“Seeing through a child’s eyes.”
It’s one of those hallowed promises of parenthood—one of the reasons we put ourselves through the wringer with a child: an opportunity to see things new again. After a few conscious decades on earth, it’s hard to chip away the hardened layer of understanding that limns our senses like rime. (Hard to even know that layer is there!)
Little kids haven’t been on earth long enough to have those clouded senses yet—they just see stuff, and that stuff is crazy to them.
Trains, for instance. My son is obsessed with trains. Even noises that suggest choo-choo light up his face. The last time I noticed a train without his presence was probably when a train crossing interrupted my commute.
Animals are another example. Animals—or, really, images of animals—are everywhere.
At nearly two years old, my son’s collection of words currently includes several animal words: dog (more often called just oof oof), cat, cow, horse, bird.
Even that small number is enough to shock me with the things he notices. Not real animals, of course, save for dogs (in the park) and cats (in our home), but the animal imagery that is everywhere.
Of course, our culture loves associating children with animals. Every other piece of clothing has a bear or lion or elephant; every other toy has an animal theme; almost every children’s book features an animal.
But animals are other places, too. Places that I never noticed until he did.
A few months ago, my son picked up one of our cat’s bowls.
Cat, he said, cat, pointing at the bowl.
Yes, I told him. Cat indeed. Now let’s put down the bowl before we break it?
Cat, cat, he said, pointing to the side of the bowl.
And, duh, of course. A pattern of geometric cats ringed the outside of the bowl. I’d never noticed it before, even though I’d plopped wet food into this bowl hundreds of times.
A few days later, same bowl.
Shish, he said, shish, pointing at the bowl. (He struggles with fs.)
I looked at the bowl and sure enough, above the cat pattern were a series of geometric fishes. Not even cartoon fishes; these were just two intersecting lines. But recognizably shish to my son.
I understand, of course, how adult perception strips away what we have deemed unimportant. You can only notice so much in a day. An adult would quickly drown drinking from the world’s firehose of detail. (Don’t look too hard at something, or the details will suck you in.)
But little kids drink from that firehose—they can’t help it. That’s why after a long day of adventures out in the world (a hike! the supermarket! a bike ride!), my son is practically asleep at the dinner table. Too much stimuli, too much detail.
So, I’m here for the animal imagery—just not too much of it at once, or I’ll need an early bedtime.
Taylor Coe 