On the other hand, bright metal objects are apt in the course of their gyrations to deal bad thumps to little heads and noses; so one must compromise on rubber--uninteresting, but safe--and on such bone, metal (perhaps aluminum), and unpainted wooden toys as can be trusted to give only very mild thumps, such as a baby had better take now and then rather than be deprived of all really interesting toys. This is one of the many dilemmas in which the baby is lucky who has a grandma, or whose mamma can spare time to associate with him a great deal; for no end of things can be trusted in the little hands, that ache for everything in sight, if only vigilant fingers hover close, ready to ward gently off any dangerous movement. Sitting in one’s lap at the table, too, the baby may push and pull at many things not safe for him to lift; or he may be allowed to handle something safely tethered with a string. Certainly the wider liberty of holding and handling he can by any device be allowed, the better; the instinct is very strong, and wholly healthy, and the thwarting of normal instincts is not good for any one’s nerves or mind. In sight, important changes were no longer to be looked for: except possibly in the matter of color sense, the baby’s seeing had now passed through all the stages of development, and needed only practice and mental growth to become as perfect as it would ever be. She was evidently still at work somewhat, especially in new places, in reducing confused appearances to order; but so much of this work was already done that more and more she could sit and enjoy the varied spectacle. More than once she spent half an hour gazing thus out of the window with quiet pleasure. There were for the first time signs that she could distinguish between the sounds of voices. She looked and listened one day in the middle of the month, as if she noticed something unusual, when I was hoarse with a cold. Late in the month, as I read to her mother while she nursed the baby, singing softly to her (a frequent custom), the baby suddenly raised her head and looked curiously at me, evidently for the first time distinguishing the two voices as separate sounds. Her mother and grandmother had been saying to her a great deal, “Papa!” hoping to hasten her understanding of the word. This same day she imitated the motion of the lips, and seemed to find the feeling very funny, for she laughed, and laughed whenever she heard the sound explosively uttered during the next fortnight; she stopped in the midst of crying to laugh at it. Her amusement had not the faintest connection with the meaning of the word; indeed, she chuckled aloud with even more gayety when I ejaculated “poo-poo!” or “boo-boo!” instead. It was something in the explosive labial sound that struck her as comical.