheerios)
Bread
Banana (really just sounds like “ba”)
No (said as “No No;” more is also said as “Mo Mo”)
Hat (which she likes to say when she puts something that is not a hat on her head)
Button
Outside (sounds like “side”)

As mentioned in the previous post, one of the Avidon family’s favorite CDs of children’s music is “Look at My Belly” by Brady Rymer because it features so many songs relevant to the experiences Margo is going through. One of Maia and Jake’s favorite songs is called “These are the words that I know.” Sample lyrics include:

The world’s brand new
I’m not yet two
There’s so much in my mind
I hear a new word everyday
So many words I want to say
But these are the words that I know….

So, these are the words that Margo knows:
Hi
Bye
That (usually said repeatedly to indicate “give me that,” but also to ask “what is that” or to say “look at that”)
Uh-Oh
Ball
Bop (Margo uses this when she throws anything, such as a ball or her food on the flood, and also when she plops onto her tush on the ground)
Bottle
More
Up
Down
Spider (sounds like “bider” and said in combination with the finger motion to indicate that she would like you to sing one of her favorite songs – The Itsy Bitsy Spider)
Da Da (not Mama though)

Maia’s persistence with baby sign language is finally paying off as well as Margo is starting to use several signs. So far, the signs she knows are:
More
All Done
Milk
Dog

Before Margo starts picking up too many words, Maia and Jake wanted to make sure to capture some of her silly noises and non-stop chatter on video, so the two videos below are not videos of the words Margo knows, but rather the sounds she makes.

One of Margo’s new favorite activities is to give kisses. She actually started giving kisses several months ago, but then seemed to lose interest in it for awhile in favor of blowing kisses. Then one day, Margo was looking at Maia with her mouth wide open. Maia asked “do you have a kiss for mama?” and Margo planted one on her. Now, Margo gives Maia and Jake (and other people who ask) kisses almost every day — often including a lovely face lick.

Maia and Jake are constantly amazed by how much Margo understands of what is said to her. When asked a question about the world around her (for example, where are the tomatoes?), she almost always seems to know the answer. One of Maia’s favorite things to ask Margo is where her belly is. Margo will lift up her shirt and give her belly a little pat. Here are some videos of Margo identifying objects around her.

P.S. The title of this post is a reference to one of Margo’s CDs of children’s music,  “Look at My Belly” by Brady Rymer.

When asked to speculate on what Margo will be when she grows up, most people guess that she’ll be a politician or a beauty queen due to her love of waving and saying “hi.” However, Margo has other interests as well. Maia and Jake have been taking a lot of videos of Margo lately, and Margo has really wanted to get in on the action too. So, here is a video that Margo shot. It’s a little abstract, but we think she may have a future in film. Warning: you may get dizzy watching this video.

Just a few weeks after taking her first steps, Margo is truly a walker now. Sure, she still looks like a drunkard and frequently plops down on her tush, but she just gets back up and keeps walking when it happens. Here is a video of Margo walking down the street outside the house.

On May 22, Aunt Nora (a.k.a. Auntie No-No) graduated from U.C. Berkeley. Margo and the rest of the Avidon household would like to wish her congratulations!

In addition to taking her first steps on Tuesday, May 19, Margo also had another first that same week — her first wedding. Maia, Jake, and Margo all traveled to Nashville, TN, to attend Eli and Adrianne’s wedding over the Memorial Day Weekend. It was a lovely trip, though Maia and Jake have definitely decided that traveling with Margo is a lot harder than traveling without her (not least of all, because of the huge amount of stuff that is required to travel anywhere with a one-year-old).

Margo’s favorite parts of the trip included anywhere where there was a large crowd of people (such as the airplane, restaurants, and any wedding event) because this gave her nearly unlimited opportunities to say “hi” and wave to people.

Some other highlights of the trip included:

• A lovely walk at the Shelby Bottoms Greenway.
• Putting Margo to bed in the hotel room, leaving Maia and Jake (who weren’t quite ready to go to bed yet) reading in the hallway outside the bathroom.
• Several meals at Fido, a casual restaurant near Vanderbilt University (the Avidons apparently like to find one restaurant to eat at repeatedly when traveling and had three meals in three days at Fido).
• A lovely rehearsal dinner picnic at Edwin Warner Park, with fabulous Las Paletas popsicles.
• And, of course, Eli & Adrianne’s beautiful wedding.

Margo saying "hi"

Margo saying "hi" again

On a recent plane ride, Margo spent most of the trip saying “hi” and waving to all the passengers on the plane. The woman in the seat next to Maia asked if Margo’s waving had been captured on video, causing Maia and Jake to realize that they have been remiss in expressing on this blog Margo’s great love — passion really — for saying “hi.”

And again...

Margo loves to say “hi.” This is absolutely, without a doubt, Margo’s favorite activity. She loves to be in a place with a lot of people, like a restaurant or plane, where there are many, many opportunities for saying “hi.” While this is certainly adorable, Maia and Jake imagine it may actually get a little annoying for the people sitting at the adjacent table at a restaurant, who have to say “hi” to Margo at least 10 times during their meal. And if someone happens not to notice Margo saying “hi” or chooses to ignore her, she will continue to say it until she gets a response. For example, at our hotel on our recent trip to Nashville, Margo would wake up very early in the morning, stand up in her crip, and wave and say “hi” repeatedly until Maia or Jake got out of bed to get her. Below is a video of Margo saying hi to some other customers at a restaurant.

While waving is Margo’s favorite thing to do with her hands, she also enjoys blowing kisses, giving a high five, and holding her toy cell phone up to her ear as if she is talking on it (most often with the phone upside down).

Margo chats on the phone