> but seeing her proud of grabbing and biting a book, is much more exciting.
this is exactly the sort of common statement from parents that is completely impenetrably unfathomable by non-parents and may even frighten the latter a bit as to how something so superficially insipid can attain a compelling and inexplicable level of fascination
Of course, you could say similar things about non-parents playing games for hours and hours which essentially consist of bumping numbers up to higher values in mutable RAM and considering it a "good waste of time"
The thing is, you've just spent a month watching this pair of eyes follow you around the room, and this face very slowly get the hang of smiling (initially it is only when they are defecating).
When they get to the stage of being able to hold objects, this is a major event. When they get the hang of putting stuff in their own mouths during teething, rather than screaming until you let them bite your finger, is another, similar world-changing event.
This was a mystery to me too, before. Now I understand, and am even mildly interested in other peoples' babies (since I have one to compare them with.)
Parenting also has another similarity with D&D: your adversary is surprisingly intelligent. (when they're grouchy, they'll see through your hacks very quickly and scream until you do it properly, however tired you are. A "hack" in this instance might be giving them the same toy to chew again, rather than a new one from the mat.)
Oh, I wasn't knocking it! I'm sure that (possibly soon?), whenever I get around to making life, I'll be quite fascinated by it (I seem to find fascination often! There's a lot of complexity out there!)
Watching a brand new human go from a useless blob to a walking, biting, hand-waving mini-human is pretty fascinating stuff, especially if said tiny human belongs to you.
this is exactly the sort of common statement from parents that is completely impenetrably unfathomable by non-parents and may even frighten the latter a bit as to how something so superficially insipid can attain a compelling and inexplicable level of fascination
Of course, you could say similar things about non-parents playing games for hours and hours which essentially consist of bumping numbers up to higher values in mutable RAM and considering it a "good waste of time"