Babies Don't Know What's Right

At the supermarket today, an adorable toddler approached me as I walked down the aisle.  A guy who I assumed was her dad walked behind her.  I’m not a good judge of baby ages, but she was probably still in the “goo goo” chewing-on-the fingers stage.  As they got closer to me, the dad said, “head to the left”.  At that moment, the baby looked up at me and immediately headed to her right.   The dad said, “I said head to the left” and took her by the shoulders and corrected her direction.   The dad then looked at me and sort of grinned in what I hoped was embarrassment, hopefully realizing  then the silliness and futility of his complicated command to this non-verbal goo-goo human.   I smiled and shrugged and said, “maybe she thought you meant my left.”