Tiarnan tries Daddy's shoes

Tiarnan is an ambitious baby. Though his feet fit comfortably in the palm of my hand, with plenty of room to spare, he wants to start wearing my shoes.

Last night, I caught him trying on his mother's shoes. He had placed one foot in one of her shoes and was dragging it around with him, looking down at it to see the effect. He seemed quite pleased with himself.

Then I asked him: "Do you want to try Daddy's shoes?"

He took his foot from his mother's shoe and walked over to one of mine - which I had not pointed out - so clearly he knows who wears what. Then he put his foot into it and proceeded to walk in the same way - dragging it with him, keeping his foot close to the floor lest it fall off. He must have learnt this lesson at some point, for only with this style of walking was it possible to keep the rather large shoe on his foot.

Then he did something sweet. He stopped. He looked down at his shoed foot - and suddenly leant down to press with his outstretched finger the leather of the shoe. It was hilarious: he was testing where his toes got to, in the shoe! He was comparing his foot size to my own, by discovering where his toes were in the shoe.

I didn't see, the first time, precisely where his finger touched the shoe - it was just along its end section. However, he did it a second time. This time he placed his finger directly on the little bump in the leather where my big toe has shaped the shoe. Was he being hopeful that it was caused by his own toe? Was he wondering what that bump was?

Once again, I am confronted with evidence of his perceptual abilities: for it was dark outside, where he was - yet he was able to distinguish that bump, in the dimness of the light, not knowing what it was. How observant of him.

It is in actions like this, that one can see the reasoning processes at work in a baby's mind. Were he not curious about the place of his foot in that shoe, he would not have pressed upon the leather. These little things are easily missed by a parent, in this busy modern life of ours - but it is worth watching one's children closely - for so many things become evident about them, if you do.

Have a great parenting day!

(If you would like to learn more of Tiarnan, fourteen months, or his gifted brothers, Ainan Celeste Cawley, seven years and four months, a scientific child prodigy, or Fintan, three, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, baby genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children. Thanks.)