Margaret Turns Two!

Happy second birthday to our Margaret Anne, affectionately known as Margalo! Our little girl who is obsessed with wearing her "buggy" costume and with washing her hands as often daily as anyone leaves a bathroom door ajar. So far, she seems fairly mild mannered and her occasional tantrums are usually over as soon as I pick her up to maneuver her into doing whatever we were going to do at which point she snuggles into me and smiles. Her reactions are short-lived, and I suspect a little phlegmatic lives in our midst.

Our being on Day 9 of an unhappy illness, I have no pretty still shots of our girl--the ones I took all caught her crying!--but I will post a collection of short videos taken over the last two weeks.

 Margaret sings "Mary Had a Little Lamb"

 
 Margaret sings "Row Row Row Your Boat": She delivers this song as a joke often by substituting funny words. Another joke she plays (not in this video) is interrupting her own song about rowing the boat with, "Ahhh, a shark!"

 

 Margaret sings "Ring Around the Rosie"

 
 Margaret counts toddler-style: Mary sat down one day to teach Margaret how to count. She really did teach her how to count to five (which at this age is more like memorizing a list of words) quite well! And she did pretty well up teaching to ten, such that Margaret when prompted will often give the next number, e.g., I say 'eight' and she replies 'nine.'

 

 Margaret has begun praying the words along with us lately, most notably the Hail Mary, the Our Father, Grace Before Meals, and the Angel of God. (Note that "Gigi" was her first pronunciation of "Jesus": she can now say Jesus, but sometimes still says Gigi. So cute!) Margaret has also memorized her favorite books and says them along with me or Daddy.

 
 Margaret says "Go away!" Being a third child--even with her fairly gentle personality--Margaret has learned how to fend for herself. Very young in life, she began saying things like, "Go away!" "That's my spot!" "I want my turn!" and "Don't take my food!" She's a little scrapper who knows how to elbow her way into the mix!

 
 Margaret sings "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and then recounts the harrowing tale of when she smashed a bug (and a second bug incident as well).