... a little rest

Each time our girl crawls into her bed, for nap or nighttime, we-the-parents begin the countdown. It's the countdown to noise, running, comfort and disentanglement.

Our daily exercise in emergency response usually begins with the sounds of our tiny girl's cries, sometimes even screams. These cries coincide with the rapid approach of another noise: the oh-so-soothing sound (complete with accompanying vibration) of the military aircraft that fly in increasingly lower flight patterns over our home.

Ordinarily, the tiny one is fascinated by all things aeronautical. We love to drive after jets and Coast Guard choppers in the car, or run after them at the park. We stop everything during mealtimes to run to the back door and peek up through the trees to catch a glimpse of whatever the moment's flying object may be.

Except when it's time to sleep.

When it's time for sleep, be it a short nap or a full night's slumber, those same super-exciting flying chunks of metal become the ghost in the corner, the monster under the bed, the terror in the closet. When it's time for sleep, the sound (and feel) of these aircraft send our girl into panic, and us into high-speed rescue mode.

Lately, we've had more frequent fly-overs. Last night, in fact, more than six super loud flying machines passed our house in an hour. Each time the tiny one cried out, each time Mama raced across the house, each time there were more tired tears, and longer moments of comfort needed before those little arms would release Mama's neck.

Today, during naptime, same thing. In fact the first words our tiny one spoke as Mama went to rescue her from bed were, "Mama, something's always making noise out there and waking me up".

So this evening, we-the-parents prepared once again for the onslaught of aviation action. Except for some reason, Uncle Sam's flyboys are off duty this evening. We've only had the pleasure of one flyby. And this time, the girl did not awaken.

Perhaps it's sheer exhaustion. Perhaps she's getting used to them again. Whatever the cause, the small, sleepy girl is finally getting some rest. She's sleeping so hard, in fact, that when Dadoo went in to check on her, she didn't even move as he removed her safety supply of nighttime friends*: two Pez dispensers (one bunny, one clown, both empty and lying under her stomach), 3 race cars (Lightning McQueen, El Segundo, and Cheerios, also lying beneath her stomach) and 1 stuffed rabbit (in red evening coat with carrot, this too, lying under her stomach).

Sweet dreams.

*The nighttime friends supply was once down to a mere five count of soft, furry things. It now includes the aforementioned pez dispensers, race cars and rabbit, as well as the bigger Bunny Hop, the smaller Yellow Bunny, Cupcake the cat, Otter, Cinderella (yeah, hard plastic), Leopard, Owl, Baby, and Lion. Sometimes we also include Thomas, Percy and Toby (the trains) and depending on the night, Hermit (no misspelling) the frog. She keeps saying her bed is too small ...

. . . a systematic means of communicating by the use of sounds

Do what?

Yep, that's right, baby-smartest is starting to talk. A little bit. And mostly, it's very difficult to understand, but still. She's talking! Babymama & daddy, of course are ever so pleased and more than proud.

For months we've had some sneaking feelings that somehow, as parents, we weren't doing quite enough to feed the brain of a growing baby-adorable. Sure, we read to her (thanks much to A and T for helping us discover one of our favorite authors), and we expose her to lots of music (most recently we've purchased this), and we try to only buy learning toys and we go over her Spanish/English flash cards, but, still. Shouldn't we be doing more to teach her? So she doesn't fall behind? And what about that super-smart 18-month-old reading baby? How are we gonna rock that in less than 6 months?

Babymama's been keeping an eye out, watching the other babies, (some of whom are already walking) in baby-sweetest's class, listening as they shout out garbled phrases as their parents pick them up. Prompting, cajoling, trying desperately to get a little language out of our cute girl. Ok, yes. She said ma-ma and da-da a long time ago. But who's to say that she really knew what those words meant? Babymama's been looking for something in context. And finally . . . it happened!

It started one morning in the recent past. As reference, each of baby-adorable's days begins with the same ritual:

• Babymama begins falling off the bed and wakes just in time to catch herself, thanks to the soft, but insistent sounds of baby-hungry, who is lying perpendicular in between mama and daddy (this is a story for another day).


• Then, the least disoriented parent makes his/her way to the kitchen to heat up a bottle - a feat which suddenly takes much longer than it did previously, largely due to our recent transition to whole milk.


• Said parent returns to the bed with warm bottle, where baby-adorable wrests it from her parent's hands and plugs it quickly into her mouth. Both parents snuggle back into bed and doze to the happy sounds of the baby with her bottle.


• A very few minutes later, baby-sweetest is full, and she pushes her bottle out of her mouth and away from her. If there's any milk left, Babymama tries to give it back. If baby is hungry, she takes it, smiles and finishes the rest. If baby is full, she pushes the bottle away, and Babymama says 'All done! Thank you' and takes the bottle.


• Then, Babydaddy picks up baby-sweetheart and gives her a big hug while saying, 'Hi Averie!' He takes her over to the changer and says, 'Hi, Mama!'. Usually, Averie turns her head toward mama and waves, and mama waves back and says 'Hi Averie!'.


• After a diaper change, the family heads out for coffee and Clifford.

That's how it goes . . . how it's been . . . nearly every morning for months. Except for the other morning, when baby-smartest surprised us with a very clear and audible 'Hi Da-da' as she patted her Daddy on the back. What?!? We both heard it, realized it had really happened, burst into laughter . . . and were promptly joined by the cutest little laughter from our baby girl.

Since then, 'Hi' is a regular expression, along with others including 'maooow' (meow), 'Dar' (darlin' the cat), 'wrah?' (always accompanied by a questioning look, so we're guessing this is some interrogatory expression) and the latest, just yesterday morning as she took her last bite of breakfast banana, 'Ahh done' (all done). Outstanding, says Babymama.

Talking is tough work, though, and all that smartness can really wear a girl out. Here's what our talking baby looks like after a long day of babbling . . .

. . . an early bedtime

For the first time since she was born and sleeping all the time, baby-so-tired has put her little self to sleep early. Like 2 and a half hours early. Babymama is anxiously continuing to check on that precious baby, each time expecting to go in and find her awake in her cradle, but each time, she is still all swaddled up and snoring the sweetest, tiny, baby-snores. Babymama can not believe it.

What all this means is yet unclear. Until tonight, baby-on-a-schedule goes to sleep every night between 9:20 and 10 p.m. She makes the exact same sleepy face, rubs her adorable baby-blues and makes that cute little anh-anh sound. Babydaddy & mama then transport her from the playground that is our living room to the dresser-turned-changer in our room. After a fresh diaper and a quick change into jammies, baby-sleepy is wrapped up in the miracle blanket (it truly is - our amazing friend gave it to us, and we OWE her for such a kindness). Thus prepared for slumber, baby-wants-to-stay-awake spends between 5 and 10 minutes walking in daddy's arms, and is finally deposited, with much kissed cheeks, into her cradle.

This is how it works. And in the brave new world of parenthood, we've learned that there is so much that one can't depend on, that things change more & more quickly every day, and that if anyone is so very lucky to find something in this world of babyness that is scheduled, regular, or consistent, that very fortunate parent should rejoice and exploit it to the fullest. So we have. We've loved every moment of our regularly scheduled bedtime routine. And so has baby-sweetheart. But now . . .

Now, it's back to that uncertainty. Is this a test? A new baby joke? Is baby-tricky setting us up for something? Is there some late-night party surprise happening this evening that we aren't aware of? Does this mean no more sleeping through the night? Or, is this (as babymama swears she will believe), the beginning of one less nap during the day and a few more hours of sleep at night?

Only time will tell what awaits us, so for now, here's one of those moments caught on digital and guaranteed to give you sweet dreams.



Beautiful.

. . . the reggae

Currently listening to: Majek Fashek's I come from the ghetto from 1991's Spirit of Love. This seems to be a huge aid in facilitating Averie's morning nap, although the soft sounds of her breathing are randomly punctuated by little squeals and sighs. We think it could be gas, but babymama & daddy can't seem to figure out a way to prevent it.

Not long before cutest baby was to be born, smart, kind, wonderful babydaddy signed us up for real cable. This has been a huge help for babymama - first while she was home from work on bedrest and now while she's home on maternity leave with baby-sweetheart. Included in this awesome tv package are roughly 20 music-only channels, one of which is the reggae channel.

Baby-adorable sometimes has trouble calming down, and like most new parents, babymama & daddy have tried, and are willing to try, anything and everything they can think of to soothe her. Best options? A tight swaddle and either the reggae station (sometimes in combination with the special calm-that-baby-down dance) or electronica (daddy favors the Nike Original Run mix).

So today, after a late night 12:00 a.m. bedtime with special party interludes at 3:45 a.m. and 6:00 a.m, baby is finally full and sleeping to the sounds of Nigerian reggae. Babymama is relaxing to the sounds herself, and is finally able to gulp down some of that much needed coffee.

In other news, Averie went out for Mexican last night and slept soundly through the entire meal. She did, however, make up for her silence with loud and unceasing wails on the car ride back home.