By Pamela Baker

People have asked me (well, at least one person) why I haven’t written more about our newest addition – our son, Andrew.

I guess the answer to this question is that my three-year-old daughter is a much richer source of material right now. She is extremely entertaining, saying things like, "Why did Jesus put scorpions here?" That is a good question. Apparently there is an intricate ecosystem and scorpions are an important part of it. But why make them a part of the ecosystem in the first place? Alas, I do not know.

But my point is, that the boy, Andy, who is a little over seven months, is really well behaved. He doesn’t cry a lot. He sleeps well. He smiles and babbles and giggles and rolls and grabs for things. That makes for kind of a boring column.

The first three months of his life weren’t so peaceful. We spent a whole lot of time "bonding." He would scream and cry and I would rock him and sing to him and hold him for hours.

When we finally figured out what was making him so miserable, and he started to feel better, he became an instantly happy baby who slept through the night and cried only when tired or hungry.

He interacts with his sister, laughing at her funny faces and songs and dances, pulling her hair when she lets it fall near him. He grabs and reaches for toys, infuriating his big sister when he puts something that "belongs" to her in his mouth.

Andrew does get frustrated easily. He tries so hard to crawl, but isn’t capable as of yet, and this makes him incredibly mad. He gets quite cross when his big sister pulls a toy away from him, or when his father takes the vacuum belt that he has been happily chewing on away from him (how did he get a hold of that anyway?).

He hates to sit, preferring to stretch out and roll his way into furniture and towards other hazards. He isn’t very cuddly – he likes to play and pull at my clothing and hair instead. When he gets tired he doesn’t want to be rocked – I put him in his crib and he promptly rolls over onto his stomach and squishes himself up against the edge of the crib and goes to sleep. When I put him back on his back he quickly rolls himself back on to his tummy in positions that seem incredibly uncomfortable to me.

He loves to eat. The sight of his bottle sends him into a kicking, squirming frenzy. He’s eating millet and pears from a spoon and he loves it. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that he is the messiest eater in Texas. After a meal he usually needs to be hosed down in the bathtub, which is also big fun for him.

So you see, Andy’s just really a good baby. He never spills the entire container of oatmeal on the kitchen floor, and he never hides the utensils (what happened to all my forks?), and he never lets the dogs out of the backyard.

Of course, he will probably do these things and much more eventually. So tune in, I’m sure there will be many "Andrew flushed my car keys down the toilet" columns.

I know it’s coming, and I look forward to it, but I am certainly enjoying this stage in his life.

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