It's the Tiny Baby Show!

[annathepiper]

kathrynt IMed me today to say that she and llachglin missed our entire household, and would it be okay if they came over to visit us this afternoon, avec bebe? I promptly assured her that we'd be delighted to see them, and so they came over today with little Lilian, and we all hung out in our living room enjoying the Tiny Baby Show. There was actual conversation aside from said Tiny Baby, but still, it never ceases to amuse me that you can take a room full of grownups, put a Tiny Baby among them, and each and every one of them will watch the Tiny Baby's every move, going "ooooooooo baby".

Also, I must give props to Kathryn's father secondhand, as on the way out just now, Kathryn told us how her father decided that the unit he uses to measure beauty is the helen. Which therefore means that a millihelen launches one ship, a microhelen launches a train, and a nanohelen launches a truck. We opined that a femtohelen launches a scooter. Away from you.

It's good to live among geeks. ^_^

Comments

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

Lillian had a great time! Er, so did the rest of us. But we all know who's really important in the household now.

[annathepiper]

Hee! It was great to see you guys again. I hope we can get the video games thing going. :)

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

My husband, who has limited exposure to babies and very small people, can't actually quite believe that *everyone* stops for the Tiny Baby Show, and thinks it may be peculiar to my family. Boy does he get frustrated with it.

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

personally, i'm pretty sure it's hardwired into the species, to make sure all of us grownups - not just those genetically related to the infants - want to protect them. although of course there are exceptions to everything: in the late 90's my now-ex-SO feste and i were at a Yule party thrown by some friends. One of the other guests had a several months old infant that was not a happy camper. Being an ex-nanny, I volunteered to try and settle him. It worked - to the astonishment of the infant's parents and to the fear of feste. He's not a kids kind of guy either - though now that the hosts of that long-ago Yule party have a 3 year old themselves feste seems to be getting along pretty well with her, now that she's moved out of "the grub stage" (her aunt's words).

[annathepiper]

*giggle* Yeah, I know other folks who are way more comfortable with children once they're old enough to actually come across as People. Which is fine. :)

I told Kathryn last night that I'll be happy to help with babies, since apparently she and jessicac both would like to resume coming to video game nights at the Murkworks, but they both have babies now! And since I have at least some experience tending small ones (even if I have to go clear back to my teenage years to draw on it), they're not foreign critters to me.

[annathepiper]

Heh, the Tiny Baby Show does not appear to be entirely universal. Some people just don't like babies a'tall, which is fine! But apparently all the grownups at the Murkworks last night were quite vulnerable to the Tiny Baby Show. risu and I in particular, since we actually took turns holding Lillian. ^_^

[mathmuffin.livejournal.com]

Babies are so cute! And I peeked over at kathrynt's livejournal and saw the classic picture of Lillian sleeping on her father, and she really is adorable.

I suspect that the adult response to babies' cuteness is partly instinct, but also all humans are fascinating and babies are primal humanity. Adults cover their basic feelings with a mask of normalcy, but babies express theirs with an intensity so strong that it is amusing. "The most important thing is the world is to stuff the corner of this blanket into my mouth and drool on it!"

I have watched my daughters grow up from babies to adults. Now they are much bigger, have incredibly more skills, and no longer need to be carried everywhere, but they are the same people they were when they were babies. It is amazing.

Erin Schram

[annathepiper]

Yeah, watching baby brains coming online is what I think fascinates me most about them. Things like discovering "HOLY CRAP! I have HANDS!" Lillian is only seven weeks old, so she's still mostly in the stage of "what? what? what? what?"

And she is indeed quite adorable. ^_^

[annathepiper]

There's a great chart of more variants of the 'helen' here! Hee! That chart actually factors in the ability to destroy cities, too. ;)

One blog writer ponders how many helens are required to launch various kinds of ships, and whether there are equivalent units of ugliness to sink ships. He also thinks the original millihelen reference might have come from Larry Niven.

Wikipedia opines that the microhelen is the unit of beauty required to motivate one sailor. *snorfle!*

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

Haha... Geeks are awesome.

[annathepiper]

We are. ^_^