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Although my little grandson lives near the Canadian border (Fargo, ND) and here I am on the Mexican border, my daughter sends me frequent and fantastic videos of the little guy.  Got his first tooth yesterday.  Just watched two, one he’s in his lion costume (one of his middle names is Leo after his grandpa) and another video of him in his peanut suit with his Auntie.  He’ll be 8 months old on the 11th.

I don’t know if it’s my ‘advanced age’, or if it’s THIS baby, or if it’s being able to watch the wee one on video, and/or all the studying I have done in recent years about baby development where it matters most — left brain happy center, right brain social and emotional development, nervous system set point at PEACEFUL CALM — but what an incr5edible experience!  I get to see grandson, mom and pop just after Christmas when they come down to visit.

I WISH I had more babies around to watch!  I don’t.  But what I see in this little boy is that his parents and other loving caregivers have GOT IT RIGHT!  Such joy.  Such enjoyment he has in being alive, even in learning to sit up and tipping over backwards, even in watching the puppy jump out of his reach, even in making the most fantastic and ever advancing vocal sounds — he is IN JOY!

I know enough now to know that kind of joy only happens for a baby if it FIRST and foremost has a nervous system set point at peaceful calm.  Sure he gets startled at times, tummy hurts, soon to be MAD sometimes, even scared.  But always and for the rest of his life he has a nervous system-brain and immune system set at its mid balance point at peaceful calm — which translates in his world to absolute trust that he is loved, well cared for, and exists in a universe of safety and security.

From THERE his left brain happy center is being built — is WELL on its way — to being filled with as many happy center neurons as his brain can possibly produce in that center.  He is so vibrantly alive, so thrilled to be alive, so joy-filled — I have never seen its equal!

He will be, no doubt in my mind, one of those children and adults that other uninformed people point to and say, “Look at him!  He is so happy!  Grief doesn’t get him down.  Change doesn’t get him down.  Stress doesn’t get him down.  Why aren’t I like him?  Why aren’t YOU like him?”

Without the foundation that his parents and caregivers have given him over these earliest months, he would not develop the way that he has.  If he had been left in a cold harsh world, left with cold harsh (or even bored, uninterested or abusive caregivers) all his wonderful genetic material would have been forced down a different road — to a different end — a harsh one.

This little one will be able to ENJOY himself in his life.  For the rest of his life.

In this little one I see exactly what all the millions of years of human evolution has created — how humans are designed to respond to life with joy when they are loved and well cared for.  This is what nature has intended for us all from the time we are conceived.

But life doesn’t always go as nature has planned.  Many times the detour in development has to be taken.  We all need to understand exactly what this means.  There is no time in a human being’s life more critically important than conception to age one.  What happens to us during that time period determines the course of our lifetime — believe it or not.

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