Griffin and Maggie love each other! Griffin is 3 1/2 and Maggie is 7 months.
http://youtu.be/7Yb395CCGuYTag Archives: Maggie
Not Every Day is Magical, but Today…
Let’s be honest: being a stay-at-home parent is hard. And tiring. With colleagues who throw tantrums, pin you to the couch demanding milk, want you to pay attention to them every minute you are awake, and very infrequently express gratitude for your efforts, it can get a little deflating.
We’ve been having a hard few weeks. Griffin is…well…three and a half. This equals riding a roller coaster of emotions on an hourly basis. One minute, he’s delightful and pointing out amazing observations about the world, the next minute, he’s throwing a screaming tantrum because I dared to open the garage door without him. Maggie has evolved past the take-anywhere-do-anything ease of newborn-hood and entered babyhood, which for her, consists of being quite content as long as I am within 12 inches of her at all times, most preferably holding or touching her. God help us if I leave her line of sight. She’s sitting up now, which is awesome, but Griffin’s favorite thing to do is tip her over, because, you know, he “just wanted to.” This past weekend we added a family cold to the mix, which left us all a little more cranky and a lot more tired. With Andrew’s demanding school schedule this year and my recent daily challenges with the kids, it’s probably safe to say the parental reserves are starting to run a little low.
Today, though, had some magic in it. It started in the morning when Griffin sneaked into my room and loudly whispered that he needed help putting on his underwear. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but there was something about the way he crept in and was trying so hard to follow all of the morning time rules of being quiet and gentle that made my heart burst for him. <loud whisper> “THANKS, MAMA. GOOD MORNING, TOO. I LOVE YOU, TOO!” and back to his bed to read books until his orange sun lit up. We made apple waffles together after Maggie woke up, and then decided it was a good day to go to the sculpture garden and then a park. And that’s exactly what we did, and it was…magic. The weather was stupendous, everyone was in good spirits, I was fully present and fully loving my job. Days like today help fill me up, and I’m thankful to get a gift like this, especially when I most needed it.
http://youtu.be/62r2yBFA5ycHilarious Brother
Maggie laughs a lot these days, and the one person who can make her laugh more than anyone is her big brother. He also managed to make me laugh pretty hard today, too.
http://youtu.be/jhHMLe6a2csFirst Fire
Two winters later, we finally have a swept and inspected chimney, bringing our cozyness potential up at least three more points. To Griffin and Maggie’s delight, we built our first crackling blaze tonight.
She Rolls!
Maggie mastered her front to back roll today, and it looks like the reverse and crawling are going to be right behind!
http://youtu.be/kW6rmFekjcIMaggie Giggles
Maggie and Andrew share a moment:
http://youtu.be/ecJZIqZptOkA Minute in the Life of Maggie: Three Months Old
At three months, Maggie now: grasps her hands, puts her hands and fingers in her mouth, grasps for objects, rolls onto her side, laughs, tracks family members across the room with her eyes, kicks both legs and pivots herself while lying on the floor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPB3rBjUk70&feature=g-uplDouble Meltdown
I was solo-dad last night. It was my first time attempting to manage Griffin’s bedtime routine while taking care of Maggie. At one point it got so ridiculous that there was only one thing to do: record it for posterity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1T9KxzTFaQMaggie’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)”
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.