WHAT Were They THINKING!?! No, Really. I Don’t Know What They Were Thinking.

When Jeremy was a little, bitty baby, he was a pretty sober guy. My mother tried tirelessly to make him smile, but he was stingy with those smiles. One Sunday, after we had lunched together, she was determined to get some grins from him. I held him in my lap, and she made funny faces and silly noises, wiggled her fingers and waved her hands, and became more and more frenzied in an attempt to get some sort of reaction from him. Nothing. Just calm, serene stares. The rest of us were quite amused at her antics. But not the baby. What was he thinking? Maybe, Well, this is interesting. Or, Gee, this is unusual. Or,  possibly, I’d like to take a nap now, and this isn’t helping.

Jeremy finally agrees with the rest of us that my mother is indeed funny.

We just don’t know what little kids are thinking, almost all the time, frankly. They are gathering information, always, by watching, by listening, and by using their brains, and it’s really difficult for us as adults, to follow their reasoning. As we look at them and wonder what they’re thinking, do they also see us as mystifying, indiscernible beings. Do babies also wonder What are they thinking!?!

Several months ago, I was staying with Baby Peter while Kevin and April were out. Peter crawled under a desk and reached out to electrical outlets that he noticed. I went to him, pulled his arm away from the outlets and said, “No, Peter. Not for little boys.” He reached, I pulled, and repeated what I’d said. We did that about a dozen times before he lost interest and crawled off in another direction…to explore the dining room table legs, as I remember. A few minutes later, he headed back to the outlets under the desk. Almost there, he turned his head back to me and smiled, as though saying, Come on, let’s play that fun game again, where I put my hand out and you pull it back. He moved on to the outlets and we did, indeed, play that game again.
In my mind, I’m saying DANGER!! DANGER!! In his mind, he’s apparently saying, Wow, this is fun!

Peter learns about hay at Farm Day, back in October.

Babies like to put things in their mouths. It’s how they learn. Their mouths have lots of nerve endings, and they learn about the things in their environments when they’re first able to pick up and mouth toys, books, articles of clothing, stuff they’ve collected from trash bins, etc. It’s natural and healthy and alarming to adults.

A week ago, I was in Fort Worth, helping care for Peter while his parents were working on their back porch. One morning, we were walking around outside. Peter, as are most babies, is curious and interested in all sorts of things we found. He’s walking pretty well now. He’s exploring the world by touching and looking at and carrying things around, examining, squishing, picking up and dropping down, instead of immediately shoving things into his mouth, the way he did a few months ago.

He picked up an acorn, covered in dirt. He clutched it in his hand, played with it, put it into an empty plant stand, and retrieved it again with delight. Then suddenly, he crammed it into his mouth.

“EEK,” I said, and went in after it. “Not in your mouth,” I said. Well, why not? his face said back to me. Then he found a rock, and we went through the same process. Give. Me. A. Break! his face said.

We wandered into the neighbor’s yard, back to his yard, and down the sidewalk to the front porch. He crawled up the steps and stood at a concrete planter. I sat down next to him, waiting for any necessary intervention. He touched the plant, dead, dead, dead from the last hard freeze. Then he reached into the dirt and grabbed a fistful. He held it out to me. I put out my own hand, and he dropped the dirt into it. He did that three or four times, until there was a nice pile of rich, black dirt in my hand.

He looked solemnly at me and seemed to say, with his eyes, Look lady. If you want some of this great “dirt”stuff, then here, have some. Leave mine alone.

I so wish I knew what babies were thinking.

Sell everything and buy Wisdom! Forage for Understanding!
Don’t forget one word! Don’t deviate an inch!
Above all and before all, do this: Get Wisdom!
Write this at the top of your list: Get Understanding!

Proverbs 4:5,7  The Message (MSG)

I don’t read body language very well, in babies or adults. I don’t catch subtleties, in gestures, facial expressions, or language. If somebody wants me to know something, they need to tell me outright. Otherwise, I’m just guessing. However, I can keep on foraging for understanding. And I’m putting it at the top of my list.