Maggie’s Surprise Package

Maggie got a surprise package yesterday. Inside was this letter:

“June 8, 2012

Dear Maggie:

We haven’t met, but I saw your baby picture on Facebook the other day, and I was very excited! My name is Maggie, too…short for Margaret. There are not too many Margarets around anymore, and I wanted to send you this silverware. It belonged to your great-grandmother, Margaret Crutchfield Roy. Your great-grandparents, Andy and Margaret Roy, were Presbyterian missionaries and lived in exciting and wonderful places, and traveled all over the world. Over the years, they were given many interesting and amazing gifts of art and porcelain and ivory from China and Hong Kong. They lived long and happy lives. After Margaret died, your great uncle, Dr. David Roy, and my mom, Nancy Robertson, cleaned out the garage and the closets in the Pittsburgh apartment so that Andy Roy, who was almost 100 years old, could move to a smaller place.

David Roy was very generous and cavalier about giving away these items from his parent’s storage. He didn’t want them. He was sure that his brother, Stape, would not want them, and that your daddy and your uncles (who were young unmarried guys) would not want them. “Take them!” he said. “Take them all!” My mother and I loaded up her car with family heirlooms and knick-knacks and drove back to New Mexico where we live. We sorted the items fairly so that her sister, Aunt Sally (Robertson) Foster, could have some of the fascinating mementos for herself and for her children, too.

This silverware came to me because it is engraved with our name, Margaret. I believe it was given to your great-grandmother one piece at a time as she was growing up, by her relatives who loved her. When Margaret was a little girl over a hundred years ago, many young ladies were given nice silverware at Christmas and on their birthdays so that they might have a lovely set for entertaining when they were ready to marry and settle down. Margaret married, but her life was not one of settling down! They lived overseas for many years and usually ate with chopsticks. Margaret was not a materialistic person, but she kept this silverware from her childhood all of her life for sentimental reasons. I love this silver, but I have always thought that if Margaret Crutchfield Roy ever had a great-granddaughter (especially named Margaret) she would be very, very pleased for her to have it…to eat with, to play with, or to sell to pay for something she needs.

I loved and admired your great-grandmother, Margaret Roy, very much. She was an intelligent, gentle, and courageous woman who raised wonderful sons and made the world a better place. She was a role model to me because she was unafraid to go out in the world with the man she loved and do work that was important in spite of danger to her and her family. She was my great-aunt by marriage, and my father named me after her. I think we are lucky to share her name and heritage.

Love,
Maggie (Margaret Robertson-Linsky)”

The collection of silver forks, still in their original wrap.
Every piece is different, but they all are engraved with an “M” or “MC,” as shown here, for Margaret Crutchfield.

We are so excited to have a piece of Roy Family history, and especially to have something linked directly with Maggie’s namesake. We could not have been more surprised and touched by Maggie Robertson-Linsky’s thoughtfulness! What a treasure.

A New Kind of Patience: Maggie’s Birth Story

The first half of this post was written two nights before Maggie was born. I had no idea it would be two nights before her birth, and I hadn’t quite finished my thoughts, so I didn’t post it. But the waiting was such a part of her birth story, I thought it would be appropriate to start with what I started writing not knowing when her arrival would be.

I am nearly 42 weeks pregnant with our second child, and this waiting has been a surprise to me. Griffin was born 11 days past his estimated delivery date, and I was definitely not expecting to go longer with this one. But here I am, 12 days past the estimated delivery date with no baby in my arms, and it is an hourly roller coaster. There are many things to be said about birth, due dates, medical pressure to induce, and all of the things that go along with our current culture’s views on pregnancy and birthing, but that’s for another blog, and perhaps personal conversation over tea.

But what I know and want to write about is that pregnancy (and waiting to birth) is probably the most public private thing that I have gone through, and I simultaneously want to connect with other women, and cocoon myself from the world while I wait.  The end of this pregnancy has been very different from my time waiting for Griffin. Today I feel really great physically, all things considered, and even went to yoga this morning where I stretched and squatted and felt graceful. Three years ago, I was experiencing agonizing pelvic pain for nearly a month, which kept me grounded on the couch and subsequently lead to incredible swelling and discomfort. Today, I have been experiencing pre-labor signs for weeks (increased contractions, cramping, dilation, prodromal labor) which lead me to believe I would be meeting this baby sooner. Three years ago, I experienced very little until 24 hours before Griffin was born. Today, I have to start each day with a game plan to include a very energetic three year old AND the thought that I could go into labor at any time. Three years ago, I had the luxury of scrapping plans with no consequences and no planning if I went into labor. Today I am 35, technically of “advanced maternal age,” and under a lot of pressure to induce (something I’d like to avoid for myriad reasons that are personal, as they are for every woman). Three years ago, my OB pushed to induce by 42 weeks, but I never got there.

I’ll be honest: I’m tired of waiting. I do want this baby out. I am concerned about the statistical risks associated with going past full term (which is 42 weeks, not 40). I’m tired of trying to encourage labor through means that, I’m increasingly believing, exist solely to make you feel like you can control something you have no control over. I’m tired of hearing about every Joe Schmoe’s trick for getting labor started, and I’m tired of being lead to think it’s something I’ve done or haven’t done.

But today, at this hour, at this minute, I have come to believe that my baby is doing something for me I’m only now just getting. S/he is my own personal Buddha, giving me the opportunity to cultivate a new kind of patience. This may be patience I need for this particular child; it could be patience I need as the stay-at-home mother of two children; it may be patience I need to become the best human being I can be. I read this very lovely post from a midwife in Duluth the other day about the waiting time being a place of in between, and it seemed to be written just for me. I am truly in between in so many ways.

. . . .

Maggie’s Birth Story

On Monday, April 23, Andrew, our doula Cynthia, and I spent a long time talking with one of the midwives at HCMC about what we were going to do next. I would be 42 weeks the next day, my amniotic fluid was getting low, and the baby was still not out (although looking very healthy by all measures). I really, really did not want to induce. I honestly didn’t think I would make it to the point where I would have to start thinking about induction, but there we were, and I just didn’t want to believe it or commit to a plan that involved medical intervention. I reluctantly scheduled an induction involving breaking my waters for the next morning, still with the thought that I could back out if I woke up not feeling right about it. I went home and cried and pleaded with the baby to please, please come out on his/her own. I called our doula, I called my parents, I made arrangements for Griffin for the morning, and I made sure everything was in order to leave for the hospital if we followed through with the appointment. I tried to surrender to this plan, one I hadn’t wanted.

I had experienced more prodromal labor (for the fourth time) that afternoon and evening, but the not-quite-the-real-thing contractions subsided by 9pm, and I went to bed around 11:30 feeling resigned to the fact that this baby was quite content staying inside, and I may just be the first person in history to be pregnant forever (ha).

Around 1am, I woke up with a very strong contraction that had me breathing hard and doubled over from the strength of it. It lasted over a minute, but it wasn’t the first time I had experienced a strong contraction in the last few weeks, so it was hard for me to let myself think that it might be the real thing. I timed it and stayed in the bathroom to see if another was coming. I waited for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. Nothing. Deflated, I crawled back into bed to try and fall back asleep. At 1:30, I had another that was so strong, I literally leaped out of bed, waking up Andrew. This one was even harder than the one I had at 1am, and after that, they started coming every three minutes. This time, it definitely felt like the real thing, and even Andrew knew it was time when he heard me moaning and saw my legs shaking.

Andrew called our doula and my parents, and I called the hospital to check in with the midwives. Having experienced a 14 hour labor with Griffin (4 hours of which involved me pushing), I probably wouldn’t have even called the hospital had it not been for the fact that I had started bleeding. I felt really in control of the contractions, and while they were close together, I figured I had a few hours of laboring at home before we had to head in. But after talking with the midwife on the phone, she kindly suggested that it sounded as though I was working pretty hard through the contractions and since I had started bleeding (a normal part of birth, of course) it might be a good idea to head in soon. Andrew called our neighbor, Anne, who had volunteered to hold down the fort until my parents could arrive, and as soon as she got to the house, we headed for the car.

I was still feeling very in control during the contractions. I would drop down to hands and knees during the waves to moan and breathe, but then I could carry on a conversation in the two to three minutes in between. It felt like the early labor I experienced with Griffin, but I was still glad to be headed into the hospital. I frankly was looking forward to trying to birth in the water! I knelt backwards in the front seat (it felt very wrong not to wear a seat belt, but the hospital was only a 12 minute drive from our house) and continued to breathe and moan through the contractions. I suggested to Andrew that he needn’t stop at the red lights, and I was truly entering into the laboring zone. We arrived at the emergency room entrance around 2:30, and the admittance desk nurse actually asked me to fill out a form. I said, “Are you freaking kidding me?” and gave him a look like, “Did you not just see me on my hands and knees in the street?!?” but scribbled out my information and promptly moaned through a contraction right there on the floor in front of him. Another nurse rushed down with a wheelchair as the admitting nurse said, “Skip triage and bring her to the Nurse Midwife Unit.” Damn straight.

We waited for the elevator and got up to the hallway with the Midwife Unit when another contraction came on. I told the nurse to stop and I got down on my hands and knees again to do my thing. The midwife and nurse on duty then saw me through the glass and rushed to greet us. (Andrew describes the experience as a huge warm hug, and I couldn’t agree more.) We got to the birthing room around 2:40am, where I had another contraction right there on the floor. The midwife, Kate, and nurse, Sarah, were so wonderful and made me feel like they knew I knew what I was doing, and had I requested to birth standing on my head, they would have been cool with it. Kate asked to check me for dilation, and declared, “You’re fully dilated!” which I just couldn’t believe. The contractions were heavy, strong, and close together, but I really had no idea I had been in transition. Not more than two contractions later, I felt the urge to push. At this point, our doula Cynthia arrived, and just in time.

The pain during the pushing was unreal and unlike what I had experienced with Griffin. Ring of fire, indeed, and my contractions were so close together, and the intensity was so strong, I had a hard time even knowing when I was having a contraction. It was the only time I felt out of control, but with the calming words of Cynthia and Kate, I was able to get back into the zone. My water exploded, and Kate encouraged me to feel the baby’s head. It was so soft and nearly out, I was able to muster the focus to continue. (Again, I had experienced four hours of pushing with Griffin, so I was not expecting to have a quick birth, but the baby wanted out NOW.) A couple of pushes later, out she shot, and she was born at 3:00 AM on the nose. I truly could not believe it. A girl! So fast! I just birthed a BABY?!?

She did not come out crying and lively, so there were about 5 minutes of mild worry, but she quickly was up to standard and was snuggled up on my chest. She latched on almost right away, and I spent the next hour or so saying, “I can’t believe this. I really can’t believe I just birthed my baby in an hour and a half.”

We had about two hours of bonding time before I sat up to go to the bathroom and had an enormous hemorrhage. Apparently, it’s not entirely uncommon for women who birth quickly to lose a lot of blood through hemorrhaging, but it was a little frightening to lose so much blood so quickly. Thankfully, the nurse, Sarah, was on it fast, and the kindest, gentlest OB came to the rescue. About an hour and a very uncomfortable procedure later, I was back to normal, still stunned to have Ms. Maggie Wren in my arms.

 

 

 

Origin of Maggie’s Name

Margaret Crutchfield Roy
Margaret Crutchfield Roy, 1928, with her husband, Andrew Tod Roy.

How did Maggie Wren Stocco Roy’s name come about? As with Griffin, the root reason is that Sarah and I think it is a beautiful name. Wren, in particular, has no special meaning. We love it’s sound, but “Wren Roy” didn’t quite work. So Wren became her middle name. We wanted one of her names to have a connection to her ancestors, so we weighed that while considering possible first names.

My paternal grandmother was Margaret Crutchfield Roy, oldest in a large family (eight siblings survived childhood). She was born in 1902 near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and had little notion as a young girl that she would spend much of her life in China, including turbulent years during World War II and the Chinese Civil War. She and my grandfather married in 1928 and moved to China in 1930. They lived there, except for a few years of furlough, until they were expelled in 1951 after the communist revolution. Margaret died in 1992, not far from where she was born.

Although as far as I know Margaret never went by the nickname Maggie, we love the shorter form so our Maggie is simply Maggie, rather than Margaret. But we were thinking of grandma Margaret when we named her, and trust that Maggie will adapt to the adventures and adversities of life with as much grace as her namesake.

As with Griffin’s name, we did a bit of research to see how popular the names “Maggie” and “Margaret” have been. Like any father, I plugged the info into a spreadsheet and graphed it. The graph below includes data for Maggie, Margaret, and Griffin (for comparison). The source of the data is the Social Security Administration.

Popularity of Names Graph

Popularity rank zero (or one, really) at the top of the chart would be the most popular name for that year. Thus, “Margaret” was very popular (top ten) until 1950 when it started slowly descending in popularity. When I first researched “Griffin” in 2009, I didn’t push the search back to 1880 so I didn’t know the name had scattered appearances before 1910. Then it faded to obscurity until the 1980s.

The name “Maggie” follows an interesting trajectory. Quite popular at the turn of the century but then descending steadily until a sudden resurgence from 1970-1990. The early popularity might be partly explained by steady immigration from Ireland at the time. (The biggest surge in Irish immigrants was after the potato famine in the 1850s, but it remained relatively high until the end of the century.)

Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Maggie Smith in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Rod Stewart's "Maggie May"
Rod Stewart's "Maggie May"

Immigration can’t explain the 1970s surge. We’re open to hypotheses. Some explanations we’ve bounced around include Rod Stewart’s 1971 hit, “Maggie May” (or less plausibly, songs by the Beatles and the Doors in 1970) or Maggie Smith’s acting career (she won her first Oscar in 1969). The name’s popularity stabilized in the ’90s and has hovered around the 200 mark for the past decade.

In reality, of course, none of this data (or our pop-cultural musings) had any real impact on our naming decision. We had chosen Maggie as our top girl name before Griffin was born, before doing any research. We’re thrilled that little Maggie is here to inhabit the name (which fits her perfectly). We’ve had fun already with various unexpected nicknames that pop up: Magpie is my favorite, though I also like to call her Mag-nificent. Because she is. And we hope she knows it.

Strawberry Shortcake

Made this for the first time this morning and it was a big hit for the whole family. I cobbled the recipe together from a few sources, so I thought I would write it up to make it easier to repeat. Note that the shortcake is biscuit-like (i.e., super-delicious), rather than cake-like. If you prefer sponge-cake style, move along.

Strawberry Shortcake
Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries
1 ½ lbs strawberries, quartered
2-3 tbsp sugar

Whipped Cream
1 c heavy cream
2 tbsp sugar
½ tsp vanilla

Shortcake
2 c flour
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
6 tbsp butter, cold, unsalted
1 beaten egg
2/3 c milk

Preheat oven to 425°.

Slice the strawberries and mix with sugar (2-3 tbsp depending on your preferences and the sweetness of the berries). Set aside for at least 30 minutes. The strawberries will shed liquid which makes the sugar properly syrupy.

Whip cream with sugar and vanilla until soft peaks form. Set aside.

For the shortcake, thoroughly mix flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in butter (I like to pulse it a few times in the food processor) until mixture is crumbly with pea-sized chunks of butter. (The amount of butter in this step is variable depending how buttery you want your shortcake to be.) Combine beaten egg and milk; add all at once to the dry ingredients and mix just until moist. Drop large, rough spoonfuls of dough onto a greased baking sheet. Makes 6-8 shortcakes. (Optional: Before baking, brush a bit of melted butter over the dough and sprinkle with a bit of sugar.) Bake for 12-16 minutes until tops are golden.

Cool for a few minutes. Slice shortcakes in half and spoon berries and whipped cream between layers and over the top. Yum.

Griffin eating shortcake
Griffin was pretty excited too.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Slide

Fuzzy Wuzzy Slide
Fuzzy Wuzzy Slide

Griffin shouted from the living room, “Daddy! Come see the Fuzzy Wuzzy Slide!” He was jumping up and down with excitement and pointing to a beam of light coming in the side windows.

He explained that it is a special slide that only Fuzzy Wuzzies and Za Za can slide down. A demonstration followed, with Griffin trying mightily to jump up onto the “slide.” Each attempt was met with dramatic and joyous failure. “See, Daddy, I cannot slide down. Only Fuzzy Wuzzies and Za Za!”

(If you haven’t met the FWs and Za Za, see my recent post introducing them.)

 

 

 

Chopped Liver

While strapping Griffin into his car seat this evening:

Griffin: “Daddy, be careful! A car is coming.”
Daddy: “Ok, I will.”
Griffin: “Or you will get very dirty and then we will need to get a new daddy.”
Daddy: <laughing> “A new daddy? Where are you going to get one of those?”
Griffin: “At the store.”

Za Za, Fuzzy Wuzzies, and the Three Billy Goats Gruff

Griffin, to my delight, loves a good story. Actually, quality isn’t the issue—mediocre stories will do. And I know that I shouldn’t be surprised because who doesn’t like a good story? But I do find real joy in the fact that we can share them together and that our made-up stories have evolved and shifted in ways I never planned, with Griffin engaged not just as audience but as creative partner. Below are three examples of how Griffin has helped shape our fictional landscape.

Za Za

Za Za was Griffin’s first recurring character, invented some time in the past 15 months. I can’t remember when Za Za started, but it was in this house, maybe around his second birthday. I think Griffin just created Za Za out of the blue one night while telling stories at bedtime. Za Za is not an imaginary friend, exactly, but originally seemed to be an alter-ego for Griffin. Griffin would ask us to tell him about Za Za which would prompt us to ask who “Za Za” was, but Griffin couldn’t say. After some questioning, we discovered that in Griffin’s mind, Za Za had done many of the things that Griffin had done that day. So if we had gone to the park, Griffin would want to hear about Za Za at the park. At first we stuck to this, and basically retold our days using Za Za as the protagonist. Griffin loved this and would jump in to add key moments from his day, “Then Za Za went down the BIG slide and bonked his head!” Riffing off of this we would talk about Za Za and Griffin playing together, as if Za Za had been with Griffin all day. Pretty soon I was fictionalizing things and Za Za became Griffin’s partner in numerous adventures across time and space. Sometimes Griffin wasn’t even necessary, so we might tell the story of Za Za and the pirates or the time Za Za went to the moon to deliver a package to the queen of the lunar mice. Recently, Za Za has faded in importance. Griffin still likes to invoke his name, but doesn’t need him to be a central character. I often use him as a framing device, so he becomes the narrator of another story involving other characters. Which brings us to the Fuzzy Wuzzies.

Fuzzy Wuzzies

Unlike Za Za, I remember exactly how the Fuzzy Wuzzies arrived on the scene, but I had no idea how important they would become.

First, some context. Most of our stories take place at bedtime after we’ve read a few books. We turn the lights out, cuddle up in bed (before Griffin’s loft and “big boy bed,” I would somehow cram myself into the crib) and tell a few stories or sing a few songs. At this point I am usually much more sleepy than Griffin. This casts a surreal tint on everything. It is not uncommon for me to fall asleep in mid-tale, at which point Griffin pokes me, “Hey! Daddy! Is that the end?” My imagination is already fairly weird and dark, in a fairy-tale sort of way, with lots of old D&D plots rolling around: all bridges have trolls under them, most plants are carnivorous (or at least poisonous), and every sidewalk square is a trap door to a subterranean lair. Compound this with sleep-visions and things get fairly outrageous. Sarah and I used to worry that some of my stories might be too scary for Griffin. He has always been fine with them, but the age of nightmares hasn’t really kicked in yet, so I want to be careful not to fill his sleepy head with fearful thoughts. The tension between my natural storytelling inclinations and my responsibility to keep Griffin safe and secure (both mentally and physically) creates a back-and-forth quality to some of our stories, a thematic dance between Dr. Seuss and H. P. Lovecraft, butterflies and lava pits.

Thus one fine night a year or so ago, I found myself telling Griffin a bedtime story about how he and Za Za were playing at  Mattocks Park, our neighborhood playground. They played on the swings, the see-saw, the climbing structure, and then went down one of the slides together. Suddenly, the ground opened up at the bottom of the slide and the two kids fell into a tunnel. The lid snapped shut behind them, and they tumbled down in darkness for a long time before landing in a heap in a dim cavern. They heard scuffling and snuffling noises in the darkness. Now we had a story! I was thrilled, but then thought I might be piling it on to thick. Looking back, this seems innocuous enough, but Griffin was younger and still a bit timid about slides, even without deadly trap-doors at the bottom. I needed a new story ingredient quick… something subterranean that scuffles and snuffles but isn’t scary. Out of the darkness emerged a rolling, smiling pile of Fuzzy Wuzzies. (Physical details are sketchy, but I was picturing something between a Star Trek tribble and Fizzgig from The Dark Crystal.) Fuzzy Wuzzies are shy creatures that live in extensive underground kingdoms linked to the surface world through secret doors. They come out when people aren’t around and particularly love parks and playgrounds. Griffin and Za Za were taken on a tour of Fuzzy Wuzzyland and eventually returned to Mattocks Park before any adults noticed they were gone. The Fuzzy Wuzzies promised that they could visit again some day.

Griffin was thrilled, and I was satisfied that I hadn’t generated any nightmare material. I figured that would be the end of it, but the next night Griffin wanted to hear about Za Za and the Fuzzy Wuzzies. In short order, the Fuzzy Wuzzies took leading roles in our nightly dramas. We’ve discovered entrances to Fuzzy Wuzzyland in remarkable places: Griffin’s closet, the back yard, the basement, a few public restrooms, and in pretty much every park in the Twin Cities. In Mattocks Park, in particular, Griffin has identified a number of secret entrances to Fuzzy Wuzzyland, and happily points out the “Fuzzy Wuzzy Tree” to befuddled playmates. The Fuzzy Wuzzies are also good friends with any other characters worth knowing in the fictional universe. They have introduced Za Za and Griffin to Sinbad the Sailor, Ali Baba, Puff, the three little pigs, and most recently, to three grumpy goats.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

Ok, so this is just a minor tidbit, but since the number three is sacred in fairy tales, I figured I’d better tell three stories in this post. A few nights ago I was telling the story of “The Three Billy Goats Gruff.” It was Griffin’s first time hearing it, so I hammed it up as best I could. (Fuzzy Wuzzies and Za Za were, of course, involved.) As we approached the climax, with the third goat coming out onto the bridge, Griffin interrupted me: “The third goat is too BIG to fit in the troll’s mouth!” He was clearly very proud of his prediction, and while technically incorrect (the big goat butts the troll off the bridge), he exhibited a much deeper understanding of narrative structure than I would ever have expected. He understood that the third goat had to defeat the troll somehow and that his victory would be due to a feature already mentioned in the story. The only thing that differentiated the third goat was his size, so Griffin came up with a plausible explanation based on size that would prevent the troll from getting his meal.

I am staggered not by Griffin in particular, but by this example of how impressive the growing minds of children are.  Kids digest the hidden structures of language and culture around them at an astonishing rate. As a teacher I have worked with middle-schoolers who struggle to perceive the underlying structure of stories even when I’m explicitly revealing it to them. By that age they are distracted by so many other things, but a toddler’s mind is primed and ready. Cool.

Although I liked Griffin’s too-big-to-eat version, I figured he also needed to understand the importance of fight scenes (or how can he hope to unpack Hollywood?) so our old-fashioned goat sent the nasty troll into the river, howling all the way.

The latest news from Sarah and Andrew.