Feet

Unlike with Caleb, I have am currently undergoing a phase where I’m amazed at the physicalness of the baby in front of me. Perhaps with my first there was too much anxiety and worry and strangeness, I wasn’t sure exactly what babies were supposed to look like or be like or act like, but with Naomi, I find I’m simultaneously admiring and trying to resist squeezing all the tiny parts of her.

In particular, I have been enjoying her feet, which seem unusually expressive. I had “noticed”/imagined this right off the bat, but received some external reinforcement recently – someone commenting on her feet while we were standing in line at a coffee shop – and feel it’s time to share.

It’s as though each of her feet has its own mind, its own sprite, connected, but separate from herself.

At the risk of sounding even crazier, I’m going to expand upon this idea, that her feet are these two wily and agile extremities. Firstly, she really enjoys her feet, but her feet  delight her. This is not some new and amazing thing for babies, I presume most if not all babies enjoy their feet. She really enjoys touching her feet, having her toes squeezed, having her feet raised up to touch her cheeks, that will get you a belly laugh every time – but let’s call that relatively normal.

More interestingly, though, her toes are long and seem strong (I mean, how strong do baby toes get? Is the fact that I’m asking this question a sign that this whole discussion is bordering on crazy?), and also quite dexterous, and they’re constantly bending and unbending and sort of grabbing at things and squeezing. If you put your fingers under her toes, they will actively squeeze and unsqueeze until they contently finds a comfortable medium of light pressure. She actually enjoys holding onto to something with her toes while she is nursing.

Her feet also reflect her mood: in times of contentment or curiosity, it’s like her feet are holding each other. Her legs are still quite bowlegged and her ankles especially still bend in – could this be because she is constantly bending her feet to be able to hold each other??

When she’s excited, her feet jiggle and bounce, sometimes vibrating up her legs. In times of despair, her feet start moving around, but just from the ankles, not sort of whole leg flailing. Just little feet moving around in circles, toes stretching in and out, like they’re trying to reach out to grab something. Sometimes, after putting her in the car seat, I can look at her feet to see if she’s going to settle in comfortably and fall asleep (toes and feet tucked against each other) or stay awake (apart).

I can only assume with time that, perhaps as her hands become more dexterous, she will no longer do such things with her feet. If she ever did them at all, and it’s not just in my imagination.

In any case, please enjoy a small sampling of the many photos I’ve taken of her feet.