Deep Well Sockets
Tam and I got to hang out a bit together yesterday while we were hanging out at Kate and Paul’s after spending time with Paul and Jonas, working futilely on an old and well-weathered Dixon riding lawn mower.
I’m constantly fascinated by the kid when I watch over him and play with him. He looks at me and often smiles, but I wonder what level of cognizence I enter into in his brain. Is he really recognizing me and associating me with previous events in his life, or does he just see me and “know” me without knowing why, or does seeing me start a new memory entirely that has no association with previous ones? Without his ability to talk to you to let you know what’s going on in his mind, we can only guess as to what his internal processes are. He is truly the “black box”, but even more than that, because with black boxes you can get output that somehow relates to the input; with Tam it isn’t always obvious that the output was triggered by the input. (Except the sort that comes out in his diaper, and I’m assured by his parents that even THAT isn’t always logically relational.)
I held him for awhile and we looked around, out the window, at each other, at other people. I love looking into his eyes — they’re big and blue and he always looks a bit surprised or curious at everything. He’s very good at tracking the eyes of others and faces. I know that our brains are wired for facial recognition and tracking, but it’s astounding to watch it in action. The best part about kids is that they don’t have enough conscious control over such things yet to decide if they want to do it or not — so much is instinctual at this point — and so you get to see the hardwiring in progress. Eventually he’ll be able to override such restrictions and entirely ignore someone’s face if he wants. Even now you can see that he’s not restricted to doing it, but he does it more than, say, someone who is much older.
I find it curious, actually, that we go through a stage in our teens/older where we can’t really look into another person’s face for long periods of time without getting self-conscious about it. At least, I went through this. By college I learned about the power of looking into someone’s eyes the entire time that you were talking to them and started to revel in the confidene, intimacy, and inspiration that exuded from the experience. (esp. with the opposite sex) Children have no such stigma built-in and so love to look at faces and eyes. It’s a pity that we lose that habit for such a long time (and that many never get it back). If we stared into the eyes of everyone we came across, I think we’d learn alot, or at least bring ourselves within the right distance for an intimate exchange.
Eventually we got Tam snuggled up in his lamb outfit and I played with him awhile on the couch. He was getting tired, as you could see the poor bugger struggle to stay awake. He played with my fingers for awhile as he stared off into the distance, then got cranky so I walked him around. We eventually sat down again and I started singing Christmas carols to him using a “shusssh” sound — why? I don’t have a clue. I think it is because those songs I can sing without thinking about the tune or the lyrics at all. He eventually fell asleep on my chest, relaxing his little arms and legs and snuggling in, smelling very babyish and warm. It is a wholly fun experience, I think.
And he slept for several hours after. Woo! Pralle puts them to sleep again. Remember, if you can’t keep them interested, make them sleep like a baby. 
