My city baby

It has really become clear over the last few months that I have a city baby on my hands. Living in the urban jungle that is Manhattan I guess this is hardly surprising. But I still get surprised that what I took for granted growing up, Noah finds novel. Or alternatively, what I found so fascinating and rare, Noah hardly looks twice at.

Take grass. On our recent trip home to Australia, I was ecstatic at the prospect of the warm Sydney summer sun, swimming in my parents pool with Noah and playing in the backyard. But Noah cried the first time I placed him on the grass, holding his little legs up at 45 degree angles whilst trying to balance in a sitting position. He continued to protest and adopt this pose every time I sat him on the grass thereafter. Meanwhile back in Manhattan, he likes nothing better than crawling around, bare-kneed, on the cement and rubber over the park. Gravel and sticks do not phase him, grazes and cuts hardly get a flinch from him - but a little grass Down Under and we have tears!

Noise tolerance is another great example. We are frequently out and about with Noah snoozing in his stroller, when we have fire-engines, police cars or ambulances scream past us (often several at a time). Noah never stirs. At home, we frequently have the same occurrence at all hours, and I pray every time that Noah won't wake up, he never does. His parents might be wide eyed at 2am, but Noah sleeps soundly undisturbed by the sirens screaming down the block.

His fascination with anything that moves, flies or crawls, may not be uniquely a city-baby phenomenon, but how wildlife deprived he is, is. His excitement at seeing a subway rat, is only trumped by seeing the mangy pigeons over the park. Noah points and squeals and tries desperately to run after the animal (or rodent) with pure delight in his eyes. Coming from a city that has more species of skinks in the average backyard than the whole of the United Kingdom, rodents never fascinated me in quite the same way - and I tried to save nearly every type of living animal in our backyard at one point or another. I can't wait for Noah to see cockatoos and kookaburras, possums and blue-tongue lizards. For now rats and pigeons will have to suffice.