Babypie (who, at 14 months, is becoming less and less of a baby) has a busy work day.
Babypie’s babywork–our word for her daily self-assigned tasks–takes up a significant portion of the day that she doesn’t spend sleeping, nursing (which she now calls “thises,” as in, “I want this one”), playing with her brothers, or eating. Babypie has quite the work ethic and doesn’t believe in taking summers off.
Babypie’s babywork includes, but is not limited to:
Climbing onto the time out chair, standing there, and shouting, “MAMA!” (it’s important that someone checks up on me, obviously)
Rearranging Daddyman’s clear bins to use them as steps to reach Daddyman’s box of change, ID cards, and knickknacks
Climbing onto any boxes left in the living room (and possibly getting stuck)
Pushing any baskets around the room
Carrying shoes from one side of the room to the other
Putting items into baskets and dumping them out
Moving the rocking chair
While we were in Chicago, Babypie’s babywork included:
Stacking and unstacking the laundry baskets
Pushing the stool across the kitchen and back
Pushing the rolling office chair around the entire living room
You can see that she works very hard. If we had a cat, I’m sure she’d have to move it. It’s funny that the baby works harder and with less complaint than the older children, especially Captain Science. Maybe I should start letting him self-assign chores.
Or start moving furniture.
I love watching Captain Science and Babypie playing together. Right now, he’s trying to teach her the parts of her face, but she’s not exactly cooperating.
Captain Science says, “Where’s Babypie’s nose?” Babypie points to her nose.
Captain Science says, “Where’s Babypie’s eyes?” Babypie points to her eyes.
Captain Science says, “Where’s Babypie’s ears?” Babypie flaps her hands vaguely in the area of her ears.
Captain Science says, “Where’s Babypie’s mouth?” Babypie stares at him.
Captain Science over-enunciates, “Where’s Babypie’s mouth?” Babypie continues staring at him.
Smrt Mama says, “Where’s your hair?” Babypie cuts her eyes over to Captain Science, grins, then points to her mouth.
Captain Science says, “Where’s your mouth?” Babypie grins even bigger, laughs, and points at her hair.
Captain Science says, “Where’s your chin?”
Babypie says, “No.”
That was the end of that particular game.
Babypie has a new game. She picks up a pair of shoes, walks around with them, “drops” them, sits down to pick them up, stands up, and then demands applause – which also cues me to say “You got them!” That quickly because the game of just sitting there and shaking the shoes for applause and “You got them!”
After playing this for a while, she started saying it herself. I love it when they get so good at playing something that I’m totally cut out of the process.
