Yes, we-the-parents keep thinking we've totally baby-proofed the house - at least the main areas where baby-adorable plays. And just about the time we think we've really got everything fastened, locked and placed out of the reach of little hands, our tiny girl shows us just how wrong we are.
Take, for example, the photograph below. That white, rectangular thing in baby-sweetest's hand used to be a fairly functional cassette tape of circa 1981 vintage. The talented baby girl has released it from the confines of it's plastic case with a little help from Remy the cat. It's further proof that a toddler's reach is equivalent to twice the length a parent believes it to be.
*Yes, we still have tapes hanging around. Yes, we're mostly digital, and we both love our iPods, but we do feel a responsibility to preserve a small part of history for a girl who will most likely never own a cassette of her own.
The sweetest is seemingly cuter every day. We-the-parents don't know how this happens, as to us, she's always been the cutest thing we've ever seen, and yet, daily we sit and watch as this adorable factor multiplies. Sometimes, the cuteness gets you right in the chest.
Yesterday, for example, baby-sweetheart noticed a doll that was sitting high on a shelf in the back room. The doll was mama's own doll when she was tiny. It's wearing a purple dress with matching purple bloomers - both trimmed in little white lace. The doll was a gift from babymama's grandmother, and the dress was made by babymama's mother. It's a special doll that mama has saved from her own childhood, and one that the baby girl immediately desired.
'Uh! Dat!' she pointed at the doll. Her little face was so excited and hopeful. So mama decided to give it to her . . . and the rest of the day, the little 'mama' carried her 'baby' with her everywhere. She fed the baby a bottle (imagined by the girl from a container of eye-make-up remover she took from mama's bag), covered her up and patted her back. And then in the what was one of the cutest moments of our family life, she found a comfy spot on the ottoman, pulled her baby into her lap and a box of baby-wipes to her side and proceeded to carefully wash the baby's face - one wipe after another.
This morning, first thing after getting up, baby-cutest grabbed her 'baby' and held her to her chest as she watched the Wiggles. She sat on mama's lap and held her baby for a few more minutes, and then carried her baby into the bedroom to show daddy while he was getting ready for work. When it was time to leave for school, both of the 'babies' were waiting by the door.
Needless to say, mama's little girl took her 'baby' on the car ride to school, and mama is still smiling thinking of how cute she looked strapped into her car seat with that baby-doll hugged close to her cheek. So grown-up already.
And in the realm of grown up, the ever learning toddler that is our Averie has started putting on her own pants. Mostly she likes to put them on, stand up and then take them off. She hasn't mastered the art of pulling them up all the way over her diaper, but we feel that's coming soon. It appears that we're nearing the stage of potty chairs, and mama can't wait to try this one.
We-the-parents have been feeling pretty lame over the past month after realizing that our baby-brilliant has outgrown most of her toys. Our ephiphany came after watching her play with an adorable little boy who's a little shy of 2 years older than our girl. She loved him, and she loved his toys - little cars, a table and chair set, some great art stuff, etc. Our return home was a sad one for all of us: she, tiny and disappointed to be home again, missing her new pal and stuck with a bunch of baby toys, and us, older and disappointed in ourselves for not seeing the obvious.
But hark! Thanks to John Spilsbury, a remedy (albeit one in-progress) has begun, and our recent toy shopping selections included three wooden puzzles. Even though the puzzles are designed for older kids, they've turned out to be the perfect fit* in the tiny one's daily entertainment schedule.
Baby-smartest figured out the shapes puzzle right away, even managing to get the confusing diamond, rectangle and square shapes into their respective homes. The other two puzzles are farm animals and jungle animals, and the sweet girl loves to work on both of them at the same time.
Speaking of animals, the girl loves them, and can demonstrate even more animals sounds than before. She does the most amazing owl imitation. She's so good at it, in fact, that when we-the-parents awakened in the dark a few nights ago, it took us both several minutes to figure out that the sound we thought was coming through her baby monitor was actually a real-live owl outside our window. Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoooooo!
*That one is just to make daddy smile. It's a joke, see? A perfect fit? You're laughing, right?
When babymama was a little girl, her own mama and daddy gave her a hand-made doll-bed for Christmas one year. It was tiny and the perfect fit for all her dollies, and it came complete with a quilt made by her own mama and two afghans made by her grandmama. Babymama loved to play with her babydolls and made sure she tucked them soundly into their special bed each night.
Babymama grew up, but never out-grew the love she had for her childhood doll-bed. She kept it with her, taking it from one college apartment to another, moving it carefully each time, before it ended up in her current home. Until recently, it's been stored away - a secret memory of mama's growing up, waiting to be revealed to a new little girl with new little dolls. And earlier this week, mama spent a little time with a polishing cloth getting it shined up to share with baby-adorable.
One evening, before dinner, mama sat down with baby-sweetest to show her how to make up the little bed and how to tuck her 'babies' in under the now-vintage blankets. Mama was so excited to see how much fun her little girl would have putting her babies to sleep - just like she did twenty, um thirty?, years ago. But baby-sweetheart is an independent-kind-of-gal, and promptly tossed the babies out of the bed. She has her own ideas about how that bed should be used, and she immediately set about putting those ideas into action. 
