The Working Mom by Kay Luna

Whoa, when did the baby turn into Gene Simmons? You know, the guy with the long tongue from the band KISS?!

My 8-month-old daughter is suddenly fascinated with her own tongue, hanging it out of her mouth all the time like good old Gene Simmons.

This is incredibly ironic because one of the few TV shows that my husband and I both love is Gene Simmons’ Family Jewels, and we watched it almost obsessively while I was pregnant. The show’s not what I would call intellectually stimulating, but it’s so entertaining! We still watch it whenever we can, but Gene just isn’t the same with that facelift. Why did he do that, anyway?! I thought he and Shannon both looked fine without surgery.

But back to the baby … She’s really into mimicking now. If I open my mouth, she does. If I make a clicky-sound with my tongue, she does. If I belly-laugh, she does, too.

So, who’s been hanging his tongue out of his mouth like Gene??? I guess it’s our dog, Guinness. I’m giving him credit for it.

The baby is learning to whisper.

Anyone who knows how loud I laugh probably can’t believe the baby has ever heard a whisper, but it’s true.

Lately, when she first wakes up and I’m changing her diaper, she’ll look up at the ceiling fan and whisper new baby-cooing sounds, like “ka-ka-ka-ka-ka” and “fa-fa-fa.”

The other morning, my husband swears he heard her whisper “Papa” again and again.

And this morning, there was no denying it — we both heard her say quite plainly, “Dadadada.” She even sort of yelled it over my blow dryer. I’m sure she was trying to tell her Daddy something very important.

Lucky for me, she mastered the “mamamama” sound weeks ago. But there are so many other cool sounds she wants to try out now. Mama was SO yesterday.

(She told me that … in a whisper, of course). haha!

You know how they say things happen in threes?

I’m on number three.

1. My Grandma fell and broke her hip. That spurred a chain of events that ended up with us helping her and Granddad move into an assisted living facility. We spent days stuffing memorabilia from 70 years of marriage into a one-bedroom apartment that might as well be in Egypt, for as far away from home that it feels to them.

2. My son moved — the very weekend we moved my grandparents.

3. And now, Mrs. Stacey — my friend and Babycakes’ beloved daycare provider — is moving and taking on a new career in real estate (I started to type “reality,” which would have been a prettty funny typo!).

I’m sad to report that tomorrow is her last day watching the baby.

With Stacey watching the baby, I’ve never worried one minute. I can’t say enough how that made coming back to work after my three-month maternity leave SO much easier.

And over these past several months, she’s helped me transition the baby to a bottle, and took her on her first adventures to the park and swimming and even dining out (remember that time when she was maybe two months old, at Huckleberry’s?!).

She taught me how to stick to my guns when ordering cheap baby portraits (don’t let them talk you into extra stuff, she says!), and she always helped make me feel a part of the baby’s day — even when I was at work.

Soon, I’ll start blogging about Mrs. Amy, our new sitter who I know we’ll grow to love very much, too. But we’ll never forget Mrs. Stacey.

And she won’t be far away. She says she’s demanding visitation rights!

Since you’re techno-savvy enough to blog, do any of you text message on your cell phones?

I am looking for people who text for a project I’m working on at the paper.

My son texts all the time. He keeps up with a lot of his friends that way — even during study hall, I hear.

But I’m clueless. I know how to receive msgs, but I’m too slow of a text-typer to reply very easily. I’d rather just call or e-mail.

How about you? Can I talk to any of you about texting?