Learning to play

One always presumes that children always play and love playing.  Wrong.  As a fresh parent I can say that for the past couple of months, my child had no idea what 'playing' and 'games' or 'toys' were.  It is us parents who were more eager to play with the baby, or buy her toys and so on.  I really wonder what Jenny understood by all this; what she must have thought when I would roll on the ground with her; what she must have thought when we would bring a doll to her face talking in false voices; what she would think when I roll a ball to her...she wouldn't have had a clue about anything!

However, now that she is entering her 8th month, things are changing.  Now she actually got playful.  She crawls around the house, picks up stuff, tastes it first (!) and then starts banging it on the floor, all the while looking at our faces and grinning broadly.  When we all lay down or sit on the ground together, she 'attacks' us making sounds and doing this and that....she knows it is fun and she enjoys it, too.

But it is not only that.  We have noticed that she can distinguish between children and grown-ups as well.  When she meets grown-ups, she always needs some time to get used to them, won't allow them to hold her and will get very cranky if they do.  On the other hand, if it is children who come home, things are different.  She herself crawls towards them, makes attempts to play, or communicate, and so on.  I don't know how she understands that children are different and that she is one of them!  But she does.  

I keep realising that I am giving children (especially infants) way too little credit.  They are much smarter than we think, they learn things faster than we think, they understand nuances much faster than we expect and so on and so forth.  Babies are smart.  They are actually as rational as well are....only in a different manner.  We should give them the credit due to them. :)