Day 260: Posturing

Atom has perfect posture. All babies his age seems too. It is a pretty amazing thing to see. His balance is comparable to an elephant on a tight rope. His body is typically jerking in all different directions. It is only a matter of time before he falls flat on his face. But amongst all of his uncertainty, he maintains perfect posture.

I wonder if poor posture is something that just naturally over takes people over time. The weight of life slowly and methodically takes our shoulders and guides them forward. It is a rare thing to see a very old person with perfect posture. Why is that? Medical issues aside...is it because they spent too many hours agonizing about the mortgage, worrying about their calorie intake, or wondering if they are a good person?

I like to believe babies have perfect posture because they haven't yet discovered worrying. Life for a baby is open and full of possibilities. Every time I see Atom sitting (and it is rare to see him on the floor not sitting these days) with perfect posture deep inside I hope worry doesn't exist yet for him and I hope it never will.

Day 181: Meaningful Babble

Atom, aside from his other tremendous accomplishments this week of entering into production on another tooth and eating solid food for the first time, started to put language and objects together.

Mind you he hasn't yet quite mastered English or object identification for that matter but he has been producing Baby Babble for a while now. However, now he sometimes will look at an object and start babbling like a tour guide in a museum.

Last night I handed him his elephant rattle/teether and his eyes lit up. He reached out with both hands (because why use one if the other one isn't busy), pulled elephant closer and then proceeded to babble me that "elephants are emotional creatures. Whenever they come across another elephant that has passed away they become visibly upset and appear to mourn the loss."

I told Atom that I DID know that and that I had actually ridden an elephant before in Loxahatchee, Florida at Lion Country Safari. He babbled to me "stop being a know it all".