Our second daughter was a tiny little thing, weighing in under six pounds when she was born. She joined us just a few days before Christmas in 1997 and I was bound and determined to host my husband’s family for the holidays. BC was amazing – sleeping when she should, eating when she needed to and not fussing while the family passed her around.

But, for the first year of that child’s life, she was just not happy unless someone was holding her. It didn’t matter who held her, as long as they held her close. She wasn’t comfortable enough to sleep unless she was swaddled very tightly and held very close to her daddy – under his armpit was the best!  When little beads of perspiration formed on her nose, she was finally able to doze off. And if you kept her warm enough, she slept for a good six hours!

Alas, though, BC never smiled! It did not matter what you did, that baby just had no smiles in her. We’d play with her, all of us laughing and giggling, and she’d just stare at us, like we were from outer space! Sourpuss, that’s what she was.

We’d planned a five-day trip to move from Texas to Utah, where my husband had accepted a new job. I planned and packed and planned some more, as we now had three children from three-years-old to the month-old baby, to care for.  BC was 16-months-old.

On the first day of our moving adventure, BC and her sister were trussed into their car seats, which were strapped into the back-facing third seat of our SUV. They only had each other and the road behind us to entertain themselves.

Mind you, BC not only didn’t smile, she didn’t much talk, either. Her first word was cookie, and that has perfectly suited her personality as she’s still our “eat dessert first” kid. Why eat dinner when there’s dessert? Her second word was daddy. That was it. She had no other words that she spoke, even at 16-months-old.

KB decided she’d have some word fun with BC while we were driving down the Interstate – she’d say a word and wait for BC to repeat it. She started with simple words like cow and car and barn and truck because those were the things she could see out the window. No dice. BC just stared at her big alien sister without making a peep. Then, KB picked up a book that she had and she was showing BC the animals in it, pointing to them and identifying them. She came upon a new photo and said BABOOM. Lo-and-behold, the next thing out of BC’s mouth was BABOOM. We all got excited about this new word that BC had picked up, and that made BC SMILE!

And then it truly got out of hand. For FIVE DAYS, all I heard from those two giggleboxes in the back of the auto was BABOOM, BABOOM, BABOOM! It wasn’t until we reached our final destination that I finally explained to KB that the real pronunciation was BABOON!

We still laugh at how BC’s world changed because of that trip, once she started talking and smiling!