Baby Squared : dancing babies

Dancing Queens

Roper — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:23:00 GMT

There are days like today, when you've got a nasty head cold and sore throat, and your house is a total mess, and your desk is overflowing with bills and mail, and one of your daughters has a nearly TWO HOUR tantrum, when it feels like nothing short of a small miracle to turn on your digital camera (which you finally have a new battery charger for) for the first time in several weeks and and discover this:

The soundtrack, for anyone who's curious, is "Salsa for Kittens and Puppies," a CD given to us by a super-cool friend of ours. The hats are mine. (You may remember them from the recent Baby Squared fashion expose.) But the rhythm and moves are 100% Clio and Elsa. These girls LOVE to dance. Anytime we put music on, they start bopping and spinning and clapping. Sometimes we play "dance class" and I'll do various crazy moves for them to imitate: kicking, stamping feet, the twist, the pachanga. (Sure, Neil, no problem. We'll end the season with the pachanga. Great idea.)

So, yes. They dance.It's good to remember this when my patience is nearly worn thin and I'm considering putting my children up for sale on eBay: They don't just scream and yell and stomp and cry and make ridiculous demands ("No Mommy talking! No mommy talking! Mommy read a book! Read a book! NO MOMMY, NO TALKING!!") They also dance.

Ah, dance.

Why I'm no longer a fan of Baby Daddy

Roper — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:15:00 GMT

I was going to write about the girls' (too big, too loud, but quite fun) birthday party, but before I do that, I just have to vent. If you're readers of Baby Daddy you know that both Steve Almond and I live in the Boston area. We thought that, in the spirit of blog-raderie, it might be fun to get our kiddos together for a play date of sorts. Yeah. Well. BIG Mistake. Josie seems so sweet and sociable on her dad's blog, but in reality, I'm sorry to report, she's a total prima donna. Get that girl a onesie that says "Princess" on it, stat.

Here, for example, is Josie is holding court in one of Elsa and Clio's bouncy seats. Note how my girls are sweetly fawning all over her (the mean girls always do hold a certain sway over the nice ones, don't they?) while all she cares about is trying to get into a more flattering pose for the camera.

Of course, you really can't blame the child in these situations. It's all about the parents. Or, one parent in particular, in this case. Within five minutes of their arrival, Steve started in with his stage-dad one-upmanship: "Hey, Josie, can you tell Elsa and Clio how many unique hits your blog gets per week? Remember how to say ga-jillion?" and "Josie, why don't you ask Elsa and Clio if they've ever been recognized in public by their readers?" and "Josie, remember how we talked about being extra nice to Clio and Elsa because their mommy hasn't published a book yet -- not even one, let alone a ba-jillion, like your daddy --and how that's very, very sad and pathetic?"

What was even worse was the running list Steve kept of "bloggable moments" during the visit. Every time Josie did something cute or funny or impressive (in Steve's eyes), out would come the list. (I had to lend him a pen, which he stole, incidentally.) He advised me, in his condescending way, that I really should start doing the same. "Not that I read your blog much," he said, "Because I'm too busy answering Josie's fan mail in the funny little voice I've created for her, but I've noticed that your material is a little repetetive. I mean, you've posted three videos of your girls doing their so-called 'dancing.' It's cute once, maybe cute twice, but three times? Come on."

He then turned on our animatronic, singing snowmen and told Josie to show us the routine he'd choreographed for her. And yes, I admit, it is impressive when a 15-month-old can do two grand jetes and a pas de bourree couru followed by the "running man" without missing a beat. But I don't think that automatically makes her "high superior queen of the baby blogosphere" as Steve kept calling her, in an annoying cutesy-wootsy voice. And it certainly doesn't justify this kind of behavior:

Honestly, I feel sorry for Josie. How could she not be expected to turn into a little monster with this kind of parenting? I just hope I won't repeat Steve's mistakes with my precious, perfect little angels. (Who, incidentally, you can buy autographed 8x10 glossies of for $20 each. Suitable for framing. Contact me privately.)

A Very Baby Christmas

Roper — Sun, 23 Dec 2007 14:31:00 GMT

As I've mentioned, I'm a big fan of Christmas. Commercialism aside, there really is something magical about the season to me, which I guess goes all the way back to childhood. We did the whole nine yards when I was growing up: cutting down our own tree, making tons of Christmas cookies, hanging stockings by the chimney with care, etc. But during the past ten or fifteen years--that long, carefree stretch of young adulthood--the holidays were always kind of disappointing. Still enjoyable enough, sure. But something was missing.

Then last Christmas was just strange. I was 36-1/2 weeks pregnant, gigantic and incredibly uncomfortable. (Aching pelvis, aching back, swollen feet, horrible heartburn, braxton hicks contractions.) I was too exhausted to go to any Christmas parties. Not to mention the fact that I had exactly two pairs of pants and two pilly maternity sweaters that fit me, and was sporting seven chins. We couldn't leave town, in case I went into labor, and didn't particularly feel like entertaining, either, so we had a quiet little Christmas at home, just the two of us, bored out of our skulls, waiting for it to become the four of us.

And this year, it is. Not coincidentally, I've felt more Christmas-y this season than I have in a long time. The snow certainly helps (we've gotten dumped on three times here in Boston), but I think it's mostly the babies' doing. It's funny; they're not even old enough to be conscious of Christmas, or understand the concept of a gift, or get into the whole Santa thing. (They did, incidentally, have their first Santa encounter last week, when "Santa" visited my workplace. They were totally unimpressed.) And yet, something about having them in our life has put the shimmer back on Christmas. I guess what it really comes down to is that thanks to these two little buggers, I'm happier than I've been in years. Maybe happier than I've ever been.

More importantly, for the first time in my life, I understand the value of singing, animatronic decorations:

Happy Holidays, Babblers. Catch you on the 28th -- Elsa and Clio's first birthday.

Can your baby do this?

Roper — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 21:18:00 GMT

I'm sorry to say, for absent Alastair's sake, that it has been an eventful past week where baby accomplishments are concerned. Clio now has two very visible front bottom teeth coming up, and is right on the brink of crawling, with lots of rocking and creeping and downward dogging and shifting from sitting to all-fours. (She often does these things while making grunts of such arduous effort that I'll sometimes go and sniff her butt to see if, in fact, she's been...er...multitasking.) She's moving enough that today -- not without a little pang -- I lowered her crib mattress down to the "big girl" position.

She also continues to be an excellent clapper. And her toy piano playing has really advanced. Now instead of just banging her hand on one section of the keyboard repeatedly, she'll bang it up and down the keys. It's very minimalist, very modern. A bit over my head, to be honest. I'm sure whenever I plink out "Ode to Joy" on the thing, Clio's thinking, "Could this melodic structure be any more predictable?"

Elsa, meanwhile, has started waving when waved at, and is suddenly taking a more toddler-ish interest in stuffed animals. When I hold up a stuffed monkey, for example, and make it jump around and talk in a stupid monkey voice, she gets all happy and delighted about it. But her most exciting new trick is dancing. I first noticed it the other day when all three of us were feeling antsy and bored, so plugged my iPod into the stereo and started dancing around the living room like the nutjob that I am. The girls thought this was hilarious. They beamed and giggled. And then Elsa started bobbing her head and rocking back and forth, almost in rhythm to the music. I thought that, like the ghee=cat thing has turned out to be, it was just a fluke. But ever since then, almost any time there's music playing, she starts to dance. Especially if it's got a groovy beat and a mod new sound. Observe:

Please forgive me for ignoring Clio's cries of distress while filming Elsa. It's just that every other time I started to roll tape, Elsa would become fascinated by the camera and stop rocking out to crawl over and try to grab it out of my hands. Clio was fine, by the way. She just thinks the Beatles are totally derivative.