Cutest Baby Award

The last two days have been filled with making silly faces, "interpreting" baby talk, and hunting for pacifiers. I've also spent a good amount of time reading My First Words and Water, Water Everywhere (which talks about different forms of water, though the title reminds me of the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"... "Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink...") and watching Baby Einstein videos (which is really just video clips of children's toys, shapes, babies laughing and such, set to classical music). I also invented a couple additional versus to "The Wheels on the Bus." And I tried to soothe Isabella with the Lion King's "The Circle of Life" (quite effective, I might add).

In case you weren't aware, my niece is the cutest. baby. ever. We went to the grocery store yesterday with her to buy some food for dinner, and there were a couple babies there with their mommies. None could hold a candle to Isabella. She's so bubbly now. She smiles and coos and makes all sorts of funny noises, like she thinks she's carrying on a conversation with you.

Not only is she cute, but she's a good sport too. Today Evangelina and I took Isabella marathon shopping with us as we hit up a giant outlet mall near the Strip, and she did remarkably well for being pushed around to different stores for hours on end (I think we were there for over four hours). She barely cried, staying alert and happy almost the entire time. In fact, she only started screaming bloody murder (that little thing has the lung capacity worthy of a career as an opera singer) when we didn't get her home by her 7pm bedtime.

It was fun to walk around and be followed everywhere by "Oooh," "Aaaah," and "Isn't she the cutest thing in the world?!?!" We were getting so much attention walking through stores that my first thought was, This must be what it's like to be famous. Except that instead of looking at me, all eyes are directed three feet ahead toward the pint-sized bundle of joy sitting on her mama's hip, gargling and grinning at the world.