Aunt Claude sent this nifty rocking horse for Christmas/Chanukah. We didn't get a chance to assemble it until after the holidays, and once we did, Lila spent a few weeks eyeing it leerily and walking deliberately out of its path in case it made any sudden movements.
Then Nana and Pop Pop came for a visit, and coaxed her into getting closer to it, which led, of course, to a kissing phase. Eventually Pop Pop swept her up and plopped her atop it, and she sat there stone faced as he gently rocked it back and forth. The evident joylessness made it a short first ride, but once she got the first experience out of the way, she demanded help mounting it at a regular clip.
Watching her negotiate this foreign object reminded me of an amusing Adam Gopnik New Yorker piece last year about how Gopnik and his wife handled the death of their 5 year old daughter's pet goldfish. Details of their efforts and their 10 year old son's smirking judgments aside, he came to an interesting conclusion about a child's perception of the world at hand. He said that in the consciousness of a child, every object, living or otherwise, has a spirit, a temprament, and the potential to come alive. It's why they live so easily in a world where fire hydrants talk, candelabras dance, and lions sing.
Gopnik asserts that it is the shedding of that worldview makes us into adults. A world where anything can happen becomes a harsher reality, and while we all need to make that leap, there is something very sweet that gets lost in that process.
So for now, we live in Lila's world with her, where this rocking horse is still a little bit scary, her blanky loves her, and her baby doll needs to take a nap. It's a pretty nice way to see the world, and I'll be a little bit sorry when we pass out of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment