Party Down

NJ's jibber-jabber and screaming caught up with her today when, on a play date with four other equally adorable babies, her strident vocalizations upset her hostess to the point of tears, a couple of times. I wonder if she's destined to be a brassy, mouthy broad.

Still, everyone had a wonderful time in a beautiful backyard on a cool, sunny Seattle Sunday. NJ even cut loose with a giggle fit, something outsiders rarely get to witness.

Oh Mommy, stop it. You are slaying me, girlfriend. My sides, they ache. With laughter!

Phases And Stages

And no, don't be confused -- it's not not this Phases And Stages. (And shame on you -- especially if you're a Texan -- if you didn't know about that classic Willie Nelson album.) I'm talking about NJ's ever-changing personality and the sounds, facial expressions and hand signals that come with that.

Early on, it was "Ma." Then, there was "Pa." Soon thereafter came "Ba." That was a while ago. Then there was a big-smile-and-vigorous-head shake phase, which was captured (oh so briefly) here:

Shot in the wild, the subject in the midst of a maniacal laughing fit. You'd expect her to morph into Vincent Price at this point, but she never does.

The head-shake phase lasted about a week. Then, NJ decided it was back to sound-it-out syllables -- she hit the "Ah" really hard, and for a long time.

Meanwhile, she's mixed in some pretty impressive raspberries. Dad Solo is a big fan of the Bronx cheer, and NJ has taken it to heart and can fire off some very loud, spittle-flecked raspberries that can last ten seconds or longer. She often drenches the front of her shirt trading raspberries with her old man. Her hands flit and bounce in front of her collar as if she's shooing flies away.

So now we've got the "Ah!" and the raspberry, and to that combo NJ has very recently added the most adorable clicking sound you've ever heard. She mashes the tip of her tongue into the roof of her mouth and drags it down sharply with a chlock that is cute enough on its own, but here's the thing: She can't seem to do it more than once without breaking out in a gigantic all-lips-and-no-teeth-because-I-don't-have-any-yet smile that will positively slay you four ways to Sunday. She and I have had conversations in which we've traded chlocks for a good minute or two; with each chlock, her smile gets a teeny bit wider. It's a good way to cleanse your mental palate -- particularly if you've been doing something unpleasant, like paying bills.

Over the past couple of days, NJ's thrown another aural delight into the mix: the all-purpose scream. It's fun, too, and you can have a good screaming conversation with her, even if it annoys the hell out of the dogs. It looks like this:

"Oy, mate, step off or I'll clock you right in the kisser. Bloody 'ell!"

So, to recap: Lots of conversations. All screams -- accompanied by flailing hands -- and "Ah!"s and chlocks. Eventually, of course, she'll be talking. For now, I like to think she's screaming "I love you, Daddy!" and the "Ah!"s are shorthand for "Great pureed carrots, Dad, thanks!" And perhaps the tongue-clucking chlocks are Na'vi for "You, Dad Solo, could not be parenting me better even if you wanted to, so remember that when I'm 14 and I act as though I hate and resent you, it will be a mere facade and deep down I will still love and respect you dearly."

Yeah, that's it. Music to my ears.

When Dad's Head Weighs Forty Pounds

I've been sick all week. It started last Saturday with a very sore throat, which ebbed a bit the following day before hitting again on Monday with full force, along with a stuffed head and all the other bells and whistles that accompany a cold. It was so bad that The Wife worked from home yesterday so she could look after NJ and, to a lesser extent, me. I even had to skip going out to watch the NFL Draft with The Guys, something I've only been looking forward to since last April. (Longer, actually -- Dallas didn't have a first-round pick last year, so I was already anticipating this year's draft two years ago. But I digress.) After about 18 hours on the couch yesterday (the Draft, 'Blade Runner' on blu-ray, etc.), I seemed to have turned the corner and hopefully will be right again by the time the weekend starts this evening.

So with me lugging around what felt like a giant concrete head, hocking and nose-blowing and spitting all day, and slipping into the occasional Nyquil-induced funk, you may ask: How did things go with the kid? Things went fine. Monday and Tuesday went as per usual, and we even went for very long walk on Tuesday -- to the drugstore for throat lozenges. The bad day was Wednesday, when I was laid too low to do anything other than sit around. And NJ was a champ. She played with her bazillion toys and napped like a pro and didn't complain about anything, ever. Which leads me to the buried lead of this post:

At eight-plus months, NJ is a very happy baby.

Yesterday she started fussing and crying at about 5 p.m., and after a few minutes deliberation The Wife and I realized she didn't get a meal after her afternoon nap and was hungry. So she got a bottle, and I tried to think back to the last time she'd cried like that. And I couldn't remember. I can count on one hand the number of times she's woken up in the night crying. Putting her down for a nap, or at bedtime, used to mean enduring a five- or ten-minute temper-tantrum cry; now she hits the mattress and either goes to sleep or jibbers and jabbers to herself for a while until she's out. (The Thumb helps, too.) No crying on wake-up, either -- oh, perhaps a couple of baby shrieks, but once you're in the room you're greeted by a smile that'll melt your heart and put a cartoon bluebird on your shoulder. And yesterday, I was laying on the couch when I realized that I'd been hearing NJ laughing hard for a couple of minutes straight. I got up to find she and The Wife having a laugh-off at the high chair. The Wife was damned if she could tell me what started it. Organic laugh-offs are the best.

I could go on forever about this stuff, but if you want more Internet cheese I suggest you go here. I need to keep in mind the unwritten rule that hangs over this blog, which is that while all these things are new and wonderful to me, I'm late to the game and all parents have been there and done that. But mostly, I feel like I'm jinxing the whole thing by typing it out like this. So I'll end it here and go blow my nose.

Potentially Regrettable Baby Milestone: Baby's First Fried Food

The Barking Dog Alehouse on 70th Street is a great place. Good food, an impressive beer list, a very impressive single-malt selection, and never too crowded (I'm sure that'll change now that my legions of followers are reading this). And today, it was the scene of NJ's first foray into the wild, wacky, delicious world of fried foods. The Dog serves tasty waffle-cut fries with its burgers and sandwiches, and as the chips that you find commonly paired with (fried) fish. Today, The Wife got a burger and I got the F&C, so there were plenty of available waffle fries. And NJ availed herself of them.

Yes, give me a taste of that bad boy.

Hmmm ... not bad. Not bad at all. Pardon me while I spread this across my face.

Waitress? Can we please get another pile of these things? Now?

Yeah, salty and savory are taste sensations my young palate is going to have to get used to. But I'll get there, don't you worry.

We also gave her bits of burger and fish, but they only got lost in her lap or dropped to the floor. The waffle fries, she hung on to those. The solid food revolution continues apace.

The Age Of Sticky

Now that we've boldly entered the solid food-eating phase here at Casa NJ, there's a thin veneer of sticky all over the place. One end of the dining room table. Part of the dining room floor. NJ's clothes, bibs and spit-up rags. Her living room play mat. Plastic toys. NJ's face, hands and arms, and occasionally her legs.

It's all over the place, in other words. But it's not a giant flood of applesauce, half-chewed rice crackers and spilled pureed veggies. That, almost, would be better. No, it's little dabs of residue here and there, where you (I) least expect it. Yesterday I put a glass down on the table and picked it up again to find a little cereal star clinging to the bottom like it had grabbed onto the last helicopter out of Saigon.

I don't care how you feel about these things. I like 'em! Bring me more!

Not all of them end up in NJ's mouth, of course. She knows how to pick them up, and she knows they belong in her mouth. But if she closes her hand into a fist, that fist is what ends up in her mouth. The cereal may end up in her mouth, too, but it also may stay in that fist, soaking up drool, and come back out again. And stick to the back of her hand. Or her chin. Or her bottom lip. Or her shirt. Or ... just about anything.

In the photo above, NJ picked up all four of the pictured cereal stars, and 1) managed to eat one; 2) lost two in the palm of her very own hand, where they turned to a gooey mush; and 3) dropped one into her lap, where it eventually bounced to the floor. That's where Zeus snagged it. (Hallelujah for The Two Idiots and their ever-vigilant patrolling of the house. Yesterday NJ grabbed the edge of my cereal bowl and toppled it, spreading flax-seed granola and milk all over the office floor. I called Willie over and he quickly, efficiently cleaned up 80 percent of the mess.)

I'll eat half of this now and ball the other half up into mush and keep it in my hand for an hour.

When mixed with copious amounts of baby saliva, the rice crackers and cereal bits mix into a paste you could use to repair cracks in concrete. It sticks to everything and congeals in the blink of an eye. The resulting crust sticks to NJ's face and hands like barnacles on a ship's hull and she is not a big fan of mine when I clean it off her.

Anyone know a metal band that needs a lead singer? I can go with a green, red or white goatee, too, if orange is a deal-breaker.

The steamed, pureed fruits and veggies -- and yogurt, which was added to the mix last week and is a big favorite -- end up all over NJ's face, of course. But her new-found penchant for thumb-sucking has increased the mess factor four- or five-fold. You stick a thumb into a mouth that's festooned like the one in the photo above and that stuff is getting all over the hand. Then that hand goes to the hair, then the high chair table, then the other hand, then the shirt sleeve, then the sideboard next to the high chair. Soon it's "Carrots all around!"