Personification

It is strange to realize that Helen is becoming a person. Yes, of course she has been a human all along. But now she is becoming a person. In her own right, an individual, with her own awareness, and preferences, and ideas.

Some of you might think this is an odd thing for me to write now, as Helen nears 7 months old. After all, it has been clear for quite some time now that she has a personality. She is clearly an intense, determined little soul She is very watchful, and yet also fun-loving and social. Still, up until now, she has been more or less content to have life happen to her.

Sure, she wants to be fed, and changed, and get sleep, and she will demand that these things be provided if we are too slow to offer. But otherwise, she has been content to be dragged from place to place, at our whims. She is picked up, put down, moved around, dozens of times a day, all with no say in it. We move her from the bed to the floor to the bath to the changing table to the floor to the exersaucer to the kitchen to the living room to the baby carrier to the car seat and so on, as our own needs dictate.

So today, I was surprised to have her very clearly communicate that she had developed her own agenda. First, she was playing in the living room when John walked out the front door, leaving the heavy door open so the full-height screen door was the only thing blocking her in. She made a beeline for it, and sat there, looking out, for a very long time. Now, she has always liked going outside - it is one of our standard tricks for calming her down. But this was like light bulbs coming on in her head. She seemed to realize that if she can't get herself outside, at least she can get herself over to look outside. She laid on her tummy in front of the door, propped her arms and head up, and watched outside, quiet as a mouse and content as ever.

Later in the day, I whisked her off the kitchen floor and carried her downstairs to the playroom floor so that I could do a 10-minute clean-up down there. She gets to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but not so much in the playroom, since I don't have activities that cause me to hang out there. Apparently, she liked the change of scene. When I picked her up and plopped her back down on the kitchen floor, she began to wail. Then she dragged/crawled/scooted over to the stop of the steps, looked down under the baby gate to her just lost playground, and mewed piteously. Really!