Girlie Baby Photos

From the expectant parents who brought you the photo essays Amorphous Blob of Cells, "I Think It Has Wings", and The Thumbsucking Fetus, come the latest round of in utero photographs: The Little Miss & Her Developed Spine!

Having passed eighth grade biology,
I'm comfortable detailing the gender of my baby.
Now, stop looking at her there.

The beauty of the situation quickly deteriorated when
Daddy realized that he'd better start an orthodontics fund.
A profile. The wife thinks she looks like Curious George.
I say she more resembles this guy.

The Best Show on Television

Between work and moving preparations, there hasn't been much time to write lately. I do want to state, definitely and for the record, that the greatest show on television, ever, is "America's Funniest Home Videos." Apologies to the Lears, Wheadons, Abrams, and Burrows of the world, but AFV (as us insiders call it), is the finest show, ever. I am not kidding.

Here is one of my favorite baby-related clips from AFV. It is awesome in so many ways, I feel compelled to count them.

1. It's babies laughing! In unison!
2. All the babies are bald
3. The "this isn't as funny as everyone else thinks it is" look on the poor mother's face
4. The baby in the lower left (or, as I call him, Baby 7pm) simultaneously laughing and thumbsucking
5. This clip won $10,000, which, collectively, should get this family about four weeks worth of diapers

It's a Thumbsucker!

For the third time in the past twelve weeks, I saw the most incredible thing today.

That's right, my baby has a HUGE head (possible career as San Fransisco Giant in the future?), arms, and legs! The photos taken this morning were the clearest images of our baby to date and it was the most incredible thing I've ever seen...until this was taken:I could have spent all morning watching this little (3 inches!) life sleep and wiggle its little arms around. But, as I'm learning, being a parent goes beyond just providing for and marveling at a child. It means worrying that my child might grow up different than its parents as a lefthander. And it also means that, like daddy, this kid's gonna need some braces. But it's waaaay too early to worry about that.

Suck It!

I was checking out the "On Parenting" blog over at washingtonpost.com and stumbled on a blurb about thumbsucking. Now, before we go further, you should know my stance on thumbsucking. I am in favor of it.

As a child, I sucked my thumb as long as it was socially acceptable. And then I sucked it some more. To this day, I still think about sucking my thumb. Thumbsucking is a panacea for the diaper-set, but I'm willing to bet that after a good meal, a nice thumbsuck is as satisfying as a cigar or brandy.

What caught my eye in this post was not just thumbsucking, but that thumbsucking is often accompanied by a secondary habit, the article mentions hair twirling. My secondary habit was nose-picking (yes, I am remarkably well-adjusted, thanks for asking). But nosepicking seems downright cordial compared to:

"Unfortunately, my son's mindless secondary habit was pulling his private parts out of his pants."

Wow. This kid is so far ahead of himself, I don't even know where to begin. I hope the author captured this on video to send to America's Funniest Home Videos, or to use as future blackmail.

This is just another example of things a child under five can do and be cute, while others who do the same thing are just plain creepy.

The good news for the author is that she and her husband did wean their son off of thumb-sucking . They didn't have to resort to anything sordid like shame, guilt or bitter tasting thumbsucking deterrent paste. They did it the old fashioned way: bribery.