I stepped away during lunch to get some juice, and Ada Quickfingers grabbed the avocado sitting in the table. She discovered a new, much more fun way to eat them.

What an adventurous week we’ve had! Ada and Mama are reporting from Ft. Benning, Georgia, where we’ve been for a week to welcome the newest Larsen baby, Will and Jess’ daughter Sophie Marie. Sophie was born on Thursday, the day after we arrived. We’ve had a wonderful time getting to know Sophie and watching her grow in her first week. And in between ogling her baby cousin, Ada has had hours of playtime with Grandma Barb at the many nearby playgrounds, with the dogs Lola and Max, and generally enjoying the much-warmer weather than they’re having at home.

The airlines don’t give out much these days, but apparently a baby can still get her wings.

Uncle Will heading in to meet his baby daughter

Here she is! Snug as a bug.

Ada meeting and applauding her beautiful baby cousin.

“Come home and play with me and the dogs, Sophie!”

Here she comes…

A homecoming reception in the back yard, meeting the dogs for the first time.

Sleepy smiles. Does it get any sweeter than this face?

Snuggling with Daddy. She’s got the Larsen butt-chin. 😉

Sophie’s first outing at 6 days. We all went to the commissary for diapers and supplies.

Uncle Will got a baby motorcycle before Ada came. It plays music and runs up and down the driveway. Ada hereby requests a motorcycle at home upon her return to New Jersey.

“I see you, Lola!”

A baby needs some shades here!

At first she wasn’t so sure about the feel of grass under her shoes, but she’s got it sorted now.

Peek-a-boo! (photo credit Grandma Barb)

The base is very pretty, no? Mature-tree lined streets, pretty houses with nice lawns, playgrounds.

Pooped!

This year we had an intimate Passover Seder – just the three of us. Ada enjoyed the candles, the food, and even the wine. She has drinking wine off of a finger down. Next year we will try to get more photos, but for now, enjoy! We surely did.

At bath tonight, I was imitating her refusing food at dinner. She thought it was pretty funny. And we think it’s funny that she thinks it’s funny.

We had a wonderful weekend visit with Auntie Jess Vought. She arrived on Friday in the middle of a weirdo-March snowstorm, and we had a relaxed, delicious, quiet few days together. She came with us to Sign & Sing and we went for a walk in Hoboken to eat our unbelievably tasty fresh mozzarella sandwiches.

Auntie Jess brought a sweet little stroller for Ada’s dolls, an Elly the pink elephant toy (yes, from Pocoyo) and also… the tickle monster.

NB: Auntie Jess Vought also introduced an elegant game of “where’s your heinie?” that Ada has taken to like a duck to the water. There’s a video of that too, but we’ll only show it by special request. 😉

Before having kids, I’d hear kids are so funny and I’d kinda shrug and dismiss it as a platitude. You know, like kids say the darndest things, and they’re all published on cheesy desk calendars or in Readers Digest for folks to read in the dentist’s office. I’d secretly think that somewhere along the line parents lost a sense of sophisticated humor and just started to… settle. It must have been around the same time that parents go out together or with friends and can’t talk about anything but their kids. Or something.

Here’s the thing. We knew our kid when she was too young to control her own flailing limbs, before she even knew that she had limbs. And um, now that she has her own opinions and the gross and fine motor skills to do something about those opinions…

Good heavens, she’s funny. I think, maybe even objectively funny. But you be the judge. I’m one of those parents who can’t find anything else to talk about. 😉

And then there’s Baby Shoehands. For weeks we’ve been trying to capture this elusive creature on camera, but like Bigfoot she kept escaping a definitive record. One of her favorite activities now is to clomp around with shoes on her hands. She thinks it’s great and gets the right shoe on the right hand 90% of the time. We stuck with it, and eventually got it on video. Enjoy.

She got moves like you’ve never seen.

Well, maybe. Ada’s dance move du jour is a body wiggle with hands above her head, pointer fingers pressed to thumbs in a kind of Arabic mudra wiggly dance… thing. Daddy and I would both be very happy to take credit of this super cute move, but neither of us taught her to dance like that.

And ok, this one isn’t dancing, but Daddy says “who needs toys when you have a million dollar office chair?”
Indeed.