Friend Feast

If there is any dispute that human instinct from day one is to grab, possess and consume, K-bao sets the record straight. Here she is exerting every last ounce of her strength trying to force her friends Mr. Monkey and Ms. Parrot into her mouth. K-Mum and K-Pop spent an enjoyable 20 minutes this afternoon watching her wrestling with her hanging stuffies and bellowing like a raging buffalo when she wasn't able to get their noggins into her chops. We didn't raise no quitter though. K-bao kept at it, pausing periodically to trumpet her disgruntlement, until one object of her attention finally slipped off the hook. Whereupon, of course, it went straight into the fly trap. Sweet satisfaction.

Discipline

With K-bao's emerging self-awareness and growing mischievousness, the K-folks are beginning to wrestle with the looming question of how to instill some God-fearing, gratification-delaying, old-fashioned values in the little one. Yes, the age-old Foucaultian question: rod, timeout or silent treatment? Stern look or no look?

It is clear already that lectures are going to have limited impact. Look at the little imp tuning out K-Pop already. We can just imagine the nightmare of trying to give her the soapbox about boys, dating etc. in her teens or before the dreaded prom. "Papa don't preach!" - I can hear it already. Lord save us. 

Nicholas Kristof has a humorous piece in the Times this week entitled "Would you Slap your Father? If So, You're a Liberal." Well, if there's any truth in that, given the whacks across the cheek K-Pop has endured just when leaning in for a goodnight kiss, let's just say our little girl leans pretty far left. 

Maturity

K-bao has definitely moved up in recent weeks on the Interactivity Scale. She's always had a bright, vigilant and even incisive look about her eyes, and we received more than a few comments from friends and strangers alike on the maturity of her expressions even a couple weeks in. However, we ultimately decided that she was hoodwinking everyone - i.e. she looked a lot smarter than she was.

Which of course raised the unsettling question of where she inherited that from.

Now, however, we have more evidence that the grey matter is building a bit. She whirls around in her little blue saucer like a little Tasmanian devil, flamboyantly punching at the various toys and built-in gadgets. She will look penetratingly at the person holding her or standing close by and howl like an angry baboon if she doesn't recognize the face. She always laughs at the Clown Dance. If K-Mum is singing a pleasing nursery rhyme to her, and she happens to be in a musical mood, she will whine and grouse loudly when the song is over until the next one begins. She is fascinated with her feet and tries to eat them whenever they appear in view.

As a result of this new brain activity, K-Pop and K-Mum have been aggressively and immaturely competing to have "ba-ba" or "mama" be the first intentional words coming out of the little one's mouth. The two grownups will literally hover over the poor kid and take turns shouting "ba-ba" and "mama" at her for long stretches. K-bao will look disinterestedly at us and stick her fist in her mouth, or occasionally favor us with a burp. This morning K-bao awoke from her nap and bellowed for attention. "She said 'ba-ba'" exclaimed K-Pop, running to her room. "No she didn't!" insists K-Mum, jumping up from the couch and elbowing daddy aside at the doorway. K-bao looked at us disgustedly as we leaned over her crib. You two featherbrains!

Trick Me Once

The aforementioned, detested baby vitamins. 

I thought you loved me Mum!

Curious

K-bao has her mum's curiosity, which is to say, on a scale of 1-10,  she is an 11 or 12. For starters, she is always wondering what is going on in the world behind her head or just over the ridge (which in her case, is the side of the sofa or an elevated comforter). When K-Mum or I hold her upright, she swivels her head back and forth like a well-greased office chair, never content to look at one view for more than a few seconds.  The downside of this pate pirouetting is that she bumps her nose a good deal against our shoulders. 

If we have her lying down, she wants to sit up. If she is sitting, she wants to stand up. And if we're holding her up, she kicks her chubby legs and thrashes her stubby arms and cranes her little neck until we get up and show her what she's missing (which is usually the equally boring other side of the room). As you might imagine, this is rather trying on the nerves.

(She does make some exceptions. As we've said, she loves the clothes in her closet or her mum's closet and can gaze at them for long stretches. She can stare at the bookcase for a bit, and also the trees outside our window. She is turning out to be quite the fashionable bibliophile with environmentalist sensibilities)

The hope of course is that behind her impertinence is an active mind, though I can't say we look forward to battling wits with the little monkey for the next twenty one years. K-Mum recently tried to give her baby vitamins, for example, via a concededly foul-smelling syrup. K-bao had one taste and gagged like we had put a hairball down the throat. Next time Mum approached her mouth with the dropper? "Thhpht, thppppppt!!!" goes K-bao. Saliva everywhere. Couldn't even get a drop in. Ain't no fool in this house Mum!

Fashion & Bingo

A few good friends took us out to brunch in Burlingame today and K-bao took the opportunity to explore the chic stores along the charming Burlingame streets. Here she is with K-Mum, ignoring the camera in favor of the designer baby clothes she sees in the Janie and Jack store. K-bao has shown an early aptitude for (or at least fascination with) fashion - for example, she can stare at the little outfits in her closet for ten minutes at a stretch, which is five to seven more minutes than she is willing to look at anything else, including her own daddy's face.

She also appears to like music. She now recognizes some of the tunes she has heard multiple times in the Hu Household, and we are generally able to squeeze a few good smiles out of her if we launch a round or two of "If You're Happy and You Know It," the "BINGO Clapping Song," "Jesus Loves Me" or "Head and Shoulders, Knees & Toes" - especially if we wave her dimpled little fists during the songs or jump around like buffoons ourselves. This, of course, has led to a few rather sad scenes of K-bao's poor parents reduced to trying to drown out the little one's public screeching with even louder and likely more objectionable renditions of bad nursery rhymes.  I can also say from personal experience that there is nothing worse to have stuck in your head than the BINGO Clapping Song. B-I-NGO...and Bingo was his name-o!

Shots

We took K-bao to get her second round of shots today at the doctor's office. Hoping to keep her distracted and in good spirits leading up to the inevitable unpleasantries, we sang and whispered sweet nothings to her while entering the waiting room and heading into the examination room.

Our little girl was not the least bit fooled. She took one look at the Pepto-Bismal walls and the cold, tissue-papered ledge on which thousands of unsuspecting little children before her had laid prior to getting stuck like a pin cushion, and immediately put on the Will-Cry-in-30-seconds Face. What, you think I was born yesterday? said her look.

Then the nurse - the same rough, slightly bigger-boned nurse who had given her the needle last time - walked in to weigh her, and K-bao threw out the clock and immediately sounded the alarm. "A she-wolf is in the room! I am going to be taken away and eaten! She will feed me in bits and pieces to her little cubs!" No amount of cajoling, pleading or begging would calm her down. K-Pop even broke out the Clown Dance - a move that, in public, is reserved for dire emergencies - and was only able to dial her back from Incredibly Upset to Very Upset. All of this was before the shots were administered.

All in all, a tough trip. When she got home, K-bao showed her thanks by presenting K-Mum - on her birthday, no less - with a diaper so dirty that it not only blew through two sets of clothing, it also wiped out 2 sets of changing table pads. Happy birthday Mommy!

Hand Stand

Over the last ten days K-bao reached a new milestone - bringing her hands together in front of her. Yes, she can now clasp her hands in humble prayer - or, more likely, rub them together gleefully as she plots to take over first our home and then the world.

Here she is demonstrating her newfound metacarpal agility. We will sometimes find her in the morning clasping and unclasping her hands, staring at them like they were pieces of fine art.

Puffed up by her achievements, K-bao has decided that is ready to stand and see the world. Never mind that she can barely lift her head, cannot crawl and hasn't rolled over even once. When K-Mum or I hold her now, she will squawk, squeal and yammer until we lift her to a standing position. Then, while wobblying unstably on her chubby legs, she will smile exultantly and look around from side to side, surveying her dominion like the queen of the world.