. . . le ballet

Finally, she's a ballerina. More on the wonder of this new adventure later.
 For now, here's adorable-in-pink ...

. . . the ninth day of Christmas

That's ladies dancing, for those of you racking your brains for the ninth verse of one of the best ever Christmas songs.

And ladies dancing it is these days as our baby-adorable becomes more adept at her pliés and pirouettes. The last weeks have been a blur of turkey and music and lights and family, all infused with the laughter of our twirling toddler who has been more than pleased to execute her ballet positions for anyone willing to watch. She had plenty an audience with visits from both sets of grandparents, three of her Aunties and her Uncle Tony who, bless his heart, willingly worked the same puzzle 32 times in a row - just to keep a smile on the face of his niece.

Our second Christmas with baby-sweetheart was filled with wonder for all of us. We-the-family spent nearly every night driving around to see the 'wi-iiights' and the angels ('bye-bye an-johs' was a sweet and sad refrain as we passed any such display on the road). The girl attended her first Christmas party, and had a chance to play 'Secret Santa' for her friend. There were cookies and treats and presents and 'toh-eese' and tickles and hugs and singing and so much laughter that Mama doesn't know enough words to describe it all - the sheer joy of celebrating with a girl who just sees it and experiences everything with a sense of amazement and happiness.

The Brilliant Babydaddy (dubbed Dadoo by the girl) chose our tree-theme this year, and Mama declares it to be the best idea ever. Since the baby-brilliant loves looking for letters everywhere she goes, Dadoo decided we should deck-the-tree with the ABCs. A little planning, two cans of spray paint, three rolls of ribbon and 26 staples later, our alphabet ornaments were born. We-the-parents decorated the tree during an afternoon naptime, and when the sweetest girl woke from her nap, she ran to the tree with her bear, smiling and calling out each letter to us - 'A, Dadoo! A! Y, Mama! Y! Y! Y! - over and over and over. She still does it, and every morning before breakfast, her first words are, 'Tree dark, Dadoo. An-johs dark. Lights!'

Here she is, fresh from that day's nap, checking out her tree. And as we move closer to Twelfth Night, we-the-family hope your holidays and new year are merry, merry, merry.

. . . it in 'the sky'

Exactly six months after baby-adorable was born, she got a super special present in the form of a seven pound baby boy named Tyson. She loved him as soon as she met him, and even though she occasionally stole his socks, he loved her back.

Since baby Ty lives in Mississippi, baby-sweetheart doesn't get to see him all that often, so you can imagine her excitement when she found out he was coming to Georgia. She quickly packed up all her travel necessities and headed up to Stone Mountain for a weekend of camping and holiday adventures.

Averie and Ty had a grand time playing together, and we-the-parents had an awesome time hanging out with his Babymama and Daddy. The tiny friends had a stroll on the grassy plain, took a trip up the mountain, had a morning dance off in the camper and even got the chance to experience a little bit of Christmas with a train ride.

It was a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends, and baby-sweetheart even had the opportunity to recruit 3 new members to her cult. The baby girl misses her friend, and has spent the last day calling out his name and walking around looking for him. Early yesterday evening, she finally said, 'Ty home, mama'.

Here's a photo of the girl and her friend playing straw wars. It's gonna be the cutest thing you've seen today - promise.

. . . a dance in five steps

The less-baby, more toddler sweetheart that lives in our house has a new chant these days. This enthusiastic mantra, like many of the girl's expressions, includes full body movement, and we-the-family have started to participate in it together, as one, whenever we have the opportunity.

It starts suddenly, so if you'd like to join in, you need to know the steps. Here's how to share the fun:

1. Suddenly and unexpectedly stop everything you're doing. Drop things if necessary, but you must come to a complete standstill.

2. Stand up and bend forward a little, at the hips, so that your back is at roughly a 25-degree angle to your hips.

3. Be sure your eyes are serious and your will resolute before continuing.

4. Bend your knees and push your body upwards, extending both arms (shoulder width apart) toward the heavens while shouting, "The sky! The sky! The sky!"

5. Finally, smile and laugh and give a tiny jump on one foot while leaving the other one on the ground. Laugh some more and repeat.

Of course we love it, and swear it's the, well, you know . . .

Mama must admit, however, that there are times it feels a bit cult-like.

* Also new in the world of adorable, our girl recently (a la the 23rd) discovered wind during a morning walk. She loves it, and we think she finds it funny. Whenever it blows around her, she stretches out her little arms and waves them back and forth, up and down while scrunching up her face and laughing. Mama is glad the tiny one likes it, and feels that this will be a good thing as the family (sans Daddy, sniff) makes plans for another upcoming dance - this one with three not so great acquaintances. .

. . . a new dance move and an expanded vocabulary

Just in time for your mid-week fix, Babymama offers this fast dose of adorable for your Wednesday bloggy consumption. But first, a photo of baby-sweetest checking out a fountain:


The tiny toddler knows lots of things these days*, and we-the-parents are surprised daily with a new word, phrase or action from the baby girl. Phrases like 'stomp, stomp' are spoken with great authority and are accompanied by expertly executed little stomps. Little fingers point at early morning coffee cups as a little voice says, 'hot! hot!', and an exuberant 'Tal-yon' bursts from her lips during dinners that include items like pasta and pizza. We are impressed, of course, and happy as we can be over our girl's emerging knowledge and understanding of her world.

In the mornings, we look for trucks on our way to school, and baby-friendly cheerfully says 'hiiii!' and waves as we pass every pick-up, SUV and 18-wheeler on the road. She loves to walk up the sidewalk on the way to her classroom, and asks mama 'dat?' when we encounter a jackhammer, the fence or the pool that's been set up for a water day. In the evenings, kisses and hugs abound for everyone, including her bear, her lion and Remy the cat. She loves to dance to the ringtone on mama's phone, and can do all the motions to her favorite songs, including the raised-arm-fist-pump and 'hooray' in the last verse of 'If you're happy and you know it'.

Her newest dance move surprised us, but not because it was in itself a new one. She loves to watch Bunnytown in the mornings, and we-the-family all sing and dance together during the daily performance of the 'Bunnytown Hop'. Even in the early days of the show, baby-smartest picked up quickly on the 'hop, hop, hop' verses, and did her athletic best to perform her own version of this bunny activity. Of course it's the cutest thing ever. Or it was. Until that tiny little sweetie added a new step to her routine. Only a few days ago, baby-bunny picked up the pair of these that mama gave her for easter, and after carefully placing them on her head, she stood up in her dollbed and loudly proclaimed, 'HOP! HOP! HOP!'

It's ok to say, 'Awww'. You know you want to.

* Babymama is proud to announce that baby-brilliant has added many new words to her vocabulary, including head, stomp, grape, tortilla, pasta, apple, jump, duck, shoes, Italian, palm tree, help, please, thank you, up, stop, step, and a wide variety of animal sounds, the strangest of which is 'macaw' - you know, for the bird.

. . . A little Respect*

1. Baby-sweetest has long, long hair. It's very straight on top, and very curly in the back, and looks cuter than cute in it's naturally disheveled state. This is key because it's also unruly and we the parents are not able to force it into any particular style. However, we have found a temporary solution.

2. The tiny tot has friends at school! Babymama is exceptionally happy about this, and especially about how she smiles at them when she arrives at school and waves to them when she leaves. She and 'A' have been good friends since their last classroom, and are back to chasing each other around the room. She still loves her 'boyfriends' 'L' and 'G', but was recently bitten by another playmate. She's a-o-kay, and thankfully has not picked up that bad habit herself.

3. Knock-on-virtual-wood, baby-so-sleepy has been on a schedule again for a week. This is a huge accomplishment for the entire family, since it's taken us months to recover from the last time her schedule was disrupted.

4. Food is good, and this baby definitely has an already well-developed palette, which both babydaddy and mama are working to train. She loves peas and cantaloupe, (two of the world's wonder-foods) and also eats cucumber, tomatoes, corn, lettuce and a large variety of other fruits and veggies. Like her daddy, that thirsty babe loves water and milk. Like her mama, she loves sweet tea (decaff of course).

5. Le bebe is tall, a full thirty and one half inches tall. This puts her somewhere around the 80th percentile, nearly ready for the haute runways of Paris.

6. Baby-athletic is not quite walking yet. However, she is a super-speedy knee-walker, and her tiny baby pants have the dirty worn spots to prove it. Although she refuses to walk on her own, she does regularly use her accomplished standing powers to boost her over our improvised baby-gate and into the kitchen, where those aforementioned 30.5 inches put her at the perfect height to examine the cabinet knobs. (Note to selves: must invest in handy cabinet locks as well as a proper safety gate.)

7. The super-spring-time-baby has her first pair of flip-flops - something every girl needs at least fifteen pair of. (Yes, babydaddy, let me explain again. See, you need the black ones with the cushion-y heels, the regular flat black ones, the neutral colored ones, the dressy ones, the beach-only ones, the pink ones for being super girly, a pair to keep in both cars - just in case, the sporty-ones, etc. . . .)

8. In addition to her first flip-flops, baby-beachy also has a new swimsuit. Polka-dots make it sweet, but the ruffles make it extra-adorable.

9. Baby-sweetheart has mastered the art of blowing kisses. Her missiles are delivered with a sweet smile and a loud 'mmmmpwaah', and never fail to send both of us doting parents into that happy, melty-heart place.

10. She is very helpful, and likes to give us things over and over again. Each morning, when she tosses her cheerios on the floor, she helps us pick up each and every 'O', one at a time, of course. She will help us pick up things like our shoes, slippers, and the remote, but not necessarily her toys.

11. She also likes to share, and is very good at sharing her food with everyone around her, including her beloved 'Dar'. One cheerio for you, oh, have another . . . ok, now one for me, well, no, it's only a little wet - you can still have it. Babymama distinctly remembers being grossed out watching other parents swallow the food offerings from their little ones . . . but she now realizes that the wounded look on the face of baby-adorable when someone refuses her gift is much worse than a little soggy food in the mouth for a second. Babymama does, however, draw the line at sharing peas.

12. The stickiness that once lingered in her teeny little hands has transferred itself to her teeny little feet. Somehow, those little toes are always sticky . . . we don't have any ideas why.

13. More evidence that baby-graceful is bound for ballerina stardom - she dances! Truthfully, at this point it's a bit more in the line of bouncing than twirling, but those bounces are helping her get ready for her first grand jeté.

14. That grown-up-baby is beginning the journey away from bottles and into sippy-cup land. These are arriving in a few days time, and soon, babymama and daddy will no longer be washing bottles every single night. Baby-adorable also drinks well from straws, although she occasionally decides not to swallow and instead, allows the drippy beverage to run slowly out of her mouth and down her chin. It's somewhat reminiscent of her milky-face days of yore.

15. Our tiny baby is now 36, 806,400,000 milliseconds old. That seems like a lot, but it's also only 613,440 minutes or 10, 224 hours, or a mere 426 days. Not very many at all when you think of it, but on the other hand, it's so very, very many seconds of adorable-ness.

16. One of baby-techie's earliest toys was an old computer mouse (optical, not ball), and she has since moved up to the laptop. She enjoys 'typing', scrolling and watching videos of herself. She even claps at the appropriate parts of these videos, applauding herself for good behavior, standing 'so0-tall' and taking a 'big-bite'.

17. While she'd mastered 'beep-beep' very quickly on her little red riding car, she was slightly directionally challenged and could only move backwards. Recently, however, that smart baby figured out how to drive forwards, and she's using this skill and her own wheels to get around 'town' much more quickly.

*A select few of you will be familiar with the title of this post. Babymama gives a shout out to y'all, and does apologize for borrowing part of the secret slang of the Minneapolis crew. But, it must be said that even before we were married, some of that Minnesota-cool rubbed off on her
. . . and, respect or not, babymama beat that super-hip daddy every game of crib during the first 6 months of our courting.*

. . . first position

Babymama can only say 'thank goodness' that baby-adorable got so much good stuff from babydaddy. She got his laid-back personality (and thankfully not mama's slightly anxious one), she has his gorgeous eyelashes (long, curved and totally wasted on a guy), and a mélange of other things-a-la-papa like his toes, fingernails and ears.

Also included in the list of great things to have from daddy, is his sense of balance and ease of movement. Princeton's wordnet calls it "elegance and beauty of movement or expression". These are things that mama doesn't have so much of, and when talking about ladies, we call these two skills by one hallowed and much coveted name: grace.

Now babymama always wanted to be a beautiful, fluid vision of grace and charm. She practiced and practiced, but somehow found those qualities just out of reach. Baby-sweetheart, however, is already showing her poise and penchant for that pinnacle of grace: le ballet.

Take as evidence baby-ballerina's near perfect exhibition of first position. Her heels are naturally aligned and just look at that turnout! Mama is so proud!

. . . the plump DJs

The Funk Hits the Fan with the calm-that-baby-down-dance. Baby-awake has been a little bit unhappy today so we rocked the swaddle and some good old fashioned electronic beats. Daddy's masterful dance moves quickly soothed our sweetie and took her right into sleep mode.

On today's agenda: window-shopping for hardwood flooring and Easter egg buying and dyeing with Auntie Nancy.