American in Spain

Battle of the Reflexes

July 13, 2009

Recently, I've seen three instinctual reflexes in my daughter develop into hundred-times-a-day behaviors. They are:

  1. Closing the fist tightly around any object placed in the hand.
  2. Pulling the hand to the mouth, most of the time empty, but sometimes with contents.
  3. Investigating objects with a highly sensitive touch organ: the tongue.

Sometimes, through an unfortunate series of events, these reflexes combine powers and render her incapacitated. A complete stalemate. Nora Got Your Tongue?

Luckily the tongue is a slippery little serpent, so it doesn't last for long. But for a few seconds the kid is in perfect functional deadlock.