Laila Amor on The Beauty of the Present Moment...

Hello, everyone!

I'm Laila, the newest baby at the Moss/Sarden/Smith household. As you can tell from my photo, I am a big girl now. Actually, I prefer the spelling “gyrl,” the unique spelling my grandmother uses when she thinks she’s being creative. She's cool, though. You know she'd have to be, to let me steal the thunder of her blog this evening, while she jumps on her trampoline. Forever exercising, that one! She makes us tired most evenings, just bouncing up and down endlessly, in the center of the living room, getting it in.

In the event you’re curious, I'm seven-months-old on the 13th of this month. April Fool's Day was my brother's birthday. His name's Nazir. The big folks around here call him Naz or Nazzie Pooh, depending on the day. I call him Loco...and that’s because he's reached the Terrible, Terrible Two's! He deserves those two Terribles. Why? He freaks me out totally. Every time I spy him dashing about the house, dragging stuff and throwing blocks and catching pops from my parents and Grandma Goddess and commandeering my bottles and pacifiers, being I've got two, annoying teeth in the bottom of my jaw, I dream about doing the exact same things one day. Only difference, I'd do my mischief in alignment with the rules of the crib. This lil sista isn't into whippings! No, not me.

Way too cute, I am, for that nonsense!

Can you imagine the granddaughter of TheGoldenGoddess catching licks? I didn't think so.

Let’s change the subject. You like my picture? Thank you. Grandma Goddess was feeling particularly golden one afternoon, ran upstairs to her bedroom for her camera and returned to snap this picture of me. Oh, you can go on and say it! I see that look in your eyes. You're thinking my eyes are sleep-weary and drugged. Well, I did just get up, and I couldn't stop the Goddess from flashing that darn camera in my eyes, milk or slob dribbling down my chin. I don’t know which one. Blinding Light! Here's this pic!

It's a good thing I'm adorable!

That in the public domain, I'll get on with why I'm here.
As a baby, I am forever in the beauty of this thing Grandma Goddess calls the Present Moment. I cry whenever my folks leave me in a diaper long enough to itch, though that isn't often. After all, I am the Baby Gyrl, who is still relatively new. So they are yet pretty much enamored with me. Did I say I’m the only gyrl? And hey, I'm soft as Southern cotton, even if urine can itch a gyrl’s soft skin into hysterics!

When I’m hungry, folks, I'm truly in the moment. If that formula isn’t in a bottle at my lips the minute I feel hunger pangs, I will literally raise the roof up in this joint. Believe you me, they do not want the kind of drama I can put down. Come on. But that’s infrequent; after all, do I look like they’ve missed any feedings? Again, I didn’t think so either.

Might I add, if I tire of being on that perennial pallet they spread the second I raise my head from a sweet afternoon nap, there they go, delivering me to the blanket. In days of joyous present moments, I’ve perfected my crawl, which I must say, I am excellent at now. But then they want to bellyache about what I’m doing shouting at the top of my fabulous lungs, my curly head under a sofa with my well-padded rear sticking out, short stubby legs kicking my fury!
Babies got much to teach these giants in my house.

Sometimes my Grandma Goddess plummets straight out of the awesomeness of this Present Moment business.

Yes, she writes about it a great deal, and, okay! She does a fairly decent job at it most times. But, grown people, let me tell you…there are moments when she is lost in the sauce! The mix! The formula, however you want it. Like those times when my folks are rushing off to school or work, and they march me and Naz upstairs to her quarters, which I adore, and drop us in her office and wave---Grown-ups, the Goddess isn’t so golden then. She plunges so far from the Present, she peers at me and I know she is wanting to be looking at that lit screen to which she’s characteristically super-glued. Then it’s watch out, Nazzie! The things we usually do that are “cute,” suddenly they aren’t so cute! Like the time Naz pulled the pretty white straw-looking bloom from her Peace Lily and began whooping the sunshine off the big ole huge elephant leaves! The Goddess screamed loud enough to render me deaf, honey.

No, no, no! I like the time she fell out of the Present window in a split-second turn-around. Do grandmothers have ADD, too? Anyway, I was on her bed, waiting for her to finish taking care of my toiletry needs, when what does she do when a song comes on the radio that makes her sway and wind like she’s on a stage? Gets caught up checking herself out in the mirror, stirring up moves I imagined required censorship, but hey, what do I know? I’m just the baby! Okay. So I go to sending a yellow arc across the bedspread. Darn thing reminded me of the McDonald’s Arc. You know the one!

That brought her back to the beauty of the Present Moment quickly, I tell you!
Then again, there are times she topples out of the Moment under waves of anger. See, last week she lost one of her beloved files on that keyboard I persist on helping her click and, lo and behold, you’d have thought the Big Bang Theory was a lie! She flew into another Time Zone. Her locs were standing on end. Naz and I couldn’t even call for reinforcement without working cell phones.

But Grandma is a true Golden Goddess, though. Really. Took her a second or three, but she reeled herself back in. Ran a bubble bath and said something that sounded like, ‘To heck with it!’ Anyway, we all relaxed in those bubbles I longed to taste and Naz got popped for slinging over the tub’s side.

Hey, it’s all Enfamil in the bottle, folks! Admit it, you, too, have those days. When you do, just stay in the flow of the Present, and you will be quite alright! Your world can be a more pleasant place, I assure you! So come on and grab smooches off my cheeks, as Grandma does, so I can give this keyboard back to the Golden Goddess, who is never away from it long!

It’s way past an Angel’s bedtime, as I am NOT into writing all night. This babe loves sleep too much for that nonsense! So bye! Have a great week!