Inside

Yesterday, while holding my little guy River, I realized another amazing thing about babies.  They are like little sponges, soaking up information left and right.  It's all brand new, and you can almost see their "live action" processors holding new details.

I held a toy in front of him, and when it got his attention he focused in.  His eyes glared into the stuffy, his brain, no doubt, cranking the gears, trying to make sense of this new thing.  What I realized that day is that when he interacts with another person, and not just a toy, things are completely different.

The really neat thing is that babies have an immediate sense of how to interact with us.  They don't look at our mouths or are hands.  They're not aimlessly searching for clues.

They go straight to the eyes.

River makes contact with my eyes, looking for what's in there.  When I smile, he recognizes it, and smiles back, assured that he is experiencing a familiar and safe face.  The neurotransmitters are humming away, digging into the groove that will turn out to be the "dad is a safe person" pathway.

It's all so neat because it seems innate.  They don't learn to look in your eyes.  Once  their eyes grow enough to work, they immediately start focusing in on everything around them.  And again, when there is a person in their space, they go directly for their eyes.  It's really neat.