As We Grow...

I have spent about four weeks observing my new infant child and I have nearly come to the conclusion that he is not of this world. At first, it was a novel thing to say; he arrived as a shaking blue mass of slimy flesh with reptilian eye slits. He looked, as Bill Cosby once quipped, like a lizard. Everyone knows that they grow out of this appearance, but it's still fun to joke about how your baby is an alien with your mate as she lay destroyed on the birthing bed.

A newborn "human."

Now, I understand why everyone goes on and on about how adorable little babies are. Indeed, a newborn infant is the manifestation of purity and innocence. As parents, we are blessed with the opportunity to witness their growth as each day brings about a new milestone in development. Just the other day, my child greeted me with the biggest smile when I got home from work. The last bit of his umbilical cord recently fell off as a reminder that he is an individual. A few days ago, he managed to poop through his diaper onto his clothing.

Milestones.

But what is it about babies that gives them the distinct quality of being a baby? They look and behave differently than adults. They have strange reflexes that seem to have no use - reflexes that soon fade out. So, at what point, as adults, do we go from being slimy, lizard people to being civilized humans? When do we lose the ability to eat, sleep, poop, and pee at the same time? For that matter, why do we lose that ability? That would be amazing both in its grandeur and its incredible time efficiency.

And why do we have to grow into our adult bodies?

Why?

Perhaps it's due to the fact that infants are constantly folded into odd positions that we cannot see the oddity of their form. They are either being held or swaddled or tossed into an oven. But if you were to straighten one out, or perhaps train it to walk at 4 weeks, you'd notice that its head is nearly 1/3 the size of its whole body. Why is this? When they raise their adorable baby arms, they barely extend beyond their adorable baby heads. What purpose does this serve?

So now I can't decide if it would be creepier if we kept our infantile proportions throughout our lifetime, or if we were all born with adult proportions, only tiny. Either way, I'm having nightmares tonight.