Welcome, Maury

Ay, and while you slept, a baby, over all the English lands
Other little children took the volume in their hands;
Other children questioned, in their homes across the seas:
Who was little Louis, won’t you tell us, mother, please?


Now that you have spelt your lesson, lay it down and go and play,
Seeking shells and seaweed on the sands of Monterey,
Watching all the mighty whalebones, lying buried by the breeze,
Tiny sandy-pipers, and the huge Pacific seas.


And remember in your playing, as the seafog rolls to you,
Long ere you could read it, how I told you what to do;
And that while you thought of no one. nearly half the world away
Some one thought of Louis on the beach of Monterey!
--Robert Louis Stevenson

I returned yesterday from Sonoma. I flew down there for just one reason -- to hold Maury, my two week old great-niece, in my arms and look deep into her wondering, puzzled eyes. Babies are just babies, and to me they all look alike -- except when they arrive in my own family.

Just two weeks out in the open air, Maury still has only a few, very basic behavioral settings: she feeds, sleeps, cries, and poops. But while we adults are being delighted and/or irritated as she scrolls back and forth between these essential activities, we tend to overlook what is going on inside her small little head. Her eyes are darting around and her tiny hands are constantly reaching out for a reason: She is rapidly making mental connections between the outside world and the inner sensations given to her by her eyes, ears and skin. Her brain is multiplying synapses at an unbelievable rate, as she creates a mental map of the world about her.

She is shaping herself into a little person.

I watch her, and I think of the years that lie ahead. The joys and sorrows of childhood, adolescence and adulthood -- those joys and sorrows that may brush up against my own life, the many more that she will share only with others, and those that she will continue to experience after I'm no longer around to watch. This tiny baby reminds me that the appearance in our universe of even the dullest of human lives is an amazing phenomenon. With the kind of parents and background she has, I predict that Maury's life will be a technicolor supernova.

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a famous poem in London in honor of Louis Sanchez, his godson, born halfway around the world in Monterey. The best I can manage for Maury is a blog posting. But accept it happily, Maury, and know that your uncle was already dreaming of your life to come -- while you still dreamed only of your next feeding!