Touch and Feel

Holden's been really into textures recently--soft, smooth, rough, you name it. Textures like brick or concrete make him especially happy. In the picture above, for instance, he's mesmerized by the outdoor concrete walls of the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts building, designed by Tadeo Ando. A reaction that made us laugh, since the Foundation itself tends to treat the building as though it is a divinely inspired space. Hmm...perhaps they should use this photograph on their promotional website.

To satiate Holden's texture fetish, we've been spending a lot of time reading "touch and feel" books. He loves the two pictured below. Especially poor old "Pat the Bunny," a cheaply constructed book that has fallen apart from one-too-many "pats." It's not such a bad thing though--despite my own fondness for this classic that I too owned as a child, the book is quite traditional in its parental gender constructions.

I've also become a bit more creative, using the rice cereal we have--but rarely use--as edible play dough/wonderful squishiness. Holden loved it, but spent most of his time simply picking up pieces, looking at them intensely, and then (of course) dropping them in his lap. I love watching him in these moments taking in the sensory experiences that we all take for granted. To imagine feeling things for the first time.