easter

bebe had a great first easter. we went out to mems and teed's for the weekend, where great nana, aunt marge and uncle ben, and ben's mom and dad (alice and joe) and brother eli joined us. on sunday morning, while mems and nana and joe were at church, bebe held court at the table.

the heathens who stayed behind were not disappointed. have you ever seen a priest this cute???

after a nap, beebs got dressed up in some easter finery.

she was excited to discover that the easter bunny had come and left her a basket of goodies!

she got books, bumblebee-shaped chocolates, and toys. here she is playing with her adorable new cheese carriage.

and here she is with dada,

showing off the easter boiler.

while we had dinner, bebe sat with us and happily ate some sweet potatoes before chowing down on her favorite kind of cookie. (yes, she's shirtless -- doesn't everyone strip down for easter dinner?)

and then, she surprised us by demonstrating her newest talent for the very first time: clapping!

after she was all done, she sat on the floor and amazed us further. it's a bit hard to tell what she's doing in this video, but i had to post it because none of us could believe it. we noticed that she was sitting in front of her box of legos holding her little lego cat (one of her new favorite toys -- the girl loves cats). she would hold the cat up, "talk" to it, and then very deliberately point at the lego box. we finally realized that she was pointing at the picture of the cat that's on the front of the box, illustrating the contents. and then we realized that she was saying (her version of) "cat." this is what she says whenever she sees our cat, or whenever i ask her, "bebe, can you say cat?" so: she holds the lego cat. she says "cat cat cat!" she points to the picture of the cat.

i may be biased, but i think this girl is a genius.

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mobile baby, part two (the cons): babies have no survival instinct

so, here's what i don't understand about "evolution." how does our species benefit by the extinction, in our young, of any shred of a survival instinct? now that bebe can move on her own, she always, without fail, heads straight for things that will cause certain death. the following are just a few examples.

heavy pots that can be pulled down onto the head or extremities.

this series shows bebe's fascination with cords. first, she spots the cord. the excitement is visible on her face.

hmmm, what will happen if i yank on this?

and this one i took accidentally while diving in between her and the outlet.

the next day, she came thisclose to sticking her finger in the socket. good mommy-blogger that i am, i paused to get a good picture this time before removing her.

and last but not least, she goes for the complete series box set of twin peaks. bebe marie, your daddy will kill you if you ruin that.

guess it's time to childproof...

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mobile baby, part one (the pros): getting to know bebe

**this is the first in a two-part series on having a baby who can crawl, after our first week of mobility. part two will appear tomorrow.**

hands down, the coolest thing about having a baby who moves under her own steam is the chance to get to know her in a new way. before, i could only make guesses about what she liked and didn't like, at least when it came to her toys, based on her reactions to the things i would place in front of her. now, i put her down in the middle of the living room floor and she gets to seek out whatever she wants. watching her make these choices, i feel like i am really getting a better sense of who she is.

of course, to some extent she is indiscriminate. there are times when she moves from ball to book to piano to legos, a whirling dervish with a short attention span. click on the below photo to see details of her first three minutes among her toys the other day.

here are a few of her best-loved toys...

her "box of stuff." this box contains a rotating assortment of small things: her cell phone, her digital camera, her remote control, her keys, small books and blocks and balls. she pulls out one after another, inspecting each before moving on.

her piano. this is the top of an activity table that mems and teed gave bebe for christmas. note how she gets some leverage so she can play really hard.

her first box of legos. our friend tim (nolan and andrew's dad) just recently got a job at lego and since his kids are mostly too old for legos, bebe is reaping the benefits of his position.

most of all, though, bebe loves books. this is not surprising -- both her parents, and most of her grandparents and aunties, are big readers. she definitely has the book-loving genes and they are showing themselves in full force. she almost always heads for her books (or mine!) before anything else, and will sit for 20 to 30 minutes at a time, picking up one book, turning the pages slowly and pointing at the pictures and text before putting it down and picking up another. her current favorite book is CAT, which was a gift from her auntie jude. other popular choices are that's not my dinosaur (from auntie ash), little bunny (from grammy and grampa glen), and on the farm (which was a duckie-themed shower gift from ingrid).

i love watching her look at her books. it makes my heart feel so full.

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bagel-loving birthday buddies

this afternoon bebe and i met up with jill and nora jane. jill and i both needed to buy easter baskets (girls, can you say 'leaving things til the last minute'?), and then, since we like to model healthy habits for our daughters, we got some frozen yogurt for lunch.

beebs and nj had bagels, though. these girls love their bagels.

after they were done, bebe told nora jane a joke.

nora jane was unimpressed.

"aw, phooey."

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did somebody say choobies??

i love this tuffy lady

learning to crawl

opening day, take two

luckily, bebe has enough red sox gear that even after yesterday's rainout, and no time to do laundry last night, she's still ready for this afternoon's game. can i get a "let's go red sox!"?

the problem with having a mobile baby is that it's much harder to get a decent picture of her.

coming soon: a post entitled "babies have no survival instinct."

until then, let's go red sox! (clap, clap, clap-clap-clap)

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opening day!!!

bebe spent the morning boning up on her red sox knowledge in preparation for opening day.

unfortunately, the forecast doesn't look too promising, but we're hoping that the rain holds off long enough for us to hear our favorite phrase: "play ball!"

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morning smiles

separation

today i woke up early, raced around gathering my things, showered and dried my hair (for, i think, only the second time since bebe was born!), quickly nursed bebe and rushed out the door to get down to school for this event that i've spent most of the semester organizing. i didn't get home until 6:45, just in time to put bebe in her PJs, give her some snuggles, and put her to bed.

it was the longest we've ever been apart. bebe and josh had a great day, and mine wasn't too bad either. it actually felt ok to be away all day. i thought about her a bunch, and missed her, but not unbearably. i certainly wouldn't want to have to do it all the time -- this experience made me even more glad that i'm in grad school right now, with the flexibility to spend most of my time with my baby. but i was pleasantly surprised to find that the person i was before i became a mom is still there. i can meet lots of new people and smile and shake hands and ask about their work and have conversations that involve full sentences and no mention of choobies whatsoever.

unfortunately for my blog, i didn't get a chance to take a single picture of bebe today. you can resume your oohing and aahing over her cuteness tomorrow...

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perfect timing

i don't even know where to begin this post. have i mentioned that i've spent most of this semester planning a retirement event (conference during the day, dinner at night) for one of the senior faculty in my department? well, it's required an enormous amount of work, and it's finally happening tomorrow. as you can imagine, there are like a million loose ends to tie up today. this morning i had to run over to cambridge with bebe to consult on a few things with one of my fellow planning committee members. so i guess that's where we'll start, with the vomiting incident. in the car on the way over to cambridge bebe, who is still getting over that last cold, threw up all over herself and her car seat. luckily i always carry a spare change of clothes for her, and double luckily the woman i was meeting with is a friend and a mom herself so she understood. but still.

then, bebe fell asleep in the car on the way home. she slept for ten minutes, woke up when we got back, and never went back to sleep. so instead of two 90 minute naps, which is a usual day for her, she's working off 45 minutes this morning (because she woke herself up pooping) and 10 minutes this afternoon. i had been counting on her naptime to finish up with all the emailing, last minute adjustments to the powerpoint slideshow, etc. so instead i take her out of her crib and put her down on the floor next to me with some toys, hoping she'll find something to occupy herself with for 20 to 30 minutes.

well, she did, but it wasn't quite what i was hoping for. i looked down a couple minutes later and she was clear across the room. um, what?

yes, that's right, my baby is crawling. and while this (her second attempt ever) looks a bit hesitant, she has subsequently crossed the dining room back and forth three or four times and is demonstrating increased confidence with each lap.

the title of this post, then, has two meanings. i initially meant it sarcastically, as in it was "perfect timing" for her to start crawling today -- the one day i really, really needed her to sit down and stay out of trouble for half an hour. but the more i think about it, the more i think the phrase applies to the kind of kid bebe is turning out to be. she waits until she's comfortable with something and then she just does it, and does it well and confidently. she has spent three weeks pivoting around from her butt to her knees and back to her butt again. i figured there would be weeks more of hesitant half-crawls before she finally worked up the courage to take it all the way. but instead, she seemed to know the perfect time to start!

of course, the kid did wait a full week past her due date to join us, so i suppose this shouldn't come as such a surprise to me.

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mrs. tuffy pants

bebe has a new face -- we call it her "tough face." she sucks in on her top lip, sticks her bottom lip out, and breathes in and out through her nose really fast. it's hilarious. it's pretty hard to capture on film, although i almost got it in the last one:

bouncing to the beat

bebe recently started doing this hilarious thing where, whenever she's being bounced (in arms, on a lap, whatever), she goes "aaaaaahaaaaahaaaaaah" and her voice goes up and down with the bouncing. here she is this morning enjoying the dope rhymes of her uncle ben. (MTV-video-style-shooting was her dada's idea...)