“Ah ha!”
“Actually…”
Yep, the little professor.
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Month: July 2006
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I love you, too
This is how my baby gets to sleep most of the time: sucking his fingers. I’m so excited that he’s chosen these two fingers:
It’s a little “I love you” sign! My mom thought I was crazy but I love this. I mean, it’s my preverbal baby telling me he loves me. Kinda gets you right here.
How does a preverbal baby tell you he loves you? Lately I’ve noticed a few ways Hayden says “I love you” without actually saying it.
- He calms down (sometimes) when I stroke his head or back.
- He gazes raptly up at me (especially when he’s sooooo tired and it’s bedtime).
- He just learned that when he’s sitting on my lap, he can lean all the way to one side (leaning on one of my arms as I type) and turn his head to look up at me. And when he does, he flashes a huge grin. It’s as if he were saying, “Hey, wait a minute, who’s got me? Let me check. Oh! It’s MAMA! Hurray!”
- He buries his head in my shoulder or chest when he’s ready for sleep.
- He perks up when he hears my voice, especially if I’ve left him alone for a while. And by “perks up” I mean that he usually goes from laying on his tummy to holding his head up to look for me.
- The other day I went in to get him from his nap and before I even said anything he perked up because he knew I was there. Before he even saw me, he was grinning his gorgeous, toothless grin because he knew I was there.
When Hayden was younger, especially the first two months or so, it was tough because I never seemed to get any kind of feedback from him. It seemed he acted the same way with just about anyone. (Unless, of course, he was hungry, in which case he screamed loudest of all with me because he was growing impatient and knew I was supposed to be feeding him.)
When Hayden was just over two months, I complained to a friend with a then-two-week-old. “Oh, my baby definitely knows who I am,” she interrupted. “He’ll scream and scream for my husband, but he always calms right down when I have him.”
Oh. Right. Well, then. I guess I didn’t need any sympathy, anyway. But three months later, it’s (finally) becoming more and more obvious that I’m Baby’s favorite person. I might even go so far as to say that he loves me!
| Hayden’s latest idea of fun is to be swung upside down. Sorry there’s no sound, you’ll just have to imagine Ryan going, “Whee! Whee!” | |
I got a mailer from a diaper company today. It claimed that a new feature*
Ahem… WHAT?! Okay, I realize I may be the ONLY person living who gets this anymore (or who cares), but that is completely nonsensical. Sure, it sounds fine when you read it aloud, but it’s NOT. Here’s the difference:
- A baby has sensitive skin. Singular
- Babies have sensitive skin. Plural
- Baby’s sensitive skin chafes. Singular possessive
- Babies’ sensitive skin chafes**. Plural possessive
Or, to put it this way, it’s the different between saying “we sensitive skin” and “our sensitive skin.” Now, doesn’t that sound awful?
And to add insult to injury, they continued:
This is a bit harder to see, but they commit another crime here. Let’s learn commas, shall we?
Correct:
- My husband, Ryan, is wonderful.
- Although I’ve never tried it, I dislike escargot.
You can drop the comma’d words or phrases and these sentences still make sense (My husband is wonderful. I dislike escargot.)
Let’s try it with the ad now. “Swaddlers New Baby ‘Absorb Away’ soft-weave mesh liner, helps wetness and runny mess pass through it and into its super absorbent core.” becomes “Helps wetness and runny mess pass through it and into its super absorbent core.” Hm….
Or, as one of my history professors put it, “Never separate a subject from its accompanying verb with a comma.”
Into the paddywagon, Pampers.
Suspect #2. I have here one of the most awesome marketing direct mailers I’ve seen in a long time. Perhaps ever. It’s an Adventure Passport—a small, very cleverly designed booklet that touts Utah Valley’s attractions. I’d love it more if it weren’t for a few poor copy edits. Among other errors:
Although I don’t like it, I’m not going to comment on the “products produced” part. However, I will comment on the “free ballon.” According to SotallyTober.com, this is a ballon:
Hurray for Utah Valley! Come in and get a free wine glass, kids!
Do you have any open positions for a copy editor, Convention and Visitors Bureau?
Can you tell I’m a member of the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar?
*Apologies to non-moms (and moms) who pale at the thought of “runny mess” in or outside of a diaper.
**Chafes is conjugated as singular because I decided that skin is a mass noun here. Babies’ two skins? No.
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The movies want YOU! (They told me so!)
Anybody ever tell you that you could be in the pictures?
No?
Well, it doesn’t matter. You can still influence movie people (at least the MPAA, who make movie ratings). I just joined My Movie Muse, the MPAA’s brand new online panel to help the MPAA get in touch with moviegoers. I qualified even though I almost never go to movies!
I have no idea what I just got myself into…
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Silliness, thy name is Hayden.
Look at how my baby chooses to sleep. It seems so uncomfortable to me, but he loves it. Scares me to death with SIDS and all, but even if I flip him over he just rolls right back. And scrunches up in the corner. Silly Baby.