Just smile and wave

How did I have the world's friendliest baby? I wouldn't say I'm totally anti-social, but I also am not particularly good around strangers. More importantly I've become a bit jaded in my 10 years of urban dwelling. I've taken on the -avoid eye contact look down at your feet and walk fast- mode of travel. I'm not saying I like it, it just happened. In fact, one of the things I think would greatly improve our society is to get rid of this isolating mind set of ignoring our neighbors and focusing only on ourselves. I know this is something I wish I could change, and yet I press on, eyes averted and missing my surroundings. So how do I make my mark on society without making any changes to my ingrained cynical self? I produce Sam.

I love going out with Sam; he is friendly to every passing stranger. He waves at everyone that walks by, every animal that walks by, every object in his view - he waves and he smiles. He does what I wish we all did, and he does it happily and without self-conciousness. I wish it could stay this way for him.

Today we went to the arboretum where they have a Garden Railroad exhibit. Sam loves it. Train tracks set amongst plants and meticulously sculpted houses and bridges based on fairy tales, not that Sam cares about that part. What matters, clearly, are the trains. He stands at the edge of the garden area, waits patiently, and as they come around points and yells, "eeeeeh!" But what I loved the most about his response was his need to share his excitement with everyone who passed by. He would get their attention by either waving or yelling at them (in a friendly way, of course) and then point to the train for them just in case they were not aware of its presence. He loved the trains and wanted to make sure everyone else, even total strangers, saw how great they were.



Our urban living environment has rubbed off on him in one way that drives me crazy though:

This is what Sam does every time he is set down in grass. He lifts his hands and legs so that he has as little contact as possible. And he doesn't move, that would involve touching the horrible, prickly nastiness that is nature. I have tried so hard to get him to like playing in grass and it just doesn't work. Maybe nature was introduced too late. What a failure I am.

He did like playing in the sculptures though, and they were inspired by nature supposedly...



After the arboretum we went out to dinner and sat outside. Sam waved at the people who walked by as well as those at the surrounding tables. I was my cynical, anti-social self, glaring at anyone who dared ignore my beautiful baby's smiles and waves, those who planted their faces in their plates tuning out their surroundings, or maybe just avoiding eye contact being busily pissed off about a couple bringing a toddler to a restaurant. Who is the person who doesn't smile back at this face? Clearly someone very cynical and anti-social.