Mar
30
I’d love to know what my daughter sees when she looks at something. She’s almost a year old and I know her so much more than I did in the early days. I put that down to her developing a personality but I’m sure she’d put that down to me talking to her more. But I still don’t always know what she’s looking at and until she can talk, I’m probably going to be none the wiser.
Sometimes it’s obvious, of course. She loves gazing at the halogen lights in the ceiling of our basement. They sparkle and attract her attention, particularly when they are hot from me spending too long watching football. She loves watching the washing machine in action which offends my sensibilities much less than the idea of putting her in front of the TV.
She also loves looking at herself in the mirror (funny, that). It’s not clear that she understands exactly what is happening. She will wave and reach out to touch herself – and when she swings the cupboard mirror towards her she is surprised that there’s nothing behind it. But she still looks at both versions of me, uncertain as to where she should place her trust.
My daugher, Eloise, also loves looking at other people and is now (increasingly) disappointed when they fail to respond to her overtures (it’s genetic, I think). Her mother is convinced that she also likes looking at animals – dogs mostly but conveniently this also fits her agenda to get a dog.
However, there are some times when she looks at something and I desparately search to find out what she sees. It could be a white ceiling or an empty wall, a light switch or a piece of fluff on the carpet. Sometimes it’s the excitement of a chair leg. As my wife said yesterday, the world would be an amazing place if it was as exciting for everyone as it was for Eloise. But if I could unlock that secret to her mind, I would understand her just a little bit better.
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