The smiling-all-the-time stage

This past week, our little girl has learned to coo. It usually
accompanies her smiles. Brie will wake up, see us, grin a huge, toothless
grin, and then close her mouth with a contented, long, "Gooooo . . ." Her
talking hasn't reached the babbling point yet, but it creeps closer and
closer - she's definately learned that crying is not the only option when
it comes to communication.

This morning Brigid and I went walking with Stephanie, a friend who lives
on the street. I was working on getting Brigid into the Baby Bjorn (front
carrier), and the whole time the little turkey was sitting there smiling
and grinning - looking serious, catching my eye, and breaking into
crinkly-eyed smiles again. Sure makes it hard to concentrate on what I
was doing - because of course when a baby smiles at you like that, you
have to flirt with her back. So I told Stephanie, "You know, I loved her
when she was born, but I LOVE this stage." And Steph said, "The
smiling-all-the-time stage?" And I laughed and agreed, "Yeah, that one."

The only problem is Brie's smily times usually don't include the evenings,
and that's when most other people see her. She's often fussy in the
evenings, which is when parties and dinners happen. A pity. But as her
thrush is getting better, her fussiness seems to be going away too, so I'm
hoping the next Friday night dinner at my folks' house will find Brigid
showing off her pink gums with big grins and coos.

Friday night dinners are one of those huge, good things that I haven't
mentioned in here yet because they're huge, good, REGULAR things. The
things you don't think of as special, but that you'd miss horribly if they
were gone. The tradition started when Cyndi and Jim were still out here,
and they've continued as Laurie and I got married - as a time for the
family to still get together once a week. Mom and Dad make wonderful
meals, us five kids eat heartily, sometimes movies are watched, or card
games or played, or air guns and blow guns are shot, or the guys are in
the back yard karate-ing or sword-fighting, or whatever. Everyone just
hangs out and does whatever there is to do - it's a very relaxing time,
but it's relaxing together. I love it.

I've also found that I'm fond of housework. There's just something very
gratifying about making dirty things clean. And about feeding your
family. It's just fundamentally good, and much more satisfying now that
Brie's sleep schedule is regular enough for me to actually get things done
during the day. Our little girl, bless her, sleeps a solid five hours at
the beginning of the night, and then does a few more one or two hour
increments till dawn, which means I can get enough sleep at night, and
then get housework done during her daytime naps.

Yay! God is good to us. Praise Him!