My little hitch-hiker

I hadn't seen my granddaughter in three weeks but when I walked into the house, she immediately stretched out her arms to me. Can her busy little brain remember me? Or is she a gregarious hitch-hiker seeking a lift from anyone willing to stop, a prickly burr holding tight to any passing leg?

She's more urgently vertical than she was at Christmas, pulling and reaching and stretching up up up. In baby swim class this morning she slapped the water, kicked her pudgy little legs like propellers, stretched her arms toward the rubber duck. With help from her parents she did the hokey-pokey and floated on her back but declined to blow bubbles in the water. Homework: practice blowing bubbles!

I remember holding my babies in the pool, helping them float and letting them feel that delicious weightlessness. They would jump into water way over their heads with no fear, no hesitation, just eagerness to fling themselves headlong into an unfamiliar environment, trusting that someone would be catch them. When do they lose that perfect trust? What makes them stop reaching out to embrace the unfamiliar?