  This paper is motivated by the study of Turchin and Willwacher's bead
representations. The problem is reformulated here in terms of the Lie algebra
homology of a free Lie algebra with coefficients in tensor products of the
adjoint representation.
  The main idea is to exploit the truncation of the coefficients given by
killing Lie brackets of length greater than two. Although this truncation is
brutal, it retains significant and highly non-trivial information, as exhibited
by explicit results.
  A d\'evissage is used that splits the problem into two steps, separating out
a `homology' calculation from `antisymmetrization'. This involves some
auxiliary categories, including a generalization of the upper walled Brauer
category.
  This approach passes through the `baby bead representations' of the title,
for which complete results are obtained. As an application, the composition
factors of Turchin and Willwacher's bead representations are calculated for a
new infinite family.
