Well, first there’s this little dude. He’s pretty darn adorable. He’s my nephew and has just begun a life of being spoiled by 4 grandparents, three aunts, and three uncles. All the adorable stories of newborns you can think of? Yeah, insert all of those here. And I’ve only heard him actually cry (briefly) twice in 4 days.

He’s also being spoiled by the family dog, which is pretty darn adorable. At first the dog was pretty interested in him as a squeak toy, which wasn’t so great. (Though in her defense, he does sometimes sound exactly like her toy duck.) Then all of a sudden her maternal instincts kicked in, and now every time he makes a sound she jumps up, sniffs him all over until she’s satisfied that he’s ok, and then reports his status to the rest of us. She was pretty displeased with us last night when he was doing his happy baby calisthenics and all of us were eating dinner. She wasn’t satisfied until one of us got up from the table and went with her to make sure these were happy sounds. Mom did the honors, told the dog everything was fine, and then we could all settle back down to eat. The dog also forgoes all romping with noisy squeak toys while the baby is downstairs. By now, the dog is almost as tired as the parents.