Milk & Cookies

It's been a relatively slow week here at Me Show Central, what with me getting over a cold and all.  There has been one bright, shining moment in the darkness of rhinovirus malaise, and that is that Livy began using sign language yesterday.  I've been signing basic words (milk, eat, mama, dada, help, and more, mostly) to her for a few months now, and yesterday she was able to tell me in tiny hand-words that she wanted milk.  It was near bedtime and I was stuffing her into her pajamas after her bath when her tiny fist made the udder-squeezing motion that indicates a request for milk.  So I skeptically asked, "do you want milk?" and when she opened her mouth like a hungry baby bird while pumping her fist I contorted into ugly tears of love and pride I never thought possible.  We communicated!  My sweet little baby lumpkin talked to me, and I understood her!  It was amazing!  We spent a few minutes celebrating with hugs and kisses before I got her her bottle.  She then made the sign for milk as she drained her bottle and suffered endless kisses from Mama before drifting into sleep without a murmur.

If I react like this because she has mastered such a rudimentary skill, what's going to happen when she's in a school play?  Or when she wins her first chess tournament?  Or when she sweeps the leg at the All Valley Karate Tournament?  I'm going to look like a freshly crowned Miss America every time that child does something even moderately correctly, let alone successfully achieves something noteworthy.  While I know that what she's done is entirely ordinary, at the same time I am convinced that Olivia Lee has just proclaimed her genius to the world with her tiny fist.  And the chest-thumping glory of the latter will always, ALWAYS trump the level-headedness of the former.  You throw that fist, Livy.  Baby pride!

Practicing her victorious move at around 3 months old.

In other news, we have out of sad necessity become connoisseurs of yet another brand of ass cream.  I am pleased to announce that Boudreaux's Butt Paste (available at your local retailers or at http://www.buttpaste.com/) is delightful.  It is, miraculously, nearly the exact color, textue, and scent of unbaked chocolate chip cookie dough, minus the chocolate chips.  The presence of Boudreaux's Butt Paste in my home means, though, that I can never take Ambien.  I am certain that if I ever did SLB would find me in the middle of the night sucking butt paste straight from the tube in a somnolescent and gluttonous stupor, and that is a sight my daughter and the world never need to see.

Airing out the tongue and tushie in anticipation of a pasting.  The tongue was disappointed.