Shut up about your baby.

Jane is being awfully charming of late, full of little peeping sounds and eye contact and dopey smiles and states of "quiet alertness," as some baby-wearing website I read put it.

I was already fond of the snuffling noises that were previously the only vocalization in her repertoire beyond yelling, bleating, and grunting, but this cooing stuff is really the business. Thumbs up to the fellow at the factory who thought up that one.

All snuggled up against Steve's chest? Very nice, yes, but toss in a musical "oh ah" and I think you'll find it's better yet. Gazing deeply into my eyes with an expression of besotted delight? Highly gratifying under any circumstances, to be sure. But a little nightingale warbling is a particularly fine way for her to indicate that the joy of my presence is just too much to bear in silence.

And right this very minute I can hear her making a series of small inquisitive owlet noises in the next room, where she is keeping Steve company as he types. It is pretty damn charming, I tell you what.

This is a good photo, I think. She was not actually making any birdlike sounds right at the moment I took it, but close enough. Also it documents our use of an actual towel-lined dresser drawer to put our baby in, just as if we were poor but honest young parents in a shabby but clean tenement flat. In fact, we are not so very poor or honest, and she doesn't sleep in it at all, instead using a handy little positioner thing that serves as either a smothering-prevention device in the bed or a minimal bassinet when placed on a table. We do use the drawer for changing her diaper, though, so it's not all a put on.

Genuine drawer!

Meanwhile, I may have a doctorate, but at the moment my proudest achievement is my ability to slide across the back seat of the car and transfer her from the car seat into her sling all without anyone's needing to get out of the car, stand up, or lose her shit. Then we emerge all neatly packed up together and she contentedly claws my cleavage with her tiny razorlike fingernails. Well done us.

Someday I may stop nattering on about my baby and get back to topics of more general interest. Won't that be exciting? Earlier today F. and I did have a nice cheerful rousing talk on the subject of Irritating Colleagues We Have Known, which was happy and engrossing as only that kind of grousing can truly be, and every single subject of the conversation was at least technically an adult, so there may be hope for me yet.

Comments

[Betty M]

Jane needs to send a memo to her birthday twin Freddie who seems stuck on a sleep/wail cycle and bypassing quiet alertness entirely meaning I have not even wittered on on baby issues on my blog let alone things of greater interest since he was born.

[nataliepo]

I support any and all endeavors that prevent the losing of shit.

[this is good]

[adriana]

I am happy to indulge non-baby topics at any time (especially if they involve grousing and/about academia). But all bets are off if I hear Jane cooing in the background.

[LizardBreath]

Ooo, sounds very nice. And you have the shameless flirting with strangers stage yet to look forward to!

[ben]

That'll be when she's around 16, right?

[Elsa]

As a not-baby-mad internet stranger who involuntarily emitted a small coo when I scrolled down and saw the photo of The Baby in Question, I urge you not to shut up about your baby.

[Mum]

See, Elsa is objective. Like me. No need to veer away from this riveting topic.