'How's the baby?'

In my new life as a mother, there is one question I get on almost a daily basis.

"How's the baby?"

It is, of course, my favorite question. Because, in my new life as a mother, the baby is almost all I think about. I mean, sure, there are other things that fill my mind. There are groceries and dinner and school board politics. I think about whether the gas tank is empty, if I filled out my time card before it was due and if I'll ever lose this extra weight. I spend a large portion of my day thinking about how the heck to string together enough cohesive sentences to be able to tell a news story that someone will run and -- even better, someone will read -- in their newspaper.

But, truthfully (and maybe I'm not supposed to say this), less than a step beyond my every action and plan, is one thought: The Baby.

Will I get home to the baby in time? Is the baby getting a good nap? Is the baby happy today? Has the baby pooped today? Are there enough pureed fruits and vegetables in the freezer for the baby? Is my work schedule today going to allow me to pump milk for the baby at the time I need to pump milk for the baby? Will my husband be home in time to play with the baby? What can we do this weekend that's fun and new and appropriate for the baby? Should we try to go out one night without the baby? And, if we dare try, who is going to take care of the baby?

Without the distraction of actual life -- and absent the knowledge that doing so would make me a social pariah and a bore --  I believe I would probably just talk about and think about Aida all day. Because it's when I'm with her that I feel 100 percent that I am where I should be.

So, when someone asks me how the baby is, I have to keep myself in check. Sometimes, I say something like, "She's great. She's crawling up a storm." Or, "She's good. But she's teething and it's really cutting into her sleep."

But if I were to say everything I could possibly say about how the baby is, it might go something like this:

The baby is amazing. Amazing. This morning, I awoke to the sound of her playing in her crib and my insides had a prideache. Part of me wanted to rush to her, but my tired body wouldn't budge. So, I lay there listening to her little voice slide up and splash and slide down and sigh until, finally, it cracked into an impatient cry. So, I got up and went to her room and turned the knob and found her happy again and squealing, standing at her crib, in the corner that is closest to the door, sputtering and "dahdahdah"-ing. Have you ever experienced anything more glorious than a happy baby standing at her crib railing, excited to see you, excited that finally, someone is going to hold her and bounce her and talk to her and then let her loose to tear across the floor on all fours long enough to make it to the next vertical surface where she can pull herself up and reach on her tippy toes as high and back and long as she can go?

Did I say the baby is amazing? She's so excited to be alive that she cannot sit still for even a diaper change any more. As soon as I get her down on her back, she flips on her belly and is up on all fours again, peering over the changing table at the hardwood floor below as if she's considering taking the plunge. Our getting dressed and undressed routine is like a comedy show. If I'm not outright wrestling clothes onto her body, I'm doing it surreptitiously. Slide one arm in while she's standing at the dresser. Slide another in when she lifts her grasp from the knob. Pick her up suddenly and kiss her back before plopping her down on my lap and, hopefully, stuffing her chubster legs through the leg holes before she twists out of my grasp and heads in another direction, or worse, starts to cry.

She's so freakin' amazing. She responds now when we call her, "chases" us around the house, crawls up my legs when she wants to be held. She splashes the water in her tub now, sucks on the toy fishes and tries to stand in the bath. She hums when I sing to her and bounces up and down on her own when she hears music. She seems to like Johnny Cash. She's figured out that pressing the buttons on the CD player makes Johnny sing and talk to her. And when she presses them again, he stops.

Seriously, the baby's amazing. When I hold her to calm her, she snuggles up tight to me now, giving an active hug, a forceful squeeze, like she means it. She holds her own bottle with her little palms. She grabs her own blanky when she's tired, presses it to her face. She seems to want everything the way I want her -- with passion and vigor and persistence -- until she's all worn out and the only thing that will help is sleep. And, man, you should see her when she sleeps...

So...yeah. I try to keep it brief. Because if I said everything I want to say, I might just start to sound like one of those crazy, overthetop obsessedwiththeirbaby mommy types.

And, you know, I don't want to be one of those.

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Here's 13 minutes in Aida's life captured in a 9-minute video.  This is posted especially with my far-off relatives in mind. I took this on Monday, after my boss unexpectedly ordered me to stay home from work. We had a great day. Aida did a lot of this: