Turkey, Family, and Baby Diphthongs

Tomorrow e-baby and I are flying home from Austin. SNG, e and I flew in on Thanksgiving day, SNG flew home Tuesday, and I taught a class Tue-Thur (it just ended). Flying cross country alone with a baby (and a ton of luggage) sounds like a recipe for Big Fun.

The visit here has been so much fun, and really busy. E-baby has aged before our eyes in the past 6 days. She loves to look at EVERYTHING. The flight here was really easy, except that it's not easy to do anything onboard an airplane with a baby attached to you. She didn't mind the up and down business, but once we got onto terra firma, she was MAD. I think her ears must've been popping or something, because the whole evening she screamed and cried.

My niece, my brother and sister-in-law, and one of my aunts were at mom and dad's house for Thanksgiving dinner, and the next day, another aunt and uncle came to town with 5 of my little cousins (cousins' kids). The youngest of these is 8, the oldest 18. All were entertaining to, and entertained by, the little fuzzy-top baby. My cousin Twinkie #2 came to town on Sunday morning and spent Sunday and Monday with us, which was so much fun.

We also got to spend some time Friday, Saturday and Sunday with two of our best friends here, T&E, and their little guy Big Al, and the soon-to-be-baby-in-belly. Whew!! They are going to be TIRED starting in mid-March!

SPEAKING OF BABIES, I've been keeping mum about this, but she's 12 weeks along now so I can tell you that my high school BFF Lizard IS HAVING A BABY! Yay! So between PIC, E, Lizard and me, we'll have a little army of teeny babies, ready to take over the world. I can't wait!! I think e-baby's excited about it, too, but all she says is "LA!"

Actually, that isn't true. Last night she said her firstdipthong. It was a long "I" sound, pronounced like "Ah-ee." She's sosmart!! I was singing a little song to her that says "IIIII LOOOOVE YOUUUUU" and after the 3rd of 4th time, she said "IIII" (or, more accurately, "ahee") So I sang to her again, and again after 2 or 3 more, she said "IIII" ("ahee") She did it 3 times, so I know it wasn't a fluke. Not quite a first word, but more than a simple phoneme.

What other stuff did we do?... we watched people ice skate on the roof of the Whole Foods world headquarters on a beautiful 80 degree afternoon, walked to Mozart's for tea and the view of Lake Austin, and went jogging several times while others watched the baby. Who knows what else we'll do, since it's still almost a whole day until my plane leaves....