Miriam is a careful child, as I was. At sing along she'll sit and watch for a while before deciding whether to join the joy or wander off. Put a new food on her tray and she'll look at it, watch to see what I am doing, poke at it, bring it to her lips and down again, and threaten to drop it off the side before finally taking a bite. When wrestling with a toy too large for her she always keeps a hand on a nearby surface, a bookshelf or coffee table, to stabilize.
She fears the robot. Just a little bit, and less each day, but when our Roomba (Thanks Wendy! It's working great!) starts up its brushes and begins its random walk around the room she backs away, murrs, and looks to be picked up. I don't entirely blame her. Here is an otherwise inanimate object, clearly not a dog or cat or person, that suddenly starts to move. While it is small compared to me, it's probably a third of her weight and given her journeyman skill level in balance and walking it could probably knock her down if she wasn't braced for it. So she edges away. In its semi-random motion, sometimes it follows.
I want her to embrace the robot, to wonder at its movements and make friends with it. I wouldn't mind her thinking of it as a toy to figure out how to turn it on and off and do so, repeatedly, like she pushes the beads back and forth and back again. I'd like her to give it a little smile when she passes by its corner and glances its way. Like I do. But for now she's afraid of it, and probably confused by it, and stays away from it.
Yesterday's run destination: Federal and Wilshire, where we saw the President's motorcade drive on unnaturally empty streets
Yesterday's menu:
breakfast: egg crepe
lunch: potato leek soup
dinner: chicken and veg curry
bonus: the last of the pecan chocolate chip cookies
Aw.
ReplyDeleteHow did the curry turn out?