Nature vs Nurture

Today when I dropped Norah off at daycare, her teacher Miss Digna, literally couldn't wait to grab her and hug her. "She's sooo cute!" Then Miss Julie, who only occasionally covers the infant room, stopped in because she saw us, and asked to hold her, as it had been a while (week??) Then Miss Stephanie arrived, and grabbed Norah and took her over to play.

Now, I know Norah is cute, but I am her mother. Even I can see that the other kids are cute too! I'm glad, of course, that everyone wants to pay attention to her also, but it got me thinking about how much of a people person she is, and how much of it's nature vs. nurture.

I've seen Norah working an entire waiting room full of people... not just mothers and kids either, old Chinese guy, 20'ish big brother, harried dad on his blackberry... all of them, smiling and being silly with Norah. We meet a lot of people this way - have I told you abouther fan club at church??? Also, she doesn't seem to need sleep if there is a party going on.. (she still does later, of course, and I guess it's my job as Mom to keep track of such things)

Back to my musing, I don't THINK there has been anything we've done as parents to make her thrive so much on people and commotion... in fact our home is quiet, if anything. Since we moved to the burbs and don't have a lot of extended family nearby, it's mostly just us. On the other hand, since she arrived, I haven't been shy about having other people hold her, though as you probably know, leaving her is always hard on me (even when there are multiple sets of arms for her to go to like this morning!)

So, knowing that the nature/nurture debate is ongoing, I'd have to agree :) I think she intrinsically is an extrovert, and gets her energy from being around people. But I'd also like to think we've enabled and nurtured this tendency in our parenting work so far. It will be interesting to see if and how this plays into her path in life.

No rush Norah, but I can't wait to see!