“One of the charms of a child,” my judge said earlier, “is their ability to be completely absorbed in observing someone. I sometimes become conscious that a small child is observing me — maybe it’s the movement, or the gray hair, who knows — but they are so completely engrossed in the study, until another distraction, something else comes along that takes their attention, and they just move on, with no memory [of their previous object of study]…” He paused, a big whimsical smile on his face. Coming back to the present, he looked at me and said, “I envy you.”

This conversation started because he asked me whether Allie has been interacting much with other babies her age. I told him she hasn’t had much opportunity, but she loves watching older toddlers, especially little girls, play at the parks. Little girls love her, too. They often come up and want to watch her closely, or speak to her. One little girl over the weekend walked up to us and offered Allie her pink cowgirl hat. If you’ve got one minute, you can watch this on the below video, taken by my mom as my parents, maternal grandma, and we had a late lunch at The Cheesecake Factory to celebrate my mom and my joint birthdays.


Isn’t it funny how grownups talk to babies? My grandma looked totally silly. Mr. W thought it was creepy that the entire soundtrack of many of these video clips taken over the course of the meal consisted of this:
Allie: Aaaah.
Allie’s grandma: Aaaaah!
Allie’s great-grandma: Aaah aaah aaah aaahhhhh!
Allie: Aaaah.
Allie’s grandma: Aaaah! Aaaah!
Allie’s great-grandma: Aaah! Aaah! Aaaaaahhhhh!

But yes, Allie is becoming quite the people-watcher. As long as we bring her some of her purees and feed her before our meal comes, Allie is content to sit in her high chair and watch the world go by, even if it’s happening behind her.

It’s very telling who the “kids people” are when you have a kid. Some people (usually older grandma types) would stop in their tracks and come over to talk to Allie, ask me how hold she is, etc. And then there’d be others (usually younger, high-school age people who are more absorbed in their own worlds) who wouldn’t make eye contact with Allie, even if Allie is staring hard at them. I used to be one of those until I got pregnant (unless I was with a baby I knew). I find myself liking “baby people” more. What kind of evil person would ignore a baby this cute, right? =P I remember as a kid also being able to tell the difference based on how adults behaved toward me, and I had resolved to not be like the non-kid grownups, until I became one of those. And then I understood how annoying kids are. Haha. And then I canceled my Disneyland annual membership.

It was also at Cheesecake Factory this weekend when we made a big discovery. Mr. W allowed Allie to chew on his thumbnail and all of a sudden, he said, “Her upper teeth are out.”
I said, “No, the doctor [at the 6-month checkup] said they’ve come down but it’ll be awhile until they’re out.”
“I can FEEL it on my fingernail,” he said.
So I poked her little upper lip up, and looked, and THERE is the white ridge of a big left front tooth, out at least one millimeter already. Her right side looks to be just on the cusp of cutting the gum, too. Wow. She’s been gnawing on her teething toys rather ferociously and sleeping about an hour less a day than normal, could this be why? And just a couple weeks ago, I was wondering why I’ve once again become sore after she nurses, like I had been in earlier days. Jayne had also wondered why she’d been clingier and slightly crabbier a couple random days within the last couple of weeks.

“I’m growing up, mommy,” Allie seems to tell us. “I have my reasons.”