Someone may want to issue a preemptive Amber Alert, because there is a certain 1-year-old child who is in jeopardy of being kidnapped. (By me. Don't worry, I'd take very good care of her.) Matt and I are officially besmitten by one Miss Audrey Faith, whose first birthday we were honored to celebrate with her on Saturday. Not only is this little girl cute as can be, but she is one smart cookie. As her aunt Kelly says, "Audrey is nobody's fool." Truer words were never spoken. When she started getting a little tired of being in the center of things during present-opening time, I was lucky enough to get some quality lap time with her. First we cuddled and rocked for a few minutes while she recharged her emotional batteries, and then Audrey was ready to move on to playing with one of her new toys. This led to the perfect opportunity for her to exhibit one of my all-time favorite Audrey-isms: The Scowl. (Kelly and B, if one of you could get a picture of The Scowl, I would pay good money for it.) You see, Audrey is much too emotionally mature for crying and fussing when she doesn't get something she wants. No, no. Instead she gives you The Scowl until you whither under her gaze and bow to her every whim and desire. Seriously, it works like a charm. (At least on me. I think it's ok to give her whatever she wants as long as you're not her parent, right?) Here's how it played out. She was on my lap, happily poking at the eyeballs and antennae of her new caterpillar toy when she realized it would be a lot more fun if said caterpillar wasn't still restrained by its packaging. So she turned and looked up at me with The Scowl, which I correctly read as her saying, "Hey, Pudding-for Brains. How's about, you know, removing this thing from the box? Since, after all, someone intended to gift me with the toy and not this ridiculous and pedestrian cardboard container. Geez!" Matt got right on it, and Audrey turned her gaze on him as he grappled with the many (many, many) twisty ties restraining the poor plastic insect. When it was finally freed, she looked up at us and beamed, all irritation erased, as if to say, "Hey, guys, look! Isn't this great?" And we melted a little inside. Happy birthday, sweet girl. We look forward to sharing many more birthdays with you! (I was way too busy enjoying myself to take photos of my own, so credit for these goes to Kelly. To see more pics from the party, look here.)
3 comments:
I just wanna squeeze her and hold her and squeeze her some more.
The Scowl is classic. I'll try my best to capture it.
Oh my gosh--you are TOO funny! And now you see why it's so easy to write paragraph after paragraph about your kid on a blog?
Audrey loves you guys too. Thank you again for coming to celebrate her and love her.
I'll try to get The Scowl.
Yes, now I understand perfectly. I had to edit myself here, as I could have gone on and told more stories. Like how she didn't like the hairs on Matt's leg tickling her foot so she kept pushing his leg away with her foot and wrinkling her nose at him with a devilish grin on her face. Or how I could swear she mimicked our cry of "There it is!" when the caterpillar was finally freed and handed to her (it sounded kind of like "AIR-EASE").
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