What does a baby know?

What does a baby know? That's a big question we can't answer. Clearly she's learning by leaps and bounds. She started with nothing, nothing at all, and is constructing her universe solely through experience.

As an infant, she didn't know that that uncomfortable restless achy feeling is tiredness and the cure is to relax and close her eyes, she didn't know that that pain in her eyes is the sun and the cure is close them or turn her head away. She knew was if something was in her mouth, she should suck on it. That was the sum total of her understanding of the world.

Today she knows which button makes the toy light up or get loud, she knows about light switches and drawers and doors, she knows where water comes from and how otot work the stopper in the drain. She loves birds, she likes to touch bees and has so far gotten away with it. She's learning how to feed herself. Banana good, peas good, brocolli bad. Millet bad, but millet cereal good. She knows plenty.

She still has odd weaknesses in the growing storehouse of stuff she knows and can do. She has no depth perception, none, and can't tell if those birds she loves so much are right in front of her or a hundred feet away. She'll strain to grab them either way. She thinks helicopters are birds. She'll try and grab those too. She'll try to open doors she's nowhere near and step on things she can't reach. I feel guilty laughing as I watch her stretch and strain to reach what she wants, with no real concern for her center of balance or even the location of her limbs. Such great, but often futile, effort.

Cthulhu Resurfaces

Jane has always been a very advanced child. She was born a week early and now at eleven months, she’s already hit her terrible twos. It was like flicking a switch.

One day she’s a good natured kid, she cooperated, helped out, appreciated effort. When she cried with some need and I tried to fill it, she’d stop crying for a bit, even if I guessed wrong, like she was giving me a chance, giving me the benefit of the doubt and wouldn’t start crying again until it was clear I’d guessed wrong and her needs remained unmet. She’d pick up her butt when I picked her up so I could get a hand under her and also on the changing table so it’s easier to change her diaper.

The next day it’s “I want this” and that want was immediate, important, and life and death! Whether she wanted to be picked up, put down, go outside, hold the knife or grab some stranger’s sunglasses, it has to be RIGHT NOW!!!

The changing table is open warfare. Her new job is to press every fiber of her being into the effort of rolling over and standing up, immediately grabbing the left rail with her right hand, a lockdown grip twisting her body with surprising strength. I’d plead with her to cooperate and she’d laugh at me. She knows what she was supposed to do, but, somehow, “supposed to do” has taken on a new meaning. It means “absolutely not!” and she laughs throughout the struggle, never noticing that she’s the only one laughing.

She’s lucky she’s cute.

Banana!

Baby's First Word!

We think.

It sounded like banana and it made sense in context, so we're taking it.

Banana it is!

Obscure Cargo Cult Reference

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Fingers

Baby fingers. Cute little digits, so bendy, so tiny, so fragile. Like you could break one off without even trying. Surely that’s why we have ten—it’s nature’s way of compensating for the fact that they will break off from time to time. Disposable, almost. Sometimes, looking at Jane’s, I find it inconceivable that anybody could keep them all into adulthood. And yet most of us do. Darndest thing.

Saturday, in the Park, Where Every Day's the Fourth of July

Back in January, H, Jane and I took a trip to a state park at the far edge of Queens. This was one of the first out of the neighborhood ventures with the little tyke so we didn't really know what we were doing. And the camera was new so I was a bit fumbly with it, and I didn't figure out how to do the editing until a couple weeks ago. But this was Jane's first trip into the wilds so off we went and tried to capture something of it as best we could.

We didn't get too far before H got turned back because we also brought the Maggie-dog. Dogs are not allowed, which we knew, and there are roving park rangers enforcing the rules, which we didn't know. So for much of the time, Jane and I are alone while H brought Maggie back to the car and waited.

As for the clip, this is my first edited video and it isn't bad...considering. Unfortunately, it's only not bad if you consider...

I think I did a surprisingly good job with one exception. I inserted a scene in the wrong place and didn't catch it until the software finalized the video and merged the scenes (which I didn't know it would do and so didn't save an unfinalized version, and so it goes...).

Now the only way to fix it is to start over again, which I won't be doing unless someone who knows what they're talking about takes me aside and says, "hey Tim, I really like that piece you did where you and Jane walk down a path. If you just fixed that one thing, I think I could enter it into the Tribeca Film Festival." Then maybe I'd fix it, but short of that, this will have to do.

So, without further ado, I give you Jane's first trip to the state park, as seen through her eyes (sort of).

Obscure Cargo Cult Reference

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