Thomas and Julie playing together

This is the cutest thing I've ever seen that's on youtube, but astoundingly, it's probably not the cutest thing I've seen this week.

Baby days

Julie's growing up so fast that sometimes it feels like her babyhood is slipping away -- or falling off, maybe, shed like skin. Just in the past couple weeks she's started creeping, getting on her hands and knees, and rocking. She's fascinated by everything and can play happily with almost anything for 20, 30 minutes. Tonight she sat in her high chair while I sang her nursery rhymes and cleaned the kitchen. I put coins and tiny toys in 3 of her hospital 2.5 oz bottles and let her shake them and throw them on the floor. I was putting the dishes away, singing,

"Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
Thomas put the kettle on,
We'll all have tea.

"Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
Julie take it off again,
They've all gone away."

Every time I got to her name, she'd look up and grin at me. Thomas, meanwhile, (who by the way is in love with this version of Mother Goose, and has some surprising favorites, including the above rhyme, undoctored (and further by the way the Old Mother Hubbard rhyme in that book has some chokingly funny art)) is taking a bath. He's practicing for upcoming swim lessons, trying to put his whole face underwater even though he's always been terrified of water on his face. He's missing the song, but he makes it out to play Julie's game with her, picking up the impromptu rattles every time she drops them.

Julie has a favorite bedtime book now too -- it's Bear Snores On, one of Thomas's all-time toddler favorites (good gift, godparents!). Sometimes all three of us sit in the rocking chair together and read it; sometimes it's just me and Julie while Thomas is in his own room having his own nighttime ritual. The poetry of Bear Snores On has always made it one of my favorites, and there are a couple of points that already make Julie giggle out loud, as she's patting the book, hard, with two hands, in that "doesn't know quite how to make the individual digits move separately" way she'll lose so soon.

After this book and a song, she'll often go right to sleep on her own -- a feat Thomas still has only replicated a few times. They're so different!

In food, too, Julie's "infant days" seem to be ending. She eats lots of foods now. She's funny in that a few times she's eaten a whole bowl of food, while making a weird "ehh" face at every bite. So far she's had apples (yes, delicate pink!), sweet potatoes, pears, and a little bit of peaches, as well as cereal. I also have some local beets and green beans frozen, even though she probably won't be ready for those foods for another month.

One thing we never thought to do with Thomas was to give him Cheerios to play with while we ate long before he was able to actually pick them up. We've been doing this with Julie and she's hilarious -- through incredible, diligent, and constant effort, she usually manages to grasp one between her finger and thumb over the course of our meal. Then she brings it up in front of her face and stares at it, puzzled. She will furrow her brows a bit, as if she's wondering why she's done this, and then painstakingly move her hand off the high chair tray, and drop the Cheerio on the floor, where Paci has been patiently waiting. Julie seems to think that this is her task and the purpose of all these Cheerios, like isn't it nice of mom to let me give Paci all this dog food. She has not once tried to put a Cheerio in her mouth.

Speaking of which, the other thing fun about this stage is that we have finally achieved fully mutual dog-baby adoration and fascination. Julie watches Paci constantly, and intermittently tries to follow her (unsuccessfully, but not for long). She's also learned the trick -- and if you're a microbe-phobe, you may want to skip this sentence -- of smearing her hand in her food and holding it down for Paci to lick.

Today while I was sorting things in Julie's room she was playing on the floor and managed to rock, roll, and creep her way to an adamantly not-baby-friendly box of stuff. Catch-all box, one of those ones full of things I don't need but haven't made time to sort and throw out. I was right next to her, so waited to see what she'd do with the stuff. First, pencils. I've never seen so much excitement about pencils. Did you know you can hold them at this end? And that end! And you can wave them. And roll them on the floor. And scrape with them. And turn them around and around. And -- hey, this box makes a nice noise when I shake it. What are all those shiny things in there? I'm going to get one out. Got -- no, it's -- well, this is good enough; what is this thing?

She took things out of the box and put them back, never tiring of the rattling sound it all made, until I was sick of cleaning the room and took her with me to find out what was happening downstairs.

And all this happened today.

A happy halfer

Happy half-birthday Julie!

Julie turned 6 months old yesterday (had her first visit at her new doctor's office, which I like). Her present didn't come in until today: a Svan high chair. She loves it! She started banging on the tray with both hands as soon as we put her up where she could sturdily sit and see everything! And I love it because it's incredibly well-designed and well-made.

We're planning a little celebration this weekend: Thomas is going to help us make her first baby food, and we're all going to have cake. More pictures when I get my cameras' memory cards free again...

The secret is...

Thomas and I made raspberry shortcakes for dessert tonight. He was a bit ambivalent about the raspberries; "those are spicy," he announced when he saw them on his plate. He never really ate them (I think he doesn't like the texture), so I was trying to negotiate getting them myself after he was done gobbling up the sweet biscuits.

"Could I have one of your berries?" I asked.

He looks them over, apparently trying to decide. "You can have..." his finger drifts. "Actually, you can't have all of these."

"Can I have one of them?"

"No, you can't have any of my berries, but you can have some other berries."

This is the point at which Matt, holding the baby and trying to fend her busy fingers off his ceramic bowl, blatantly reaches over and drinks about half the orange juice out of Thomas's cup. Thomas apparently doesn't notice, involved in negotiations with me.

"I guess the secret is not to ask first," I say significantly, looking at Matt, but Thomas pipes up.

"No, the secret is, if you want orange juice, you can drink it out of my cup," he says with a wicked grin.

Matt and I both break out laughing. "Boy, he doesn't miss anything." He laughs gleefully at our appreciation. But I can't resist looking for more abuse. "Oh, is that the secret?"

"Yeah." Begins his sing-song: "Whoooo waaantts orrrange juuuice?"

"I do."

"Okay."

"Can I drink it out of your cup?"

"No, but you can drink it out of the orange juice bag!!!" Cackles with pleasure.

So I waited till he went to bed to nick the last five berries off his plate. Mom always wins.

Excerpts on infant baptism, 1

Some excerpts from my dissertation reflections, in honor of Juliana's upcoming birth in Christ.

On the litany of saints (this one's for Andrew):

The next appearance of the infant's name is (possibly) in the Litany of the Saints, where it may appear as the name of the child's patron saint. Once again, this acknowledges the particularity of this infant, the concreteness of his or her personal identity, while relativizing it with respect to the Christian community -- no longer limited to the assembly but recognized as "all holy men and women." The name which designates the child in his or her uniqueness is not unique -- it belongs to the child alone only by being given in the context of this community in which it has previously belonged to another. Christian names are second-hand.

I requested that they include Bl. Julian of Norwich and St. Benedict in the litany on Saturday. I hope they do.

Anecdotes of parenting

I asked Thomas the other day what he wanted to do when he grew up.

"Cook! I'm-a cook soup like mama."

Seems pretty safe. I wonder if he wants to do laundry too?

***

I had to take Juliana to Thomas's daycare for the first time on Monday when I picked him up. His face lit up. "Baby sister is here!"

All the little kids lined up on their knees in nice neat rows to peer into her carseat. "Don't touch the baby," his teachers warned.

"I get to touch her," Thomas objected, looking at me.

"Yes, you do," I agreed, "because she's your sister. But your friends are just going to look."

Julie loved looking at all the kids faces, one by one.

"She looks just like Thomas!" one of the older girls said.

"She looks like me," one of the boys said. (This is the same boy that calls me "mom" and Matt "dad". We have no idea whether he does this with everyone's parents.)

***

On the way home from school today, "Message in a Bottle" came on the radio.

"This sounds like Rock Band!" Thomas yelled.