Be child-like.  I used to hear that phrase and it kind of glanced off me.  Yeah right, be child-like.

But now I get it.  It's so easy.  And so hard. 

Forgiveness, for example.  Elliot is great at forgiveness.  He will scream at us for hours in the middle of the night, but have no problem cuddling and laughing with us in the morning. 

The facile response is, "he just forgot about that."  But infants have great memories.  Elliot will go a week or more without seeing our camera, but when he does see it he'll lunge for it.

The truth is that he can be lonely and desperate in his crib at night, scream for us and hate us for abandoning him.  And in the morning he can forgive us.

We dismiss this as, um,  infantile.  We think it immature not to hold grudges, not to stew and mutter about slights against us, not to steep oneself in the bitter juices of resentment at every opportunity. 

Think of how the world would be if we all had the capacity for forgiveness of a one year-old.