An Existential Conundrum…or - Baby Einstein’s Theory of Relativity
Sean is out of town for a few days, so the other night I (Frith) invited over Tully and my folks for dinner and a movie. We thought, “Hey, haven’t watched some of Decker’s old video footage in a while…let’s pop in one of his tapes and take a stroll down memory lane!”. So I pulled out the one from March 2004, when Decker was 7 1/2 months old. And Decker…freaked out. Seriously. We tried pausing it and fast forwarding to different spots to see what might be troubling him, and finally concluded that he doesn’t realize that a) the mommy on the tv is the same mommy holding him at that very moment in her arms, and b) he doesn’t realize that the baby she’s playing with on the tv is actually HIM. As best we could tell, he was really put out with watching him mom play with another kid (even though it was just his younger self!). I know he tends to get weirded out by the disembodied voice on answering machines, but apparently it also applies to video as well. Sort of puts a damper on being able to watch stuff while he’s awake. 
Editorial Comment from Decker: Hey there…Mommy put a video on the tv the other night, but it wasn’t Sesame Street or Baby Einstein…it was her playing with some other kid! And a BABY, at that! Doesn’t she know that I’m much more interesting than some old baby with more chins and less hair than me? I’m way cuter - that baby could only crawl, while I can run around the couch! I let her know I wasn’t happy about it, and she turned it off finally. Phew! I couldn’t handle the competition! She was hugging this kid like he was one of her own!