Baby Talk

Note: This post has a new title now. The reason for this was I was trying to find a post yesterday and I couldn't because my post titles are so undescriptive. Well, that was one reason. The other was the 1st comment on this post which points out (almost fairly) that I frequently title my posts "update."

Hello Everyone,

Well, first off I wanna say how great it was to have my family together for Christmas. I came back to Utah last week; it was hard to say goodbye to everyone.

One of the best parts of this visit was my little niece, Summer. She is an amazingly cute baby. Somehow her smile is larger than her face, and if you're around her too long it's downright painful because she has more smile endurance than just about anyone, so if you smile back your face starts to hurt.

The only downside of having her with us was her short battery life. She's only awake for a few hours at a time, and she loves to sleep at the worst times...like Christmas morning at 10 o'clock.

Spending time with her made it pretty clear that she's probably going to be an adrenaline junky someday. She likes to be held upside down, she likes flying around like an airplane, she likes being used like a marionette to mimic crazy dance moves (for example: the song "Jump" by Van Halen (with extra high throws in the air when the chorus yells "jump!")).

One time I was even able to rock her to sleep by playing songs with "rock" in the title. I started by rocking her to "Rock You Like a Hurricane" and then I went on to "Rock is Dead" and then "Rock and Roll Band" and then finally the little bit slower "I am a Rock." She was completely out of it by the end.

One thing I don't get about babies is how women talk to them. When Summer would enter a room it was as if every woman in the room were alerted to this by some mysterious extrasensory perception rooted in estrogen.

Once their mysterious extrasensory perception alerts them of the child they surround the mother and baby and then proceed to say the most inane things in a high pitched voice....making sure to say the exact same thing more than once (in case the baby hadn't caught their cryptic message's powerful meaning the first time due to their inexperience with language).

It goes something like this:

"Oh, you're just a little princess aren't you? You're just a little princess AREN'T YOU! Oh, yes you are, you're a little princess."

Then the next woman in the circle has a go and says "You're just so precious! So precious!"

The next lady sees lady #2 is done already, looks down at lady#2 for lack of baby cooing creativity and then starts to showboat a bit with some alternating endearments like "Aren't you just the cutest thing? Oh, she's so beautiful you have a beautiful baby. Yes, you are a beautiful baby aren't you, oh yes, beautiful baby."

As you can see here, that's a person balancing two conversations: one with the baby, and one with the mother. The ability to flatter both simultaneously, and to shift from the high pitched baby dialect to the more formal dialect traditionally used to flatter mothers is a sign that the woman (in this case woman #3) is experienced in the art of baby cooing.

And it goes on like this for as long as the endurance of the baby will allow.

Since I'm not a baby expert I just try to tell the baby things I'd find interesting. For example, when I was home I explained to Summer the etymology of words I liked, how the electoral college alienates voters, and the limitations of the scientific method. I told her to stop me if something didn't make sense or she disagreed.

I took her silence as proof that she is an intelligent and agreeable child.

Oh, and here are some pictures of Summer to give some context to this post.

In other news I did finish that song. Here's the video:

It would have turned out a little better but my fingernails were a bit too short (and I recorded too late in the day so the video is really dark).

I wish I could compromise and only have nails when I'm playing guitar...you know, have retractable claws like a great cat. It's so frustrating to have nails when you're typing or doing something with your hands, but it's even more frustrating to try and play a classical style song when you don't have fingernails...you're just plucking the string with the meaty part of your hand and this is not only uncomfortable, it also sounds horrible.

While recording this song I was so frustrated that I almost went with my sisters to get some fake fingernails.

Cause, you see, my sisters get their nails done ritualistically every time they're both in town. And when they returned from the nail salon after during this last visit they found me sitting on the couch, vulnerable, wishing I didn't have such short and utterly unmusical nails.

When I saw their new long and strong fingernails I thought "that's what I need, I could play with those."

But, that thought was short lived cause then I got to logistics.

To get nails like that would require me to enter a nail salon (and probably be the only guy in said salon). Also, I'd look weird cause I'd only want fingernails installed on my thumb and index finger (is that the right word? "installed"? Does one "install" fake nails? Whatever.)....yeah, I just couldn't make that many compromises.

So, I thought things through and realized that the music would have to suffer for the sake of propriety.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say this morning. Hope you're all doing super.