A leftish manifesto

Was he born looking left?

I was putting Kaden to bed the other night and happened to face him in the opposite direction from usual. Now, previous to this I always thought no matter which way I put him down he wanted to be facing the windows.

(He loves windows. Absolutely loves staring at them. I'm pretty certain his first word is going to be window. That or, "get me out of here." He either loves geometric bright objects, or he's planning his escape.)

Anyway, where was I? Ah yes.. so I put him to bed and his head turns away from the windows and faces the crib wall. And I think, "well that's odd because he hasn't shown a proclivity for wooden jail-like bars before." Perhaps he just always likes to look left?

So, after restraining myself from waking him up again to test this theory (I mean, I love theories, but let's face it I like sleep more - and anyway he slept for a record six hours) I mentioned his left-leaning tendancy to Megan.

Start-Up Mom: "Maybe that's because I always hold him on my right shoulder, so he's looking out to the left."

Start-Up Dad: "Huh. That's interesting, because I always hold him on my right shoulder too."

"And he's usually sleeping on my lap when he's on his right side."

"Uh oh, I smell a trend."

It turns out that Kaden's parents have somehow taught him in the first 11 weeks of his life that all of the interesting things are to the left of him. Today we went to get burritos, we played on the playmat at home, there was even some free-head movement standing action in there. All of it, virtually every last minute - Kaden looked left or straight.

Now to be fair, if I really try then he'll look right briefly. And when he's full-throttle screaming his head is going right/left/right/left quite a bit. But still, it's unmistakable that when given a choice, he prefers left.

Maybe it isn't us. Maybe he was born that way and we were just adjusting to his queues? Who are we to pre-judge his leftness? Maybe he's right? Perhaps it's a subliminal sign of his political sensibilities? This could be some weird nature vs nurture thing. We have no idea, but until he shakes the habit it is now a lot easier to check in on him by sneaking up on his right.


no.. your other left