A Post KINDA about my Baby

I love to watch Jane play.

I love to watch her discover something, study it intensely, take it in and try it out.

It's fun to see which things catch her attention--yesterday it was the bag of cough drops and the bottles of baby wash and shampoo on the side of the tub that have gone mostly unnoticed until last night. I love to watch her world widen, even if it's just to soap bottles.

I don't know if she's just curious or thrilled by all the new things she doesn't yet know about. I wonder what she thinks of things outside it, like all the animals in the books we read. She's only met a few dogs and one cat once. What does she think of the crocodile in Tumble Bumble, or the rhino in Can You Sing? or even all the crazy dogs in Go Dogs! Go (it's never too early for Go Dogs! Go if you're a Ludlow, or so I'm told)?

But then, what does she think of a plastic two colored sphere?

What does she think of two plastic spheres?

And I guess that's the joy of it, the not thinking. Jane is just discovering, she doesn't even have to make sense of the world yet, just experience it. And that's one of the joys of being a parent--I get reminded everyday, if I slow down enough to hear it, of the pure joy that is experiencing the world, of simple sensory discovery sans thinking. Very Zen, no? So if I can just tame that voice in me that demands I be this strange and strict definition of "productive" I have in my head, I can get down on the floor with Jane and experience growing up again...why is it so hard sometimes?


PS- Isn't that headband audaciously fluffy and huge? She only wore it for these pictures. I'm saving it for when her head grows into it, or maybe I'll trim it down. But it adds a certain whimsy to the photos, eh?