One of the most confusing things about watching Anya grow and develop is working out how much of what I'm seeing is a genuine change in her, and how much it's just a result of my imputing significance to random actions.
So at the moment she's of an age where she's soon start to imitate actions. And we're in Brisbane visiting friends and relatives, so there have been many hellos and goodbyes; and there is a sort of universal parenting theatre that we slip into on these occasions. We hold Anya under the armpits, point her at someone like she's a mirror reflecting a spot of sunlight, and start to chant: "Wave bye-bye." Do this for long enough and her arms - or even just one arm - start to wave up and down, accompanied with the biggest, happiest smile you could imagine.
Of course, her arms wave all the time: she's a baby. Sit her on the floor and her arms wave; lay her on her back and she does weightlifter moves; put her on her front and she switches to push-ups. But we're both convinced there's a touch of imitation going on here: she seems to do it more when we're encouraging her, and the smile has a quality of satisfaction and amusement to it that appears to come from a sense that she's achieving something new.
The truth is, at this stage I genuinely can't tell if we're witnessing a developmental leap, or just the shapes formed by our own tendencies towards pattern-recognition. And maybe that's a false dichotomy anyway: as with her first smile and first words, perhaps there's no defined moment that separates knowing from unknowing. Sometimes we just reverse into knowledge or experiences, unsure how or when we got there, but glad for the journey and the arriving.
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