Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!

If you read books on genetics, the so-called "experts" will tell you that babies get one half of their genes from their mother and one half from their father.  They have obviously never met Babykins, who I swear inherited approximately 90% of her genetic material from Hubbykins.

Let's start with the physical attributes.  Aside from her very pale skin and blond hair (I'll admit Hubbykins had blond hair as a baby, too, but I need to claim credit for a few things!), Babykins is the spitting image of her daddy.  She has beautifully curly hair, and everyone who sees the two of them together exclaims over how much she looks like Hubbykins.

The similarities don't stop there, though.  The other day we were in our bedroom, and Babykins was playing on the bed.  She crawled to the edge and, without looking, threw herself off the mattress, landed in a big pile of blankets, rolled down the pile, and ended on the floor on her back, arms splayed out, laughing and smiling.  As I hyperventilated, Hubbykins just laughed, explaining that she'd discovered the conveniently positioned pile of blankets days before and had been pulling this daredevil maneuver ever since.

As she got up and ran off to pull all of the clothes out of her dresser, I swear I heard Babykins laugh in an Australian accent.

Oy, oy, oy!

Diabolical Designs

The older Babykins gets, the more fun it is to watch her thought process as she goes about her day.  Now that she's almost 10 months old, Babykins understands the word "No."  Although with a 30 second attention span, she's very likely to make another go at the forbidden activity within minutes of hearing that word.

Babykins is well aware, however, that the power cords behind the TV stand are off limits.  We've told her "No," moved her away from them, redirected her, and given her enough stern looks that she actually remembers day-to-day that she's not supposed to play with them.  I can understand, though, that sometimes the tempation is just too much for a little girl.

This weekend Babykins felt the overwhelming need to play with the cords, but this time she decided to be clever about it.  As I watched quietly from the kitchen, Babykins crawled over to the TV stand and pulled herself up to standing.  She reached up, grabbed a plastic tube she likes to play with, and stood for a second looking at it in her hand.  I could practically see the wheels turning in her head as she inched toward the back of the TV stand and casually dropped the tube down amongst the cords.

Having now given herself a legitimate reason to reach back there, she slowly put hand behind the stand.  For a second, I thought maybe it was an accident and she really was going to get her tube.  Babykins quickly proved me wrong, though, diverting from the tube to grab hold of the cords and give a good yank.

At this point, I decided it was time to intervene, although I was trying so hard not to laugh it was almost impossible to put on a serious face.  I called "No" from the kitchen, and Babykins quickly moved her hand off the cord and looked innocently at me, as if to ask, "What's wrong, Mama?  I'm just retrieving this toy I dropped."

Babykins had outsmarted me once again.  Babykins: 1 gazillion, Mama: 0