. . . the g - l - a - m - o - r - o - u - s

Babydaddy & mama love to take baby-cutest outside. We know that taking her outdoors is one of the things that helps build her awareness of the world, gives her new learning opportunities, and all that other stuff the books talk about with regard to infant development. Blah, blah, blah. In truth, we like to take her outside to play because it's fun for us, and we like to believe it's fun for her, too. Only time will tell if she grows up to be a happy camper, but for now, we pretend she is and that she loves the smell of grass and the feel of the wind on her balding little head.

Because babyparents want to be the very best, grown-up kind of responsible, we decided that these continued outings into the bright light of day (and late afternoon) demanded a bit of accessorizing. Now we're not talking about a pop-up tent or a cool new back-pack (although, now that babymama thinks about it . . . ). We're talking about the kind of accessorizing that's fabulous AND functional, pretty and protective, the kind of accessories that you just have to have. You know what they say when the future's so bright.

So, off to our second favorite store we went, daddy, mama and baby-blue-eyes, and wouldn't ya know it? They had just what we needed. In pink, of course.




After our shopping trip, baby-UV-protected spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out with babymama & daddy at Daffin park. She didn't seem to like her new glasses very much. She spent a little bit of time pouting, and some more time trying to lick daddy's hand, and she finally decided that they weren't her thing. Once baby-no-glare had pulled off her shades, babymama realized why that poor baby didn't like 'em. 'Too tight, mama' says baby-sweetheart.




Luckily, baby-sweetest didn't have to suffer too long for fashion. Ever the packer, babymama had an extra pair of more glamorous shades along. Oooh, the flossy, flossy.

. . . the wings, y'all

With four exceptions, babymama has always disliked chicken. Unless that chicken was hanging out after being barbequed, fried, stuffed between the halves of an onion roll or prepared as a courting specialty a-la-daddy, it was not, repeat N-O-T, getting anywhere near mama's tummy.

All that changed when baby-cutest came along. After the initial months when babymama only ate a few foods (most of which were fruits), mama experienced a conversion if you will, to the church of chicken, denomination 'Wings, y'all'. Mama could not get enough of them. Grilled, fried, rubbed, barbequed and dipped into some heartburn inducing hotsauce, those wings made their way bite by dripping, delicious bite right into mama's mouth and baby's tummy. (On a side note, this made babydaddy really happy, because he was getting quite tired of eating mexican and BLTs every night).

The best wings of all were (and still are) babydaddy's wings - rubbed with love and spices and grilled to perfection right in our backyard. Babymama still asks for them, and wing-lover that he is, babydaddy is always happy to oblige.

It should come as no surprise, then, that baby-hotsauce still enjoys the wing experience, and while she can't as yet ingest them herself, she loves being as close to those wings as she possibly can. Sometimes that means watching from the window while daddy grills 'em up at home. Other times, like a recent outing to Sticky Fingers, she just wants to be as close as possible to the eater.





Incidentally, baby-sweetheart's blues name is "Fat Liver Parker" . . . but babymama takes the liberty of changing it to "Baby-fat" . . .




**BLOGGER'S NOTE: although this post says June 17th . . . that's only the date babymama tried to post it. It's actually taken 10 days to get a moment to put in the photos, so it's really going online on the 28th.

. . . the 'hawk'

Baby-breck was born with a head full of soft, dark hair. So much hair, in fact, that babymama & daddy could actually style it as soon as we could pry the pink & blue knit cap off her little head. (The nurses, who both mama and daddy loved, chastened us repeatedly for not keeping her head warm enough. It seemed at times that they were going to rubber cement that thing on so we couldn't remove it after we left the hospital).

Baby-fuzzie looked, need I say it, adorable with that head of hair, and babymama secretly smiled each time she saw one of those poor bald babies running around in public.

In later days, however, babymama & daddy noticed a certain lack of hair in random patches around baby-balding's little head. It started falling out in little bits at the back, leaving a soft, dark duck tail at the nape of her neck. Then, the fall-out spread to the sides, and before long, baby-punk-rock debuted, you know it, the mohawk.

As parents who fell in love to what some might term a Celtic-Punk soundtrack, babydaddy & mama are ever so proud of baby-independent's early display of individualism, and know that it will lead to a lifetime of bravery, liberty, anarchy and hopefully, revolution.





PS: Baby-safest is only sitting in a car eating lunch. She is not riding around sans carseat.

. . . her 'affie' and a nap

Days and nights are super-busy these days as babydaddy & mama practice one-handed multitasking. From bottles to diaper bags and daycare clothes to breast pumps, parents of baby-cutest juggle the strangely mountainous piles of baby necessities with other, more grown-up things like cooking dinner, doing laundry, washing dishes and vacuuming. (Ok, let's be honest, the vacuum isn't running so much these days. Lucky for us, baby-stays-put isn't mobile yet, so as long as she's on her playmats, we're all good.)

While said parents love to tote that darling baby everywhere, some tasks are just not manageable with an adorable infant on the hip - especially one that's still in need of a bit of neck support. It's moments like these that baby-brilliant spends some quality time with her Baby Einstein videos and her affie.





As you can see from the photo, baby-lotsa-drool has found that her affie is especially appetizing. She's also figured out that if she loops her fingers through the soft puffs of yarn, she can pull them right into her mouth. Yum! Thank goodness Grandma G. made such a nice size - there's plenty of puffs for baby-gummy to drool on. When one's too soggy, she just moves right on to the next one. It makes for a relaxing time for baby, and two extra hands (one each) for babymama and daddy.

Just because there's nothing cuter and more necessary for happiness than a healthy dose of adorable, babymama brings you the world-renowned baby-sweetheart in living color. Check her out as she spends a few moments of solitude napping in her froggy romper. So cute. What could be cuter? (Don't even pretend you don't know the answer to this . . .)

. . . 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!

. . . daycare & the violent poo

Babymama has been negligent in updating this blog over the past 2 weeks, but with good excuse. It was babymama's first week back at work and baby-adorable's first week at daycare. Baby-bravest did great, and babymama did pretty good, too, though managing the morning time is a daily task of herculean proportions. Babymama has decided that in order to really streamline the process, she needs a personal assistant, a part-time nanny, and a maid. Babydaddy disagrees, but mama feels certain she can win him over eventually.

The first day of anything is pretty important, and since 'you only get once chance to make a good first impression', babymama wanted to make sure that baby-stylish looked great for her big day. Averie's debut outfit was an adorable purple flower-print onesie with matching pants and purple socks. Mama even picked out a matching bib in reverse color print to coordinate and sort of tie the whole outfit together. Baby-cutest looked the cutest, and mama knew that she'd be the hippest looking baby in her class. Alas, her look was only to last for a few hours - the impending change of clothes would be necessitated by the emergence of the violent poo.

As new parents, babydaddy & mama receive a lot - A. LOT. - of advice and plenty of cautionary anecdotes from other parents on how to grow up baby-adorable. Everyone who shared a word or two from their own child-raisin' experience also warned us about the über-poo. 'Get ready', they cried. 'It's coming, and it's coming fast and furious', 'That stuff travels', and 'Just wait' are just a sampling of the phrases that fell from multiple tongues as we anxiously awaited the arrival of this legendary diaper surprise.

It took awhile to get here. In fact, it took a lot longer than we were told it would take. But it did arrive, and in what can only be described as a violently explosive manner. We like to call these events, 4-diaper changes, as that's usually the number of diapers it takes to get the whole mess cleaned up. They don't happen often . . . at least, until recently.

Baby-stinky-dirty broke her teachers in right-fast on her first day of 'school'. She didn't take her time warming up to them or letting them get to know her. She oh-so-sweetly and indescribably-adorably (like those modifiers?) smiled and cooed as her teacher held her for the first time, and then she demurely (at least babymama hopes this is the case) threw down the violent poo. Babymama knows this for sure because baby-poopie-bottom came home in a brand new outfit, borrowed from the daycare, even though mama put 3 extra outfits in her daycare bag.

As previously noted, the violent poo was once a rare occurrence. These days, however, it seems to happen more regularly. At least once every 2 days, baby-fashionable comes home in something other than what she was wearing when she left. Babymama is not sure if this is a result of the new activities in baby-stinky's routine or if those cute little Pampers are too small, but one thing's for sure: all that poopin' wears a girl out.

See baby-new-clothes after her very first day of daycare. Also pictured is her favorite car toy, Ricky the monkey.

. . . the ballpark sans nachos

Every good babymama knows that the best part of attending sports events is the nachos. This is true of every sport and sport-like exhibition from football and basketball to hockey and baseball. While football games typically have the best nachos, those available at the Sand Gnats' games are pretty good, and babymama has been excitedly waiting to share this special treat with baby-adorable.

Saturday night, daddy and mama took baby-adorable out to the ball-game (sing it) with some friends. Babymama did not eat any nachos (dairy doesn't agree with baby-gassie's tummy), but she, daddy, and baby had a great time anyway. Babymama was a little warm from the refreshing mojitos our friends Bret and Adrienne served earlier in the evening and she forgot to break out the camera, so there aren't any photos from baby-sporty's first baseball adventure. Mama did, however, take some pix while daddy was up hangin' in the A-T-L, so you can see baby-sleepy pretending to nap while she and mama wait for that sweet daddy to come home.