All eyes focused on the cousins tucked securely in high chairs. The parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles surrounding them represented a variety of jobs and interests, but the two little boys received the bulk of the attention that evening.
Not because they misbehaved, but because both are firstborns – and something about that first child, first grandchild – generates a feeling of grand discovery, as if no one else in the world has ever had such a child.
Even at first when all the infant does is sleep, eat and stare, his mother watches her infant totally enraptured.
Even though we have plenty of children and grandchildren, I find myself time and again caught up in the wonder of our newest little person’s discovery of the use of his body.
This year’s baby has been included at the table for meals since birth – first in his bouncy chair, then in his high chair playing with toys and listening to adult conversation.
Very quickly, he learned to contribute his own monologue. I’m fascinated with his pert look, as he jabbers away – as if he knows the evening’s topic quite thoroughly.
The week his mother realized he watched their every mouthful of food was the week she decided he was ready for solids. The lad took to real food as if he had not had a decent meal since birth.
During a recent visit, he gummed tiny shreds of chicken nuggets, gulped down jars of pulverized carrots, sipped – and spewed – water from a glass and grabbed Cheerios from the table to stuff in his cheek like chewing tobacco. My husband and I could not keep our eyes off his eating prowess. The lad is a good eater.
Into his seventh month, his lack of locomotion chafed his mother. He enjoyed having her wait on his every whim. The day she determined to not cooperate so much anymore, he began wallowing around in his bed until he could roll over easily and eventually pushed himself into a sitting position.
I visited at the time, laid him on my lap so we could talk face to face. He giggled, kicked and slid backwards over my knees. I grabbed his belly guiding him in a backwards somersault over my knees, lifted him up to celebrate and laid him down again. He laughed and kicked off again. Twenty kicks and slides later I told his mother, “you watch out – he will want to do this when I am not here. He loves the freedom of movement.”
A couple days later she called to say he had tried the kick and flip and landed on the ground. They kissed him all better, set him down again and he did it again – this time with help.
He practices new movements a lot. Some nights his mother reported she found him sitting up in his bed, tired, confused and wanting to sleep, but he couldn’t because his mind and body kept practicing – even during his sleep.
Eventually he added to his repertoire a modified army crawl with one leg hitched up to push with the foot.
“I never knew it was so hard to crawl,” I said to his mom after watching him.
“Neither did I,” she shook her head as she watched him.
Within a week he had crawled without thinking about it. His daddy put a crinkly chip sack in front of him. The child grinned, got up on all fours and crawled over to put it in his mouth. He’s already his mother’s helper – he keeps the floor clean of stray bits and pieces.
When he visited his great-grandpa at the nursing home, my daughter set him on the table in the community room where many grandpas could see him. She put her keys a couple feet in front of him. His eyes lit up and he crawled over to grab them. She picked him up, moved him back to the starting line and he did it again without protest.
He won’t be crawling long. Already he heads to any nearby piece of furniture to pull himself into a standing position and looks with a celebratory grin at the adults he knows will be watching, waiting to applaud and cheer for him.