What Fascinates a Three-Year-old?

If you think about it, it's amazing what fascinates and interests people, and this is just as true for very young ones. I read somewhere that young children are like little scientists exploring and testing their world to see how it works. This was certainly true of Leif, who wanted to figure out how everything worked . . . and he had a mother with a camera that loved watching him do it. I caught him on the floor having unbuckled his belt and he was carefully examining the buckle to see exactly how it worked. I doubt there are any other mothers who would take a picture of their son scrutinizing a belt buckle, but it just seems to like him to want to figure it out.

The date I wrote on the back of this photo was clearly wrong if the place was correct because it said it was taken in Fuerth, Germany in January 1977. However, we were living in Charlottesville, Virginia in January 1977 and didn't move to Fuerth until the summer of 1977. So it's probably January 1978 when Leif was just about 3 years old.

This photo is a great example of why it's a good idea to scan photos before they go bad. Despite some extensive PhotoShop work, you can still see that there are yellowed areas with a purple tinge at the end at the top and bottom of the photo. We have too many photo processed in Germany that have discolored yellowed areas or where the entire print has turned orangey in color. This is caused by improper processing and will only worsen with time. I can salvage some of them with PhotoShop, but they will never look like they should.