LITTLE DIPPER

We all went to Wendy's for lunch yesterday. We let Allegra eat french fries while we pounded like 25 hamburgers (maybe a few less). Tobin, always wanting to be the ultimate helper (much to the dismay of the helpee...) kept inching his dipping sauce and ketchup closer and closer to Allegra's reach. Finally it was close enough, and she slammed a french fry right into the ketchup. She knew EXACTLY what to do. Clearly she comes from a family of eaters.

OLDER BROTHERS

Allegra will never have a dull moment so long as her older brothers are around. Case in point:

The boys - most likely, Blane - adapted a game they play with the dog, for use with their newly-crawling baby sister. You know how you can point a laser on the floor and a dog or cat will become possessed and chase it anywhere? So yeah, they figured out that they could do the same thing with Allegra.

They were leading her in circles around the house, with the laser dot only inches in front of her on the floor. I was laughing hysterically at the evil-genius of the situation, and Kristen was annoyed at the way they were teasing her. Maybe it wasn't the nicest thing to do to their baby sister (who probably just enjoyed crawling all around), but you can't deny the brilliant outside-the-box thinking.

AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE

Everyone says that the only reason we have more than one child, is that we forget everything from the last one. I don't know that that's true - there are an awful lot of things I'll miss about having a baby around. However one of the things I had most certainly forgotten was the mass of toys that can be found EVERYWHERE in the house when a baby comes along.

The boys are bad enough about having weapons and Legos out, but they're usually at least in a osrt of ordered-chaos (or as I like to call them, 'piles of organization'). But with babies, you tend to just have baby things - mostly toys - out everyplace you might possibly be with the baby. So not a square foot of floor (or sitting) space is without some baby toy, or binky, or bib, or package of wipes. I find myself shuffling through the house, in order to push the toys out of my way, instead of trying to step between them like some sort of Sesame Street Gauntlet.

HOW MUCH WOOD COULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK

There are 2 tiny front teeth on my baby girl's bottom gums. It's SO cute. She smiles and these little glints of white are just barely jutting above her lip. Looks like the 2 on top are not far behind.

With the new tools at her disposal, she's awfully keen on biting our ams now. That's not so cute. But immediately following our painful reaction is the devilish grin and a giggle (nose scrunched, eyes shining), that goes back to being impossibly cute again.