People skills of a 3 month old. Smile. Eye contact. Infatuated with people who talk to her.
4.5 months. Excited when someone walks into the room. Quick to hug. People are still the only thing she cares about. She shuts her mouth and listens when someone sings to her or plays a song from pandora. Smiled even through her first sickness and throwing up seven times. When I hold her in front of a mirror, she is mostly looking at me, 
not herself.
I was talking with my doctor, Nicole Harvey yesterday and she commented on how great Sophia's eye contact is. She looks you in the eye and doesn't let go. Chris, another friend of mine the other day said, "Look at those eyes. She's looking into my soul."
Back to the conversation with Dr. Harvey. I responded with mentioning something I've oft wondered lately while observing my daughter. In public speaking courses and musical stage presence training professors teach you to have great eye contact with your audience. It's a powerful people skill and yet many babies do this instinctively. Dr. Harvey responded with a phrase that struck a chord with me. "I wonder when people lose that!"
Eye contact, smiling at people and being genuinely interested in others is something many babies are experts at and yet not very many adults reach adulthood with these skills intact.
I know I didn't. I had to relearn them from a great book called How to Win Friends and Influence People. When I read the principles in that book, I kid you not I started getting raises in the workplace, found getting along with coworkers to be extremely easy and went quickly from making minimum wage (with my two degrees) to making $18.00 an hour and then even higher in the worst economy since the Great Depression.
My challenge to myself is to practice being more like a baby. It turns out that simple things like eye contact, a smile, a hug and genuinely being excited to see someone and more interested in others than self are more important in life than my two degrees.
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