We are Communicating

Whoever invented baby sign language gets an A+ in my book. Sarina now tells me when she's tired or hungry. She does the sign for "sleep," and if I don't pay attention fast enough, she grabs my hand and does the sign for sleep with my hand, too. And she does the "eating" sign roughly every 3 minutes... 'cause the girl likes her snacks!

She's a sign language whiz, I tell you. She knows: more, cereal, moon, stars, eating, hat, love, sleep, bib...

Her first birthday is so close now (March 2). I can't believe her baby year is almost over already. I'm not going to have a baby anymore... I'm going to have a toddler! I'm not ready for that!

But anyway... have some new pics. I hope they make you smile.




Thanks to Amanda and and Lisa McGrath for the great lounge set! Amanda made the pants and Lisa made the shirt.

I Probably Got Whistled At

As I passed him, a man working at a booth in the mall whistled. At me. Probably at me. I mean, I'm almost certain.

I was wearing my winter coat and pushing a stroller containing my exquisitely wonderful 11-month old, which made it more exciting to get whistled at. It's funny how, when you're under 30, you want to clobber the louts who wolf-whistle at you. When you're over 30, you think maybe you should give them $5 tips, those sweet gentlemen!

So I walked away thinking, "Go, me. That classy mall worker thinks I'm a hot mama. It must be so! This bulky coat can't contain my explosive inner hottitude."

But then I second-guessed myself. Maybe there was a gorgeous little college woman walking next to me and I didn't notice her because I was too busy cultivating my inner hottitude. Maybe that was someone else's whistle that I was taking credit for.

And I briefly contemplated walking back to the mall worker and asking, "Excuse me, but was that me you were whistling at?" ("It was? Oh, thank you. Here's $5.")

But I still remember asking if there really was a Santa Claus and getting the honest answer, and two crushing disappointments in one lifetime might have been too much to bear, so I just pushed that stroller right outside. My self-esteem has been in limbo ever since.

Pardon me. I need to go find a construction site.

Congrats, Jennifer!

Congrats to Jennifer at The Word Cellar, who won herself a copy of The Street-Smart Writer. If you haven't already, go read the comments on my giveaway post-- they're great.

She Touched a Boy on His Butt

Sarina has really never been around babies or kids. There just aren't any in my family (I'm the oldest among all the siblings and cousins, and the first to have a baby). So I brought her to Gymboree last week, in part to see how she'd react.

There was only one other baby there (9 months old and petite, whereas Sarina is a giant, so they didn't look close in age). So the sweetest thing was that Sarina kept crawling her way over to the baby, trying to play. She tried to pass a ball to her, but I don't think the other baby was interested. Still, Sarina waved to her at the end of class. I nearly cried from adorable overload.

I brought her back this week, and there were bunches of babies! And what she wanted to do was touch the babies. She would crawl over to a little one, then touch a leg or arm or whatever. She often tried handing them her toys-- she's REALLY into sharing. No one took her up on her offers, though.

One baby boy was standing, and she used his leg to help her get into a kneeling position, then she touched his butt. Good thing his mom has a sense of humor. I apologized for the odd fondling, but really, I was elated-- I love that she's trying to make little friends. I didn't know what to expect, because I've read that babies normally aren't social creatures until around 18 months, but I've seen how she reacts to pictures of babies in magazines, and I suspected she might want to meet some in real life.

She's also picked up a fun new habit: dancing or conducting whenever she hears music. When the radio is on, she raises her hands like she's conducting an orchestra. When I sing, she just sort of bounces up and down like so:



P.S. Why, yes, those are more clippies from our friend Tabitha at Bow Baby Bow.