a Luna list

I know, I don't write nearly as much about Luna as I do about Linus (or even just random other stuff). It's not because I care for her any less, or find her less interesting, it's just that she's a baby. Linus talks about shooting rhinoceroses, and runs around in Spiderman underpants, and what not. Basically, he's blog fodder. While I find Luna fascinating, I recognize that this is mostly because I'm her parent. Now that we're on the second one I can see with more clarity that every little thing she does is not magic to anyone but me, her father, and maybe her grandmother. That First Baby Veil has lifted from my eyes. However, I feel I'm juking her in the word count. I don't want her to find this blog 15 years from now and feel slighted and get all huffy and morose (any more so than she'll already be because she's a teenager anyway). I could list 100 things I find completely charming and interesting and amazing about her, but I'll just list 10:

1. She crosses her legs at her ankles whenever she nurses. Has since the day she came out. It's like she's kicking it at the booby, chillin'. It's really eff-ing cute!

2. She's in the 95th percentile for weight and completely off the charts for length! Our girl's going to be a tall one.

3. She is very noisy. If you put her down for even a minute on the floor or couch or whatever, she makes this noise, a sort of a growl that sounds like a chain-smoking baby dinosaur. Rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr, rowr. It's really annoying and therefor effective. Sometimes, she just hollers. Not cry, mind you, hollers.

4. She does not like to be put down (see #3). Sometimes she likes to sit and play with stuff, but mostly she knows you're just trying to do something without her and that's BULLSHIT! She is on to you!

5. She has a hilarious don't-put-me-down strategy of NOT BENDING AT THE WAIST! She will NOT BEND AT THE WAIST no matter what if you try and put her down when she's not ready. The Human Plank. This usually results in having to lay her down on her back WHICH SHE HATES EVEN MORE THAN SITTING DOWN, DAMMIT!!

6. She has no interest in crawling, but she will scale you like Mt. Everest. If I'm sitting next to her on the couch or floor, she'll flop over and scale up the side of me until she's smiling right in my face with a big, one-tooth smile. She's going to be one of those babies that walks before she crawls.

7. She loves the singing. Though she hates the car seat, she'll sit happily as long as I'm singing The Wheels On The Bus. Over, and over, and over again. Her very favorite song is The Itsy-Bitsy Spider. She sings to herself all the time a kind of tuneless chant that includes vigorous arm flapping and bouncing.

8. She sleeps in the crook of my arm all night, which I love, but that means I can't really have much in the way of covers over me because she doesn't do covers. She kicks, kicks, kicks with her super chubby power legs until all covers are off. Even in her sleep she'll kick off the covers. Kick, kick, splay! Only in the deepest of deep sleeps can I sneak a little blanket up over her. Again, cute, but annoying.

9. She pokes her tongue out all the time. Like in the picture above. I don't really get it. There was a period of about 3 weeks a month or so ago when the tongue disappeared, but now it's back. I think it may have something to do with teething, maybe she likes the feel of it on her gums. It's a mystery. It compliments the chain-smoking baby dinosaur noise nicely, however.

10. She loves her brother. Loves him. She lights up with a huge smile whenever he comes to talk or play with her. She finds his shenanigans hilarious! Spin and fall? Funny. Spin and fall again? Funnier. Call her a doh-doh-head? Funny. Get an inch from her face and sing a song. Funny. Pretend to pee on her? Hilarious! You can tell she wants to follow him so bad. She gets furious that he can walk away and she can't follow. Once she starts walking, he's in trouble. He won't be able to shake her.

Anyone still reading at this point, thank you for indulging me.