Babies: They're Smarter Than You Look

Tonight, as I was coming home from church, I had a revelation. Babies are much smarter than we take them to be. I came across this discovery after much scientific and highly complicated research, namely, watching and playing with a baby for about 10 minutes.

This super-baby, as some may call him, is Aaron and Sara's (fellow church-goers and bloggers) baby, Basil. Innocent as he may look, inside his head is a brain that is constantly coming up with new ideas and ways to make himself happy. The number one way he does that is by laughing and smiling. But, he cannot just laugh and smile for no reason at all! He must devise a sinister and devious method of having other people make him laugh.

How does he do this you ask? Simple. He instigates "silly" and "childish" behavior that we "grown-ups" consider "funny" and "cute", and we think it is so humorous that we imitate him...in essence we are tossing dignity aside and acting like babies. And babies think that this is simply hilarious, so they will go out of their way to do silly things which older kids and adults will imitate and thereby make themselves look like fools...and babies love it!

Some of the techniques that Basil used were:

1. Putting his finger/hand in his mouth and moving it up and down, making it so that all of the noise that came out of his mouth sounded like "Aabaabaabaabaagaabaagaabaagaa"

You can just imagine how silly it looks for an adult to try and imitate this. A fellow churchgoer, Yumi, fell for this trick. She saw Basil do this, and she tried it herself...And I just know that Basil would be laughing his head off if he could, while thinking to himself, "Do you know how silly you look?!? Ahahahahaha!!!"

2. Flailing his arms in a maniacal fashion.

This is a rather nasty technique that, when pulled off correctly, makes the victim look like a retard. Unfortunately for me, Basil got me good. He started waving his arms around, and I did the same thing, and I'm sure I looked strikingly like a constipated seagull with a wing infection. I bet Basil will be remembering that one for a while...laughing at me on the inside everytime he sees me. "Hahahaha!!! It's the retarded seagull boy!"

3. Having a blank stare on his face, effectively luring the victim into striking range, and then delivering the finishing blow.

Alas, I fell for this one too. Sara was holding Basil in her arms, and Basil was staring at me with a blank expression on his face. Being a guy, I naturally assumed he was challenging me to a staring contest. I accepted, and tried to intimidate him by moving closer to him to try and make him blink. Being the ingenious mastermind that he is, Basil kept his expressionless face on until I was close enough, at which time, with lightning quick speed, he swung his arm up and whacked me right in the nose. I recoiled backwards, and he flashed me a mischievious smile as if to say, "Gotcha!"


So the next time a baby makes a funny face, or makes a funny noise, or tries to play possum, don't be caught off guard! It's all an elaborate scheme to make you, the grown-up, look silly. They are pleasure seekers, and they get pleasure from making you do ridiculously stupid things. Ingenious, isn't it? Well, I'm done for now. I need to get this wing infection looked at.