September 25, 2000 - Monday
Now that we've started to try to put some parameters on Harry's activities, especially since he's moving around, I'm curious that he often finds "no" to be a funny game. It doesn't happen all the time and sometimes it really seems like he understands he's not suppose to do something. Unfortunately, that's usually when we catch him on his way to do something that we've told him about before and he has time to casually veer off in another direction. If we say "no" to something he's already doing it has a much lesser affect. Maybe it's the fact that in those situations "no" is inevitably followed by one of us picking him up and pointing him in a new direction, but he often giggles. It's easy to see that the anticipation of being picked up could be exciting.

Yet, we don't pick him up from his chair while he's eating. Harry doesn't have too many parameters during eating and, thankfully, is usually well behaved and interested enough in eating that he doesn't need any. However, he has started to wipe his hand and arm back and forth across his tray when he gets a little bored with the fare, pushing everything in the path either to the sides or, more likely, onto the floor. We understand that this is fairly typical baby behavior, but it also seems like something that, if curbed now, might discourage more aggressive negative dinner behavior later. Yet, this is a classic example of Harry thinking "no" is a game. We say "no" and he looks at us and does it more. Maybe he didn't understand. We say "no" and hold his arms from the horizontal pendulum action it was taking and he starts to laugh about it.

Still, I see a glimmer of hope in that laugh. Is it possible that it's a self-conscious laugh? It has a hint of the common rationalization and misdirection technique used to act like something was all a joke if caught. Maybe it's wishful thinking, but somehow it doesn't seem like his usual carefree laugh. If it's really misdirection, that's certainly a step toward understand. On the other hard, it would also be a step in many other complex directions as well. Can a baby be that clever or are human instincts that innate?


Comments, opinions?