This is mostly for my dad because he couldn't be here to visit this week, and I'm sure he's quite jealous of all the e-baby fun my mom is having. Here are 2 videos, one from San Diego, and the other in my living room of e-baby-shenanigans. The sound quality on the 2nd one is terrible because I had to downgrade to a lower-quality filetype to fit it on youtube.





I'll post a good talking video when I have one suitable for public consumption.

Tiny Dancer
Originally uploaded by catandtony318

After 4 weeks of traveling with a baby, I have been cured of my need to take e-baby on all my trips and will probably welcome the next trip all on my own. She is wonderful, but mama wants to stay out past 6pm and have dinner somewhere that doesn't have high chairs.

Still, we had a great time in DC, especially mom and e-baby, who visited monuments, museums, and the national Shrine. The biggest crowd they encountered was the one that e-baby attracted when she used a sign-frame to sing and dance for her appreciative audience. They laughed and snapped pictures of this crazy, laughing, dancing baby in the Smithsonian. Who needs Panda-Cam when you've got e-baby-en-arabesque??

More pictures here.

E-baby was so happy to see her daddy last night that she wouldn't let him out of her sight until she fell asleep. In other news, e-baby is still not too sure about walking on her own, but she can run all around if she's holding on with one hand. But the words, oh goodness gracious. She is talking (and signing) up a storm. Today she learned the word BIKE. I'm so proud. Unfortunately, the best talking video I have of her is in the bathtub, and of course I won't post it because of the internet pervs.

In more other news, I might have to go to Philadelphia on my birthday. Bummer. But I will enjoy staying out late and eating at restaurants that don't offer me crayons to go with my placemat.

She Really Is My Child After All

Quick update from South Carolina.

Mom and e-baby did some shopping while I taught all day. When we were back in the room this evening, mom showed me her purchases: lots and lots of shoes-- mostly strappy sandals. When I dumped them onto the floor to look at them, e-baby, who had been cruising around the couch, said "SQUEE!"and walked 3 steps over to the shoes, where she proceeded to play with ALL of them. She was so dazzled that she forgot that she wasn't supposed to walk. It was the first time I've seen her do it.

That's my girl.

We had THE BEST time in San Diego last week visiting Lizard and miss c. All the girls had fun, and e-baby went to the zoo! There were some BIG dogs there.

In spite of the cruising accomplishments, I still have not seen her walk (teachers and Lizard have seen it) but we have one better-- e-baby has started talking (more than MAMA and DADA and Dee-Dah, which is babyspeak for Doti). She now says Dog, Duck, Bear, Ball, and Bird. She tries to say Fish, Kitty, and Butterfly, but those come out as Yeeh, Iddy, and buh-buha. She is also using a few new signs: fan, dog, duck, hello. She's been signing for a couple of months now, but mostly just milk and bye-bye.

Her newest and coolest trick is a game of "where is it"- I put her toybox on the floor, and ask "Where's your bear?" and she finds the teddy bear that Christa and Volker sent her, pokes it in the nose and says "bear!" and gives it a hug. Sometimes she puts its nose in her mouth instead. She can also identify her favorite ball and her rubber duckie bath toy with this game. Book is kind of tricky, though. When I ask where the book is, she picks up a wooden domino, or a piece of paper, or something that isn't a book. She also still has trouble with the word Book and usually says Took.

The bear is her favorite toy right now. It has a lot of drool on its head and gets many, many hugs. Lucky bear.

We're glad to be home, but poor e-baby was welcomed home with an ear infection. She's getting an antibiotic today, and should be in ship-shape by Monday when we drive to South Carolina.

I will post pictures soon, but for now it's all the time I have to tap out a quick update.

Here's a mouthful of teeth that's making me laugh today.

"Roar! I'm a BEAR"

Today we took a long lunch to apply for e-baby's passport. It was a major league pain in the tookus, requiring three separate trips to the passport office and one trip to (gasp! arg! ack!) Wal Mart. Everyone involved was very friendly, which was an unexpected treat, considering I was expecting something along the lines of DMV workers. E-baby has a way of defusing bad moods.

After work, when I picked up e-baby at daycare, her teachers asked me whether I had noticed her "starting to, um, stand, and er, walk, yet?" I said I thought she was VERY close to walking, but hadn't yet, as far as I knew... wait a minute. Why do you ask? "No reason! Just wondering!"

You see, a lot of parents don't want to know if their kid starts walking or talking (or crawling, or any other photogenic milestones) for the first time at daycare. I think they want to have the excitement firsthand, and perhaps they also feel bad that they can't be there to see all those little firsts since the kid is in daycare. These might be the same people who don't want to know whether they're having a boy or a girl.

I can totally understand this. There's a real thrill to seeing your child do something for the first time. But personally, I am an information-hungry person. There's no such thing as TMI in my book. I want to know whether the baby will be a boy or girl, and what s/he will major in in college. And I want to know if she's started walking, even if I wasn't there to see it happen.

Anyway, back to daycare this afternoon. I couldn't help but notice the shifting and hemming and hawing, so I told the teachers that it was OK with me if they told me whether anything was going on with e-baby. They sighed with relief and told me that e-baby walked 3 steps today. Even better, she didn't just walk 3 steps and fall down. She walked 3 steps over to the little boy she likes to play with and then climbed over him.

I still haven't seen her do it, but I'm not worried. She'll do it in front of me soon enough. She's tentative about letting go while standing up, so it'll probably be a week or 2 before she walks confidently, and then thump-swish will give way to pitter-patter.

What's new?
This weekend we're dog-sitting DOTi the wonder dog, a.k.a. e-baby's crumbcatcher.

My pumpkins don't like the summer heat-- about half of the plants have died. We'll see whether they make it or not come October.

I don't like the summer heat much myself, for that matter. I've been teaching and working off-campus all last week (and next week, too) so I haven't been able to bike or jog to work, and by evening it's too hot to put e-baby in a jogger and run.

Since I 've been off-blog awhile, there are several new baby updates.

e-baby's 2nd top tooth made an appearance about a week ago and about the same time she started standing up on her own, without holding onto anything. After a week of practice, she can walk while only holding one of my hands, but she's kind of clumsy looking. She also trying very hard to communicate verbally. She started signing awhile back, so she's already "said" her first word ("Milk," of course) and about 3 weeks ago she started waving and saying "bye-bye" to people (usually after they left the room). This week she seemed to want to speak. She has been trying and trying to say Dog, Ball, Duck, and Book. She comes close, but the sounds aren't quite refined to where other people would recognize them.

This morning's "chat" was SO funny. e-baby was climbing onto the coffee table with an animal cracker in one hand and a remote control in the other (whatever keeps the peace, y'know?)when she spotted DOTi out the back window, and she pointed to the window, looked at me with this big-eyed look of WOW OH WOW on her face and said "DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH! DOH!" Later in the day I heard her call DOTi a "Daaoww." I guess I shouldn't be surprised. She is a native North Carolinian, after all.