Clever little babies

It has been too long since I've sat down to write.  This grey Saturday morning finds Thom and I sipping on coffee while Ethan demonstrates the new vocal sounds he's discovered in dreams through the night.  We are happy to hear him chatting again after a spell of tummy bug briefly robbed him of his typically playful personality.  We are going to more play groups and mingling with other children so little colds and germs are probably to be expected.

Play groups are great for Ethan to see other babies and children while all the mums natter and compare notes.  I watch the kids size each other up, the mums size each other up and the way everyone falls into a little social hierarchy.  The younger babies look with awe as the older ones crawl, scoot and dominate their environment in various ways.  Ethan watches - mouth open, drool trailing down the chin - as older babies grab and manipulate the toys in ways he hasn't yet figured out.  Even older children, the toddlers, adopt a sort of sympathetic attitude towards the babies, like a memory of the frustrations endured in their own once small baby-bodies lingers.  Older ones will even protest at being treated like a baby.  How dare you treat me like a baby when I can do so much now!

Ethan being unwell this week reminded me of the wisdom of babies, something that is all to easily dismissed  in comparison to the ability-based scale generally used to measure the success of a person.  Ethan, in his week of illness, showed me his instinctual and wise way babies approach the world and how this gets forgotten.  Later, when we can get around, reach for what we want and communicate with others, we dismiss the immense wisdom of the baby.  A baby might be seen as an eating, sleeping, shitting machine who can do little more than cry and flail their little arms about.  But in Ethan and the other babies in the play group are certainly not that simple.

Babies have skills, just different ones.  Skills that would be incredibly useful if we could reclaim them in some way.  When Ethan started to come down with his tummy bug, before Thom and I knew he was unwell, he started letting us know to pay attention, something was up!  First just a little less smiley.  Then, later, unhappy at feeds, grabbing at me but unwilling to drink more than a few mouthfuls of milk.  Smart little guy was expressing what any of us would feel as a tummy bug was coming on.  Hungry but not.  Tender tummy.  A little off colour.  His instinctual baby-brain responded pretty well by telling him he needed more sleep and snuggles.  And less milk and over-energetic playtime.  He didn't have the words to speak it or the ability to take himself to the pharmacy for some Pepto, but he did do what becomes harder somehow as we get older and supposedly smarter.  I'm not near as good as listening to some of my body's signals.  Simply changing a routine or stopping something we want but we feel is bad can be the difficulties of a lifetime.

We forget the gift of instinct.  Forget the value of listening to the pull of something unexplainable.  That same instinct-driven little man also listens when he senses that someone is nice, something is fun or the most everyday and mundane to us, is fascinating to him.  Without that, any child would be uninspired to grow and develop into someone that is big enough and able enough to become a participant in the world.  If only we could hang onto a it of that baby-style approach as we do.