potential energy

I recently learned a new concept in Chamorro tradition:  m'godai-- which I have NO IDEA if I'm spelling correctly, but it's pronounced something like "muh-GOD-eye."  Apparently it's the irresistible urge, when you see a cute baby, to squeeze or touch him.  (And it also encompasses the superstition that if it's your baby, and someone gets that urge, you have to let the person touch your baby or else the baby could get sick.)

Babies are sweet, sweet things, there's no doubt about it.  Their little drooly chins and pink rosebud lips and smushy chubby cheeks and round clear eyes and gummy smiles?  So darling.

I'm noticing something interesting, though, now with baby number two.  I find it a lot easier to think of her as a person than I did when Faith was a baby.  Now, obviously intellectually I always thought of Faith as a person.  But I mean that when I snuggle Josie, I don't just think of her as a snuggly bundle of cuteness (which she is), but also as a future adult.  Or at least, a future "big kid."  And that just brings this sense of awe that comes over me every now and then.

Maybe it's because I have Faith as daily evidence that babies turn into "real life people"?  Does it get easier and easier to see that potential in babies the more kids you have, or the older your kids get?