Neophile

     neophile (noun) - a personality type characterized by a strong affinity for novelty

     A while ago I came across this in one of my baby books,  Amazing Baby by Desmond Morris - that all babies are neophiles; they love new things:

          It is something that is stronger in humans than in any other species. 
         Given a rich, varied and friendly environment, every toddler will 
         spend hours every day trying out new things and exploring different 
         possibilities, as she feeds her growing brain with a variety of sen-
         sations and experiences. (Morris, 130)

     I found this concept intriguing as I had noticed this to be so true of Laura. Even when she was a little baby, I remember her crying when we would come home from somewhere, and I just knew it was because she was bored of exploring our house and would rather be out and about learning new things.

     However, this past week, her neophilia has worked to my advantage:

     Laura has come to an age where she has started to remember relatively long-term things. Like ladies with pointy needles who poke her and it hurts.  After her 15-month doctor's appointment, it was requested that she come in for an extra check-up between then and her 18-month appointment. So I brought her in about a month and a half later just to have her weighed and her height measured. But she remembered the doctor's office, she remembered the nurse who hurt her, and she remembered that she did not like being there; she threw an absolute fit the whole time we were trying to take her height and weight. I began dreading her 18-month appointment where she would actually have to have another needle. But, by some twist of fate, our doctor switched offices between her weigh-in appointment and her 18-month needle appointment. And, thanks to Laura's neophilia, she was too busy exploring the new Pooh-adorned walls of the baby exam room to realize what was coming. So she did really well having her height measured and weight taken, and didn't even end up crying for her needle (to be fair her mouth was full of boob, thus making it difficult to cry). And now we are gloriously needle-free until she goes to school!! And I'm sure she will have forgotten by then. Hooray for neophilia!
(The only crappy part of this story is that she woke up in the middle of the night miserable with a huge fever and kept us up for two hours.)