Too big for her britches!

Oh Miss Emma... I know you love your big sisters and want to be just like them. But honey, I'm sorry - you are too young to wear a thong!

superhydrator

there's no rest for superheroes. the day is long. the night is longer. so much crime to fight. so many lives to save. it's a thankless job, and messy too. but a true hero cannot deny their calling. when you were born to be the best, you sacrifice "normal" for greatness. but even the greatest of superheroes have to take care of themselves. and that's why this masked crusader makes time to stay hydrated. because you never know when the next call from the commissioner will come in. it's best to be ready.

it's in the genes!!

I’ve been wondering lately…. is silliness learned, or is it in the genes? you see, Emma is a total goofball, and she truly knows how to get us to laugh. she just makes a silly face, sits in the fridge or wears a headband across her eyes, and she gets us laughing every time. Emma also seems to know instinctively when someone in our family is being goofy – especially Braden. with just a silly look, he gets the best belly laughs out of her.




this has got me thinking… and reminiscing. I will never forget the time that my nephew Jeremy belted out his first gut busting belly laugh. he was probably around 9 months old at the time. I was lying on the couch and he was sitting on my tummy. we were playing and interacting when for some reason that I do not recall, I said, “da!” in a fairly loudish, startling voice. well, this tickled Jeremy’s funny bone because he started laughing – hard, which of course made my sister and me laugh as well. for the next 5 or so minutes, I shouted “da!” and Jeremy laughed his guts out. did someone teach him that was funny? no, he just knew it instinctually. it was one of my favorite moments.




babies laugh at the most unsuspecting moments, don’t they? you’ve probably seen the video of the little baby that thought the most hilarious thing in the world was the sound of paper ripping. or the one of the quintets that all laughed in unison when their daddy said, “boing!” (if you haven’t seen these, I will place the links at the end of this post). I absolutely love watching video clips like this. and I am thrilled when we catch Emma on video laughing her heart out, like we did on Easter (the video is still here on the blog if you want to watch it again).




all in all, I think babies are born with a great sense of humor. I think it is because they are so fresh from Heaven. and so I guess that I’ve decided that silliness is most definitely in the genes!

Here are the youtube links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXXm696UbKY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb9RJlHvjXQ

while I was away...

I have been told that while I was away, she would point at the front door and ask, “Mommy?” And yet, knowing that she missed me only makes me feel marginally better about the time with Emma that was lost in my absence.

You see, these are the days of discovery, wonder and constant learning…. and I love to see the look in her eyes as she processes something new and I can almost hear the wheels of her brain turning as she tries pronouncing new words. I missed witnessing the joy in her body language as she encountered something new and exciting. While I was away, she grew, she learned, she experienced, she tried, and I wasn’t here to share it with her.

Coming home, I was acutely aware of the time that had passed in my absence. I felt so out of the loop. I am usually the person that tells the cute stories of the things that she does over the course of the day, and instead I was hearing them from my sister and Emma’s older siblings. I heard stories of bathtime, bedtime, mealtime, playtime…. all of the times that I am usually present. The most difficult story to hear was the story of her illness while I was away. She was sick, and I was not here to comfort her. She needed cuddles, and I was not the one to give them to her. How that wrenches the heart! I am deeply grateful that she had the next best thing, her Auntie Dawn to provide the comfort and cuddles that I was unable to provide myself.

I hope that I won’t have to be away from my littlest angel again. There is so much life in her to see that it hurts me to have missed any of it while I was away.

becki = m.night

So I find that I am the M. Night Shyamalan of the blogging world and my first blog entry titled “the perfection of the day” is the equivalence of M. Night’s movie “The Sixth Sense”. You see, as a new blogger, I feel that I hit it out of the park with that first entry, which was better than expected and full of surprises (she says, modestly). Since then, while there have been a few shining moments, I feel that I have not been up to the task of “topping” it. As a result, I find myself a victim of the most brutal case of writer’s block, fearful that my initial success will turn out to be just a blaring example of beginner’s luck.

Did beginner’s luck stop M. Night?? No, of course it didn’t! And as his fans, we have happily endured his less shining moments (“The Happening”, anyone?) in anticipation of another brilliant success like “The Sixth Sense”. Therefore, because M. Night has dared to press on through the less brilliant moments of his movie career to bring his followers modestly entertaining films, I will follow his example and press on through the less brilliant moments of my blogging career to bring those of you who kindly read these words some hopefully mildly entertaining blog entries. And maybe along the way, we will have some laughs and I will learn to write sentences that are less confusing than the last one I just wrote.

Thanks for reading! I appreciate you hanging in here with me.