Little apes

Home all day with the girls, one of my favorite things to do is just stake out a spot near them and watch them play on their own. When they were smaller, this wasn't an option. But now, for short periods of time, it is. They'll play around me, sometimes involving me, sometimes on their own. It's like watching a nature show. Anyone who can watch most of what's on Discovery could watch toddlers playing without noticing much difference. Seriously, they should tape this stuff and run it with some anthropologist doing a voice-over, "Notice how the dominant female asserts her power with the display of screaming, and if that doesn't work with physical aggression." I'm reading a book right now called "Beautiful Minds" about the similarities in the intellectual and social evolution in dolphins and primates. The parts about chimpanzees are so funny to me, because they compare them to small children all the time. And it's so clear that it's an accurate comparison. The way Rowan walks and the way chimps walk are pretty similar right now...legs picked up high, arms up for balance. And if Saoirse could get access to trees to climb, she'd be thrilled.

Not long ago the girls ate grapes for the first time. First in a very controlled setting, in their high chair with little cut-up grapes. Then we moved on to a more naturalistic experience. They wanted to check out the bag I was getting them from. I wasn't moving quickly enough, apparently. Watching them experiment, pulling the fruit off the vines, tasting the vines themselves to see if they were food too, trying to edge each other out of the way and get the grapes all to themselves...it was priceless. My little hairless primate babies...