Baby talking.

It's difficult to imagine on any given day that I'll love Essie even more twenty-four hours later, but somehow it always happens. My heart; it grew twelve sizes.

She's just so hilarious and loving and charming and sweet. You know what she is, though? A daddy's girl. Through and through. Nothing makes her smile bigger than making eye contact with Andrew. If we're all sitting on the bed I'll sit her on my thigh and she'll start to put on a show for Andrew. She grins and grins and grins, making her 'talking' noises, then flings herself forward in his direction, making that fake cough noise that babies make to get attention. If she's lying down all he has to do is put his face above hers and she starts cooing and gooing and whispering at him. It's enough to kill you with cuteness.

Don't worry, she gives me lots of love, too, but she never, ever fails to give Andrew the smiles. Lucky bastard.

It struck me the other day how once upon a time I told myself I'd never use 'baby talk' with my kid(s), that I'd always use full, adult sentences and never use cutesy euphimisms or nicknames for anything. Ha ha, I was dumb. I DO use some cutesy words. Not sickeningly much, but things like 'tummy' instead of 'stomach', and 'toesies' intead of 'toes'. I wondered why, what's the instinct that makes these words pop out?

My view is that it has everything to do with the total, unsullied innocence of babies. Essie is nothing but genuine right now, there's no guile whatsoever to anything she does. And when interacting with a tiny being who is so untouched by the world it's difficult not to reinforce that, make everything as light and fun and lovely as possible. I know it won't last, that she'll learn about the world in very short order so right now, when her smiles are exactly what she's feeling inside and her cries or frowns are because she's genuinely uncomfortable or hungry or wet, well, I want to cherish it like nothing else.

Right now her toes can be toesies without her rolling her eyes or saying 'gawd, mom'. And when a stomach is so soft and round and kissable it just feels more proper to call it a tummy than a clinical, boring STOMACH. There are other things (like her bottle [bubs] and soother [soosy, pronounced like the 'oo' in book]) that have nicknames just because I'm insane about giving things nicknames, but that's not the same. It makes me wonder how I ever thought I could speak to Essie like an adult when dude, she is a baby.

"Shaughnessy, I understand you're telling me you're hungry. Allow me to feed you some formula."

"That's a cat, otherwise known as a feline. He is a Siamese, one of many breeds."

"Your diaper is emitting a rather foul aroma! It's high time we exchanged it for a clean one."

All right, so maybe I wouldn't be all stilted and stuff, but the baby talk just happens and I can't bring myself to feel silly. Essie responds to my voice and tone and words with so much happiness and joy. That's enough to make it OK.