Imagination

If, in the future, we manage to be able to genetically alter the human race, then there are two things I would ask for.
One is that all children are born with a set of gauges on the side of them, a bit like in the computer game "The Sims". That way I'd be able to tell if my baby was crying because it was hungry, or whether it was tired or simply in need of a hug. Now Joseph is a little older it's getting easier to tell, so instead I'd want a nice display on the side of his head telling me what he's actually thinking. Why does he crawl under the table and try and get to all my boxes of CDs and DVDs? Why keep pulling his socks off? Why refuse to sleep even when obviously tired?
He plays with all sorts of stuff now and sometimes with his actual toys. Recently, when playing with one of his stacking cups, Andy saw him doing something interesting.
It was just after dinner and Joseph was sat in his booster seat. Quite often, Joseph likes to pick up his food and offer it to us. He finds it very amusing and seems to want to eat more if we accept. I think it's because he sees us giving him food and probably assumes that's what you're supposed to do.
He likes picking up crumbs and giving them to us and will even pick up small items of detritus from the floor and hand them over. I hope this means he is naturally tidy, but then I've seen him pick up his box of duplo and scatter it all over the floor in one easy motion. Who knows?
This time he was picking up absolutely nothing and handing it to Andy. He was also picking up nothing and putting it in the stacking cup. He then took the nothing out of the cup and put it back. Andy said that it was pretty clear that he knew it was nothing that he was picking up, he was pretending.
Imagination! Well, I've always had a pretty active one so it wouldn't surprise me if Joseph does too. I have to admit I hadn't expected to see signs of it yet, I thought things like that came later when speech starts, but I must be wrong. This is why I'd like a little display telling me what he's thinking. How much of what he does is curiosity and how much is actual imaginative play? What exactly is he imagining if that is the case? He's sixteen months old and his life experiences are pretty limited, although we've done our best.
If nothing else, the thought display might tell me why things like empty boxes, vacuum bags of his old clothes (we had a sort out but I've not had a chance to put them in the loft yet) and Lidl catalogues that come through the door, are all more preferable play things than his actual toys.
Come on the scientists, all the Mums in the world will thank you for this.