Babies Watching Babies

In which your humble narrator watches a baby watching babies and loses any sense of perspective.

Child #2 is a far more social animal than Child #1. She smiles at strangers. She's learned all the names of the other little children in her two-day-per-week daycare room. She talks to cashiers. She's simply way, way more into people than Child #1 was as an 18-month-old.

Her most recent favorite pastime involves watching Babies (2010) the Thomas Balmès film about, well, babies. Wife-a-roo found the film on the online streaming section of Netflix and it's been a regular staple for about a week. Particularly in the evening after a hard day of annoying her brother, changing clothes twelve times and spreading filth as far as the eye can see, she toddles up, says "Watcha Baby!" and demands to be placed in lap in front of the computer. She'll usually watch intently for 10-20 minutes as the four babies from far-flung reaches of the globe go through their little baby lives. She's quite approving of the amount of dirt that the African and Mongolian babies get to experience on a regular basis. Another favorite scene is when the little Mongolian chap is taking a bath in a washtub and a friendly goat drops by to drink some of the bath water.

It's clearly animated viewing on Child #2's part. She imitates the babies facial expressions and even describes their emotional states, "Baby sad," or "Baby laugh." In short she's enthralled.

I'm less enamored. I've done a lot of baby-watching in the past three years and frankly I'd rather spend my screen time watching British people being devastatingly cruel to each other or possibly exploding.