June 25 Photo: Something Cute

“Something Cute” has to be the biggest no-brainer of all the 31 photo concepts in this whole month-long Photo-A-Day challenge. Seriously, I have a 10-month-old daughter and a 2-1/2-year-old son who are the most adorable and photogenic children on the planet. “Something Cute” is their life motto.

But as cute as they each are individually, their cuteness is beyond doubled when they’re together. Well, at least when they’re together and being nice to each other, which I’d estimate is maybe 20, 25 percent of the time. Fortunately, I happened to have a camera handy this evening when that 20 percent rolled around.

Katie loves to play with Ryan’s toys, especially while Ryan is playing with them, and Ryan is not especially appreciative of that fact. And if she takes one of his toys that he isn’t playing with, he usually develops an urgent and immediate need to play with it himself. Both situations often result in tears on one or both of their parts, whether or not I intervene. But this evening, after a bit of sparring, they managed to come to an unspoken agreement on their own. (Based on this photo, I think that agreement must have been along the lines of, “Ryan gets to play with all the toys and Katie gets to watch without getting smacked.” Hey, if it works for them, who am I to judge?)

What I find so cute about the photo is the expressions on each of their faces: Katie grinning and looking up adoringly at her big brother, and Ryan looking benevolently and (somewhat) patiently down at his little sister. He’s showing her how the toy works, and she’s listening intently. I wonder how many times in the coming years a similar scene will be played out between the two of them. Perhaps I’ll see similar expressions when he teaches her how to ride his old tricycle, or when he gives her the rundown of the rules of baseball, or when he shows her how to make meatloaf, or when he takes her to the parking lot of the church down the street and teaches her to drive stick.

They might lose a bit of their cuteness in the eyes of the rest of the world over the next dozen years or so, but in the eyes of their mum, I kind of suspect they’ll always look like they do in this photo: cute.

The Universality of Babies

Last night we watched the movie, “Babies”. The film is a fascinating – and almost entirely wordless – documentary following four babies from different parts of the world through their first year or so of life.

The opening of the film shows a close-up of a heavily pregnant mother in Namibia grinding berries to make a kind of red dye that she uses to paint her belly. We see a seconds-old baby, still connected to her mother by her umbilical cord, in a modern hospital in Tokyo. We see an hours-old baby in San Francisco, hooked up to tubes and monitors in another modern hospital. And we see a days-old baby being tightly swaddled in blankets and tucked in his mother’s arms as she climbs onto the back of a motorbike, apparently for the trip back to her home in Mongolia.

As the movie progresses, each group of scenes seems to have a kind of a theme: how the babies eat, how the babies interact with their siblings and parents and pets, the various environmental dangers that the babies face. Some groups of scenes are remarkably similar, and some are literally worlds apart. We see each baby being fed by its parents – in three cases, being nursed by a mother, and in the fourth, being given a bottle by a father. The details may be different – the Namibian mother, for example, nurses her baby while sitting in the dirt, leaning over him to grind grain, while a second, slightly older baby nurses at her other breast, while the Japanese mother reclines comfortably in her bed as she nurses – but the essentials are universal. Even the sibling interactions are hilariously similar. The Mongolian baby sits in the middle of a yurt draped with colorful woven rugs and wails periodically as his older brother flicks him in the face with a scrap of cloth. The Namibian baby sits on the ground and periodically wails as his older brother pushes him away. One of the funniest sequences in the entire film is a series of scenes involving very patient and long-suffering family cats. We see one of the babies looking on as his brother pulls on a leash around the neck of a large (and recumbent) cat, the cat limply allowing itself to be dragged with an expression on its face that would certainly be an eyeroll, if cats could roll their eyes. We see another baby sitting with a similarly patient cat on his lap, roughly grabbing at the cat’s fur and ear as the cat simply lies there, apparently resigned to its fate. And in an especially hysterical transition, we then cut to one more cat, carefully sitting out of reach of a baby and watching it warily.

Even the scenes that show how different the babies’ upbringings are have a core of universality, though. We see the Namibian baby calmly playing in the dirt as a herd of cattle wanders around him, the solid, powerful hooves looking no less dangerous than the heavy, wicked horns. The Mongolian child lies on a rug-draped couch as a large rooster with huge, dagger-like spurs casually hops up and saunters past. The American child careens across a playground on a little car, plowing through a crowded sidewalk and face-planting magnificently in a large sandbox. The dangers may vary from place to place, but there are dangers in every environment, no matter how primitive or how progressive.

But aside from the anthropological fascination I found with the film, I was also fascinated with how much of Ryan I saw in each baby. From the funny little newborn facial expressions, to the wide-eyed curiosity, to the babbling and mouth sounds, to random objects going directly into the mouth, to the jelly-legged attempts to stand up, there was a sense of familiarity in every scene and with every child. The soft cooing and singing of the mothers as they rocked sleepy babies made me smile as I thought of myself doing the same thing. Even the tightening in my chest as I saw each baby in danger of being hurt was recognizable as a sensation felt by every parent in a similar situation.

Ryan is not exactly like any other baby that ever has or ever will be on this earth, but there are some things about his life that have been experienced by every other baby that ever has or ever will be on this earth. It’s a wonderful blend of uniqueness and commonality.

Brothers and Sisters

We've all seen siblings playing together, and it's always adorable (at least, until the scratching, biting, and hair-pulling starts). Two little kids sitting side by side, sharing toys and genes. It's heart-melting. But you know what's even cuter? When the siblings are years apart in age, no toys in common, no hand-me-down clothes passed from one to the other - but still having a grand old time playing together.

Go-Kart racing!

Graduation party!

Hanging out by the Jacuzzi!

Poolside kisses (and hair grabbing)!

Rosemary adores her little brother, and as you can see by these photos, the feeling is clearly mutual. He gazes into her face in rapt attention - is he comparing her features to his own? He twines her hair around his fingers - is he noticing the similar color? He chortles when she tickles him - is he amazed that she knows the exact "family tickle spots"?

Ryan is a very social baby, and loves attention from anyone at all. And Rosemary is great with babies and little children, and is very good at entertaining them. But there's something very special about the two of them playing together that goes beyond the usual gregariousness. It's just that they're brother and sister. And it doesn't get any more special than that.