These are Nat's hands.
But I was noticing Selina this morning and thinking that I really love the stage of babyhood when they are still quite little, but their hands start working properly. Selina is getting increasingly dextrous these days. If she reaches for it, she tends to get it. If she aims for her mouth, she makes it. If she grabs for a crumb fallen from her rice cake, she can pick it up with a perfect "pincer" grasp.
I think it melts my heart to watch because the hands seem so ahead of the rest of the child. She's still more or less a helpless, completely dependent being but her hands are a little window into her future as a competent, independent person.
It's a reminder of the fleeting nature of this time when they so easily love me. Who knows what those hands will get up to when they're attached to a 17-year old?
From a child development standpoint, Montessori was always fascinated with hands. Her theory was that the hands mirrored exactly what the child is able to handle cognitively and no more/no less. When they aren't able to grasp, grasping and touching everything would be more than their brain could process. Likewise, they don't move further away than their visual spatial system will allow. i.e. they only flip over when their brain could handle the idea that everything is going to turn upside down. And they start to scoot and crawl when they can process a little larger amount of 3D space. The pincer grasp comes along when they can finally eat small finger foods. They can only pull everything out of every nook and cranny when their brains are hungry for all that language that all those 'things' will afford them to discover. They can only write when their brain is ready to process reading. It's kind of interesting, though not exact. But she kind of found it a perfect marriage between form and function.
Posted by: Lisa | 12 April 2008 at 12:03 PM
As mom of two "elder" children, 21 and 16, I'll just say you probably don't want to think about those hands at 17.
Posted by: Daisy | 12 April 2008 at 01:21 PM
We first met both of our kids through photos, and our daughter's hands were the very first thing I noticed about her. When she arrived (at that time our agency escorted children from Korea to the US, and didn't allow us to travel) I couldn't wait to see those little hands. Coincidentally, she's 17 now, and I'm happy to say they into very good stuff :)
Posted by: Margie | 12 April 2008 at 03:01 PM
I love the painting, and I love what you have written about it.
Posted by: Robin Reagler | 15 April 2008 at 11:57 PM