Always listening

We live in a rich, diverse auditory environment. Airplanes, traffic, horses, loud music, ambulatory sales people, and neighbors talking, arguing, and singing converge to produce our daily soundtrack. Almost-21-month-old Simon is soaking it all in. Take the following example.

We don't listen to or sing Justin Bieber in our house. But that didn't prevent Simon breaking into a chorus of "Baby, baby, baby, oh, like baby, baby, baby, etc." the other night while preparing for bed. His surprisingly good pitch enabled me to recognize it from our bus rides and cranked-up radios of our neighbors. The boy has been paying attention! The video doesn't quite capture it (as usual, we came too late with the camera and missed the moment), but is still cute.

A more touching demonstration of Simon's listening ability manifested itself a couple times in the past week. We were sitting inside playing (once at our house, once at a neighbor's) when suddenly Simon stopped and said, "She's sad" and "cries." I had not even noticed the strains of a child's cry from another house on the block. Simon, however, heard and identified the emotion. Is this how our children begin to teach us? I want to take time to listen carefully and notice people's emotions like Simon does. May we all continue to grow into compassionate, loving people!