My girl will kick your girl's butt

Well, not literally. I mean, I do not support violence, or anything like that. (although maybe she follows her dad's footsteps into martial arts and will literally kick butts someday). But you can say things like that when you have such a great baby, can't you. Traditionally, in the world of kids the big kids do the butt kicking, if any. And Emilia is bigger than 95% of babies at her age (second standard deviation for those of you who are statistically inclined). Seriously. Still, she is a sparrow compared to her cousin, so there is always someone to drop you to the ground if yo start thinking too much of yourself. It is funny, there is something weird in the way it feels good knowing that your baby is doing "better" than many others, despite the fact that she is causing all kinds of pains in the backs and shoulders being so heavy to lug around.

I am also happy to report that Emilia found herself today. First time that she got interested in the other baby in the mirror, and there was quite some heavy flirting involved. A funny thing, though, how hard the mirror is when you try to reach the other hand there.

Also, yesterday, we played a long set of peekaboo for the first time. It is superbly exciting when daddy just disappears and then suddenly appears again.

She is a major storyteller as well (=we can't make her shut up), the stories mainly consisting of a series "a-gooh", "aak" and similar vocalizations of observations in life.

And finally, finally! We have now got through one or two baths without Emilia raising a hell. Major work in getting it working especially from Maria's side. Now it is starting to be, instead of the worst possible experience, a kind of groovy "should I laugh or should I cry" experience. Laughters and splashings are hopefully next in line. Have to be very careful in setting the stage though, still can't just through her in.

I think the different phase in parenting is now really properly starting: she is starting to be interactive, instead of just the milk-in-poo-out machine with some screaming in between that was there for the first times. I feel this time is just so exciting - there starts to be some real rewards for playing and doing funny things with her, as she starts to respond. Cool.