One of the things that people generally note about infants is how odd, strange, wonderful, amazing it is that they are miniature adults. They have all the parts, all the pieces, and they need all the clothes.

One of the first presents we received was from a close colleague in the United States. It was an egg carton filled with socks. A dozen socks, a pair in each of the egg holding compartments. Twelve of them. On sock for each foot, almost a different pair fo socks for two weeks straight. You get the idea.

I was totally bewildered by the volume (in terms of quantity) and amused in terms of the volume (in terms of cubic). I could not imagine that a child would need that many socks. Really. That would be more socks that I own. At least in the casual, polkadotted variety. And then, we started to put socks on Aldus. And then he started to kick them off, drop his sock covered feet into his dirty diapers and generally make a mess as only a baby can do.

Suddenly, a dozen socks does not seem like so many socks.