Meeting The Great-Grandbaby

I've waited 9 1/2 months for this, since she wasn't going to cooperate with our summer schedule to be born. Plus it's been a packed schedule since we arrived in Mosquito Central, with all the other friends, relatives, and activities to cram into the visit. Saturday we finally made it work.

Her name is Anna and she is adorable. Yes, I know, there'd be a major problem with my perceptions if I didn't think that, but she's adorable. Her mom has to keep an eagle eye on her every waking minute, since she crawls faster than I can walk, just shy of walking independently, and all the forbidden items in the house are the ones that most fascinate her. Fortunately,  Mom is young, flexible, and up to the task. I, on the other hand, can barely remember how I managed to do the same with my own kids and took a minute or 18 to wonder how on earth I ever did it. Adding the extra 20-something more kids that came and went through the house during the 8 years when I was doing home family day care can really scramble these elderly brains when I try to review the organizational challenges.

So just one kid was a real treat. Especially this one. Her disposition is mainly sunny, even with allowances for being tired or hungry. She's capable of fishing puffed fruit bits out of a cup with a special lid that allows tiny hands in and keeps tinier food bits from escaping. Those hands are perfectly capable of shoveling said food bits into her mouth (neatly) and picking up and using a water cup also designed for contents distribution only when properly demanded. Leaving it upside down on the carpet is no problem. Bigger drinks still utilize a bottle, but soon she's off exploring again.

"Da-da-da-da-da-" and "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma" are her favorite verbalizations, though a hand patted over her mouth bring out her delight in making silly noises just because she can. She's beginning to use baby signing, but a bit more coordination is needed there as well.

She hams it up for the camera most of the time too. Just call her name and have the flash come on and there's a .75 second pose with a grin before she's on to the next thing. Unfortunately, my camera takes 1.8 seconds to decide what the subject is and where to focus, how to light it up properly, and finally take a picture, so she's gone on to that next thing before I've gotten my picture. That red-eye flash that's supposed to eliminate red eyes in photos doesn't work, not on anybody's camera, but that doesn't keep my camera from taking time trying to do it.

There have been lots of great pics and videos online from her parents. My favorites are a couple of videos. One, Daddy is taking the laser pointer and moving it around the carpet, keeping just ahead of Anna's ability to "catch" it. Think typical cat video, remove cat, insert baby. Another is a game of "I'm gonna get you!", where Mom and camera chase baby around the house, with baby stopping every 4 or 5 seconds to see if Mom's still chasing before scrambling away again.

I finally gave up on my bad still photos and went for the video app. I wanted my very own fun baby movies. Unfortunately, they take up way too much space on the SD card and my camera display is very good at letting me know how little time I have left. I only got 4 short videos, and at least one was more hope and optimism than worthwhile result. Well, unless you like a close-up of a diapered bottom heading away at top crawling speed. Not exactly my thing.

I did get one success. First, Mom took the batteries out of the TV remote so Anna would sit still long enough to thoroughly explore it, aka eat it. While that was occurring, Mom brought out a sitting teddy bear that wiggled, sang, and "danced" when you squeezed its paw. While the camera rolled, Anna repeatedly removed the remote from her mouth, waved her entire upper body along with the bear for a couple seconds without tipping over, then reinserted the remote so the process could start over. We got about 4 dances out of one paw squeeze. ( I still say the most talented part of that dance was her ability to avoid klunking herself in the head with the remote while wiggling to the music!)

I missed my chance at capturing a game of "Baby Sandwich." Anna was lying on the floor and Mom had a pillow she brought down and wiggled the baby with while repeating "Baby Sandwich". I think those were the biggest baby giggles of the day. Maybe (hint hint) she and Daddy can tape it and post it for us before it's no longer fun for Anna.

Living as far apart as we do from her, we gave her grandpa - my son - a lift down with us. He had the Saturday off. With Steve there to manage cameras for everybody, there are a selection of 4-generation pictures. There are the usual somebody-moved kind, somebody-made-a-face kind, Anna-faced-Mama-instead-of-the-camera kind. Somewhere in all those, however, I'm hoping there's a really good one. Otherwise we'll just have to go visit and do it again.

Wheeeeeeee! More hugs!