Laughing Buddha

If you’re wondering what it’s like to be a baby, just go strap yourself in to something: a car, a giant stroller, a shopping cart, anything will do. Strap yourself in for what you believe is going to be twenty minutes, and then stay that way for forty. Then imagine what you want to eat and being fed something different. Then imagine somewhere you’d like to visit, and being brought somewhere else. Then imagine being bathed, dressed, and undressed, in different order, at different times, and in different styles than you would have chosen, if anyone had bothered to ask you. Imagine wanting very much to make your feelings about all of the above known, and to have the ideas firmly in mind but not the language to communicate them. Imagine wanting to sleep when you’re made to wake up, and wanting to be awake when you are made to sleep. What would this number of mental challenges do to you? If you were my daughter, it would make you a little laughing Buddha with a budding mischievous streak. It would make you pretty much literally climb the walls as you looked for a way to express your individuality and then let out great sighs of relief when mom or dad came to bring you back down to earth. More than anything else, it would make you yearn for the next phase of your life – whatever it might be.