I got permission from He-Mouse to blog about this: he recently had his first crush on a baby. "NOT THAT KIND OF CRUSH," he wants me to note. But you know, the feeling of overwhelming love for a baby who isn't an immediate relative. Some of us get it right away, and for others it kicks in later (or never).* He-Mouse is great with kids--he charmed Tiny Niece and Tiny Nephew with mud pies right out of the gate and they'll love him forever.** But he hadn't felt that instant connection with a baby until now.

The little girl in question, Sofia, is about eight months old and spent the first part of her life in Mexico; she speaks and understands only Spanish. We met her two days after stupid bullsh*t visa paperwork detained her mother on the other side of the border, and she was in the U.S. with her dad. He went to work, and Sofia was stuck in a roomful of strangers who only spoke English. When we met her, she had exhausted herself screaming and crying and was sleeping facedown in the middle of a couch, completely motionless. When she woke up and started to cry again, He-Mouse was nearby and had the sense to try Spanish. She clung to him with a steel-like grip for the rest of the night.

Sofia is a particularly beautiful kid: black curls, eyelashes (seriously) half an inch long, teensy gold earrings in her teensy perfect ears. She and He-Mouse were inseparable, and he loved every minute of it. He refused to leave the party because they were busy playing "Stand Up and Then Fall Down and Giggle." And peek-a-boo, which is way cuter in Spanish. ("?Donde está Sofia?" "!AI'TA!")

Anyway, all this is to say that I love that he has a crush on a baby. It's one thing to see him be great with kids the way he's great with everybody, and another thing altogether to see him loving it. I'm excited about babies. (Don't worry, ESB, we're not getting preggers now or anytime soon. I'm just saying.)

By the way, can we talk about the thing where people think I'm pregnant because we're getting married? Part of this is our fault. I ate seventy pounds of food on Christmas Day and was stuffed and miserable. He-Mouse leaned over and rubbed, and then KISSED, my belly. Everybody was looking. So of course they all think I'm knocked up. They're going to be really confused next time they see me.

* I remember a moment in high school in which a baby started to cry in a movie theater. Earlier in life, I'd have thought "Shut that thing up." Instead, I had a deep feeling of "Baby! Help the baby!" Very creepy and occasionally anti-feminist, my subconscious.
** Although Tiny Niece did once threaten to put him in a rocket ship and send him to the moon.***
*** Revision: I am informed that his destination was outer space, not the moon.