PLAY BALL!

We have a world globe beach ball in the car. Not sure how it got there. But it saves my life on a regular basis. Here is how it goes. The baby starts fussing. I hand her the ball. She kicks it, tries to grab it, generally goofs around with it until it falls between the car seats.

Pablo then grabs it, throws it back to her (all the while he is saying, "OK, Beebz, are you ready? Tell me when you are ready. Now? How about now?" Boy has that "say ready before beaning someone in the head with a ball" rule sunk in. If he's playing with her. Adults still get beaned in the head.)

He then asks her to find a country, and gives running commentary on her current locale and its proximity to Bangladesh or wherever. By now he is giggling. He just can't imagine a person not knowing where Bangladesh is. Man, this 6 month old sure is slow with her geography.

His giggles are contagious and make her start laughing (Is there any better sound than your 2 kids cracking each other up? I think not.). She then kicks the ball around etc while he coaches her to find another country or just to let him have another turn so he can teach her the location of Bangladesh. By now she totally gets that the sooner he has the ball, the more he laughs, so she generally dumps it back to him pretty quickly.

As if this cuteness isn't enough, tonight Pablo was a veritable Zen master. He tossed the SLEEPING baby the ball, and quietly asked her to throw it back. I offered to give it to him (since sleeping babies rarely play ball) and he replied, "No, Mama, she decides when it's my turn. I can wait until she is ready for me to have it back." He then sat there sans toy while she slept. Does it get any better than that?!