Baby Love

It is an enchanting mix of charm, love, glee, joy and goodness to see how excited Mukisa gets when his nanny Sophie shows up after being away for a day. He adores her, and so do Ruth and I. If she brings one or both of her sons that sends Muki over the top. His unbridled, unselfconscious display of love for Sophie is intoxicating, but what does a baby know of love? They can live or die because of it; that's what they know. A baby left without physical or emotional affection will drift away and die. Babies who have love and are secure in it flourish. Mukisa has lived with love and security and health all his life (9 months). He typically falls asleep on his mother's back or on Sophie's. He sleeps between his mother and me every night and is rarely away from us for long during the day. And when we are gone, Sophie is with him. In the morning he bathes with his mom, sometimes both of us, then Sophie makes him warm milk or porridge. His mother or I feed him a banana and maybe some tea. Most mornings he sits on my lap on our balcony and watches the profusion of gorgeous birds, the sun and cloud show, and the visiting monkeys galloping over the rooftops and through the trees. Sometimes it rains and we talk about the rain.