The world of a 7-month-old

Playing with Kalina's doggie
during Kalina's naptime. Fun!

If you are ever blessed enough to spend much time with a baby, you will notice that the baby spends much of her time starting intently and open-mouthed at the world around her. Drooling a bit.

The better to shove everything she sees into her mouth, I suppose. After all, the world is pretty tasty to behold.

If you don't spend much time with babies, you may, in fact, think the baby rude for all her open-mouthed staring, or even dull, but I'll assure you this is certainly not the case. As a matter of fact, the conversation going on in the baby's head may sound something like this:

"Ooh! What's that over there? Moving and furry? A cat! Wow! Oh, and over here? Shiny and bright? A window! Shiny. Wait, what's that noise? A toddler? Hmm. But what's that? Oh, cool, a table. What's that on the table? A spoon! Ooh, I want that. I want to hold that. Oh, wait, that other thing looks even cooler. Maybe it even jingles. Lots of things jingle. But what's that over there? And now what is the toddler doing? To the cat? Now I have the giggles."

So, you can see, discovering the world a mile a minute is pretty serious business.

Hanging out with Uncle Tom.
Ready to get back to Mommy.

But then there are times, when you're a baby, that the world needs to be discovered one piece at a time. One piece of mulch at a time, as a matter of fact. This proves especially tricky when the baby is placed on the center of a picnic blanket, and the baby can't crawl yet. No worries: simply bunch of the blanket until voila! Mulch appears! Like the rest of the world, mulch is delicious. Much more delicious, even, than the brightly colored, safe toys scattered about the blanket by Mommy in hopes of distracting the baby from the mulch.

In case you can't tell, I'm describing sweet, little Elise, who is currently the frontrunner as the cutest baby in the world (her big sister held the title for an entire year, until she graduated into "cutest 1-year-old on Earth" status).

Once I did set Elise tummy-down in the grass momentarily. I think the idea that she had been placed directly into Heaven was still forming when I scooped her up again.

While a baby's world is entirely new--every last bit of it--babies also have a way of making the unfamiliar familiar by breaking each new encounter down into its base parts. They are:

1.) New object. Goes in mouth.
2.) New person. Where's Mommy?
3.) New place. Is there anything I can put in my mouth here?

Despite having gotten it down to a routine, Elise seems to love seeing new people and places (from a safe spot like Mommy's arms, of course). She'll happily sit in her stroller and watch kids playing at a park, however, and I know we're only months away from her running to join in and pull anyone's hair she can get her little hands on, whether the kids like it or not.


In the "Elise and doggie"
photo shoot, Elise had her
eyes closed in 3/6 pictures.
Cute!



The most fun, however, is handing Elise a new object to explore. Already adept at manipulating toys for ages 1+, this baby quickly, yet methodically, learns about each new toy (or non-toy) in her path, leaving them sopping wet. She does, however, readily return to old favorites, especially those that are the most fun to chew. And she blows raspberries at whatever she likes best.

And Elise never stops discovering her world. Three minutes after having fallen asleep in my arms before bedtime after a long (read: short-nap) day the baby is likely to be found investigating the noise her foot makes when bammed repeatedly against the wall during a diaper change.

Within seconds of waking, Elise is already smiling, at or gnawing on anyone or anything within sight/reach. She never stops. But then, we wouldn't want her to.