BABIES BABIES BABIES

Blog number 390 **** 23 May 2009

We went to Mimi's this morning for breakfast. While eating we kept hearing this child making noises like babies do. I knew from its voice that it was a girl. When we left we passed by a mother, a grandmother, a girl about seven years old and her sister, a cute little thing wearing braids. At first I had a hard time getting her to look at me, but when she did, her face brightened up so beautifully. When we left, Teresa looked back and said that she was still staring at us.

That's all I got on that.

You had to be there.

We went to Walmart's from there. They were giving away free ice cream in the form of pretty large sundaes. Three different flavors of ice cream, plus three different sauces. Impossible to turn down.

There was a girl about eight years old, or ten or twelve, eating one of the free sundaes. I am pretty sure she had a slight case of Down's syndrome, which is why it was so hard to gage her age. I asked her if I could have a bite and she gave me a look like, "Go get your own. This is mine." She smiled and approached Teresa, and after I got my ice cream I offered her some of mine, which she refused. She talked to us a bit. Both Teresa and I are pretty sure that we have talked to her before in some other place. I think at Safeway's. She seemed like she knew us.

When we were checking out, she caught me from behind and gave me a hug. I learned from being with Teresa when she used to work with these people that almost always they are very loving. I think it might be Nature's way of experimenting with a species of loving humans. I sure hope it takes. If I had to choose between love and intelligence, I would choose love. But that's just me. 'sides, I ain't too impressed with what we call intelligent people anyhow. We come up short both ways. Too little of one, not where it really counts with the other.

But the baby that brought me to be writing this entry was one that caught my eye just before we went to check out. She was about nine months old and with her sister who was a year and a half, and her mother. We think they were adopted because the mother was white and both babies were Black. The nine month old was very, very Black and so beautiful! Her skin just shone, like a black pearl. I just kind of went slack jawed when I saw her and I poked Teresa and said, "look at that!" We are sure they were adopted African babies.

When I went up to her she stared at me with no indication of what was going through her head. I have learned that this usually means they are scared, so I backed off a bit, but when Teresa came up the baby looked at her and smiled and then I started talking to her and she just opened up. She was so beautiful! I can't get over it yet. We started talking to the mother and the baby dropped her head in shyness until her chin was on her chest and she never picked it up again, She did this still with a smile on her lips - as if she was embarrassed at the attention. I said to the mother, "Look. She knows we're talking about her!." The mother replied that she was very smart. Which was obvious.

What a wonderful day that was,