But you don't want to hear about me or my dog, do you? Nobody really wants to hear about other people's dogs. I will tell you about Claire Helen. We were at the zoo with some friends last week- mostly mothers of 18 month olds, so Claire Helen was very popular- she discovered a sort of patty cake. She sticks out her hands, and gets the adult (stranger!! My child! Boo Radley's long lost cousin!) to "give her ten," and then the adult is supposed to stick out a hand or two, and she "gives them 5" or 10, depending on the number of hands presented. And so on. She was crestfallen when the store clerk at the Gap wouldn't play with her, but she is so far refusing to play with her father or me. This is a stranger game only, apparently.

She's a musical sort of kid. We go to this symphony program for babies(hosted by identical twins who DO NOT LOOK ALIKE. This blows my mind, and I'm sure it will Claire Helen's in a few years when I tell her about it), and she does her rockin' out dance through the whole hour, even while trying to eat the program. When she's in the right mood, lately, after I call Betty away from whatever trouble she's getting into- I say "Betty Betty!"- when she sees Betty trot into the room, she bounces on her butt and says "Bum bum!" Only you have to imagine it with umlauts over the u's. When I get out the Cheerios in the morning, she immediately fixates on the big yellow box, and each appendage starts twitching wildly, separately. Her brow furrows, and she looks at the box and I very intensely. She's not glad I have the Cheerios out, but rather *afraid I won't give her any*. Poor monkey.

I call her monkey. All the time. Also:
monkey puzzle tree*
punky monkey
punky puzzle tree
sleepytime monkey
Claire de Lune
Claire de Looney tunes
Looney tune-y

She can pull herself up to standing (but only in the very slippery very hard very dangerous bathtub, of course.) and appears to be able to crawl (but this one only in the crib. And only when very angry.). I am not ready to call her "bum bum" antics a first word, but I'd be willing to bet a quarter that in another month or so you'll hear that something like it, referring to Betty, is her first word. She loves that dog, evil dog genius or no.

Lately I have been seeing the term "slacker mom" all over the news, the way I used to see "attached parent." As a public service announcement, I would like you all to know that we will not be buying into this parenting craze, either. I could tell you were wondering, and I am sure read the recent NYtimes op-ed piece thinking, "What do Mat and Stephanie think about this?" It's how you read all of your major newspapers, I'm sure.

I hope you all had a wonderfully romantic Valentine's Day. We made a fancy French dinner** which we were able to eat at the very near reasonable hour of 10 o'clock, after some mild (as in, "that's a mild gaping headwound you have there.") sleep struggles with baby. We are working on it.

*Not an imaginary tree. An actual evergreen native to the Pacific Northwest and the western coast of South America. They are funny looking.

**Neato goat cheese crepes and a chocolate souffle, thanks for asking.