Missing Baby

I had to go out of town for business and I miss Rachel like crazy. I miss her mom, too. Last night I stayed up late packing and only got two hours of sleep. I didn't sleep on the plane and now I'm in Virginia, it's nearly 3 am EST and the alarm is going off at 6:30 am and I'm still awake. They put the three of us in a single room and the other two guys are snoring.

But, anyhow, about the baby. I knew that the hotel we were staying at had complimentary wireless internet access, so before I left, I bought two GE Webcams from Target. They're USB. I put one on the computer at home and brought one with me on the trip. So tonight when it was time to get Rachel for bed, I called home and Lori put the phone on speaker and then we opened up MSN Instant Messenger and shared video and could see each other. It worked extremely well. Rachel stared at the screen almost the entire time we were chatting, but occasionally she would look at the phone. She cooed a lot.

But nothing beats last night. We heard clicking noises coming from the cradle at the food of our bed as Lori and I settled down and got ready to pray. We were like "What is that kid doing?" Attached to the cradle is an "Ocean Wonders" aquarium from Fischer Price. It plays music, has lights that fade on and off and a compartment filled with water with plastic fish inside that move when air bubbles are released from the bottom of the compartment and float up. Well, we're laying there wondering what on earth she's doing. Then there's a *click* and the music stops and the lights fade. Did she? Could she? Was it an accident? And then *click* again and the music started back up. That seemed too huge to be coincidental. So we quickly turned in our beds so that our faces were down peering in the crib. Our little baby, her eyes staring intently out the aquarium, was using all her powers of concentration to try to get her arm, which she still doesn't have full motion control over, to hit the big blue button. And by golly, she did it and the music turned back off.

We just started laughing and could not stop laughing for several minutes. This baby, a mere two months old, had figured out how to turn the music on and off just from seeing us do it. She doesn't even have full motion control and here she is, comprehending cause and effect and actually making things happen.

Ok, now I miss her even more. I get back on Tuesday and I don't want to take any more business trips.