When do we become who we are? Are we ourselves from the time we're thrown out our mothers' wombs? I know when I feel like myself - whatever that means. When Axel grabs at my face, and then slips his thumb into his mouth, it seems like he knows that I'm separate from him - and if he knows other things and people aren't him, then does he, on some level, know that he is himself? Oh, I think I'm giving myself a headache.
I'm watching Axel become a little person, and his emerging personality makes me wonder where all this person-ness comes from. At just five and a half months old, he's got strong opinions - and he's not at all shy about expressing them. No one in the same room - or house - as he is wonders where Axel stands on just one more bite of rice cereal (Horrible!) or silver cellphones (Genius!) or rattles (Fantastic! Unless they hit you in the eye - then very, very bad!). He's generally a pretty happy fellow, and he spends long chunks of time merrily chatting with track lights and the bushes we pass on walks. Axel wants to be wherever the action's at - if we move into the kitchen and he's still in the living room on his mat, he lets us know he doesn't appreciate being left out. His favorite form of punctuation is the exclamation point. He's never still, unless he's just noticed something interesting - like our dog walking by, or a cute blonde in the grocery store. Axel's a hundred pounds of excitement and energy in a thirteen pound package.
On Saturday, we went to brunch with friends who have a baby almost two months younger than Axel. While Axel sat up in a high chair, contorting himself to stare up at the ceiling, then flapping his arms wildly, our friends' son was a calm, chubby angelic baby, just relaxing in his car seat, taking it all in. You could imagine them in a few years - Axel as the crash test dummy of the pair, riding his trike at full speed off of a porch, while his friend hangs out and takes a more relaxed (and slightly less likely to cause scars) approach.
About halfway through the meal, Axel moaned and squawked loudly, demanding a change in the suddenly intolerable situation of being strapped in a chair, forced to stare at four adults eating omelets and pancakes. Sean turned the high chair to the side, so that Axel faced the movement of the restaurant, and, feeding off of the energy of the mid-morning brunch crowd, he was again content. Our friends' baby let out a few sweet grunts when he wanted to get out of the car seat - the baby equivalent of, "Hey, guys, I'm a little sick of the car seat. If you wouldn't mind, can you take me out for awhile?" Anyone want to guess which boy is sleeping thorugh the night? Yeah, that's right, not our hyper (yet adorable) babe. My brother asked me why Axel's not sleeping more, since he's so active during the day. Because the child runs on sunlight and milk, and doesn't need rest. Really, I think the answer is that Axel gets so excited about the world - he can move his arms, together, on purpose! There are daffodils sprouting in the neighbor's yard! When he pushes a yellow button on his exersaucer, it talks to him! - that it's challenging to slow down.
It's the never-ending nature versus nurture question. How much of Axel is wrapped up in his DNA? I don't think we could have taught him to be cheerful, though I'm sure that our happy responses to his smiles reinforce that part of his nature. And, while I bounce my legs if I'm sitting for too long and feel really cranky if I don't get to exercise or walk around enough, I don't think I could have already taught Axel to be on the energetic-verging-to-hyper side. Maybe we're all built with tendencies - like a leaning toward tea versus coffee, or emotional moderation on one end versus being more tempestuous on the other. Perhaps environment can slide us a bit up and down various scales, but can it rewire us? I'm not sure. Axel's so much more of a person now than he was as a three-day-old warm lump of baby smells, but is that because he knows how to control his facial muscles and communicate his moods in ways I understand now, or has his character somehow become fleshed out by the act of living? Probably both. It feels like I've always known him, and known Axel as himself, with the personality he's showing now, though that can't be true, because, when he was a newborn, I couldn't see beyond the mewing, sleeping, swaddled baby to any nuances. He will change more, as he grows, and my sense of him will, too, as I watch him develop.
