Best Friends

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that Benjamin adores Talia! He loves to entertain her, manipulating all the dangling baby toys she doesn’t yet know how to play with. When she gets up from a nap he is delighted; “TA-ya,” he yells. He turns the music on her swing on and off for her and starts the vibrator for her bouncy seat. He retrieves diapers for her on command and tries, mostly in vain, to put her paci in her mouth whenever he finds it laying around (regardless of whether she wants it or not!)

He loves to pay visits to her bed while she is sleeping. He has several methods of peeking in, although “peeking” implies quiet, which he usually is not. First, he drags his plastic stool and drops it some- where in the vacinity, usually 1-2 feet away. Then he totters up on top of it, toes balancing on the stool, hands grasping for the edge of the crib, body diagonal somewhere between. If the stool is not handy or he just wants a quick look he will tolerate looking through the mesh side of the pack-n-play, although this is not preferable because usually all he can see is blankets. These visits usually occur when Talia is either crying or making little squeeky baby sounds in her sleep. His solution used to be to shake the bed. Our family now has a “no bed shaking” rule. Now he typically tries either to drop a paci over the edge or exclaims, “UH-oh…UH-oh…UH-oh” until someone comes to drag him away.

We much prefer all this childish affection to the hostility of the first couple of weeks. Who would have thought he would grow to adore her so!