Deep Thoughts

Two babies sat together on the library floor. One was mine, and the other was not.

The babies were close enough in age that they could both walk, sit, and climb, but they were likely six months apart.

They watched each other intently, and while they spoke very few words (only “uh oh” could be heard), they did gesture toward one another with some frequency.

At one point, one of the babies (mine) walk-ran so fast that she was unable to control her momentum. She fell down in a cascade of baby belly with arms outstretched, rolling to her side like a slippery fish.

The other baby didn’t see what had transpired. She was momentarily back with her nanny who took a pause from her phone conversation to acknowledge her.

Moments later, the babies reunited. This time around a set of small stacking cups.

One of the babies (not mine) had retrieved them from the table while the other baby began to whimper, as she had been playing with them earlier and certainly did not yet understand the concept of finders keepers.

To no one’s great surprise (let alone mine) I retrieved a gear toy from the table in hopes that one of the two babies would prefer it over the cups.

This effort proved futile as the cups were far more treasured by both.

However, a magical thing happened when the baby that was not mine reached out her hand to give several cups to the baby who is mine.

The baby that is mine then took the cups and swiftly gave them back to the first baby.

This back and forth event continued for what must have been the better part of five minutes.

It was followed up with another game of exchange.

The object was for each baby to lick a magnetic tile and then put it back in the bin for the other to try.

The baby who is mine successfully licked as many tiles as the other baby, and for this one can say, the library visit was a raging success.