Bite me once, shame on you. Bite me twice...

Either Margaret is having an uproarious laugh at our expense or we are demonstrating hitherto unexplored levels of incompetence at protecting our furniture. Though you hope that it's the former, the suspicion that it's the latter is as uncomfortable as it is unavoidable.

This morning, we had her on a cloth, in her diaper just laying on a little protected part of the couch where she had two arms protecting her. Sarah was at the table and I was at my computer. Somehow, she had gotten herself onto her side and so when she released her bladder and bowels, it all came out of a gap in the seal of her legs. And of course, immediately thereafter, she wanted to feed so it was me again, stripping the slipcovers with dish of soap and water trying to get poop out of of the couch.

As Sarah says, for someone with a very serious aversion to poop, I'm getting my hands dirty with it a lot these days. One wonders if there isn't some higher power that let Margaret know that there are a few lessons Daddy needs to learn.



Mishap aside, we've had Margaret weighed and she is now officially weighing in at 3.12 kg or about 6.88 pounds. If you'll remember, she was born at 3.01 kilos so that means that little Maggs has put on the weight she lost and then some and is now on the upward climb. We're very excited!



Something else we've been excited about is that she has been spending more time with her eyes open looking around, exploring the world and her parents. This not only makes for some new and interesting photo opportunities, but new levels of ooohing and aahing on the part of her amazed parents. If you thought we were smitten before by her visage with her eyes shut, the fact that she ACTUALLY has eyes and can ACTUALLY look back at us has taken us to new levels of euphoria.

Of course, this also means that now she spends lots of time when we wish she was sleeping looking around her crib, or trying to get her eyes on mommy or daddy during feedings and burpings and the like.

We really love it, though, because with her eyes open, we really feel a new level of bonding with the baby as she really does seem to be studying us and learning about who we are now as much as we are her.

We've even managed some photos. These two were taken yesterday.



The final one is from bath time yesterday. After seeing the blog, my sister, Joan, called with some helpful hints. And while Margaret still hasn't taken to the water, the experience yesterday was substantially less harrowing for us than the first time. We're looking forward to continued improvement on this and other fronts.

Finally, one final accomplishment. She's had a bit of a sniffle these past few days and today, I noticed some snots up her nose. Following instructions from Joy, I twisted up the end of a tissue and inserted it up Margaret's nose and pulled some mega-monster-boogies from her nose. She was none to happy about it at the time, but her breathing was easier after. Chalk one up for Dad skills.

Parenthood is great. We recommend it to everyone.