coming out of my shell

coming out of my shell

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Looking and learning

We recently returned from a deeply satisfying trip where we met our gorgeous great granddaughter.

She is only one month old. Like a new puppy, she's just learning to keep her eyes open and look around. When she is awake, she's fully engaged. I get the distinct feeling that with everything she sees, or smells, or hears, or touches, she is actively learning.

Then I wonder how you can possibly learn without language? I'm so used to having language skills dominate my existence, I forget there are other ways to learn. When you are a month old, you learn with all of your senses. Everything is new, and most everything seems wonderful. 

I want to be more like that baby.  



22 comments:

  1. It is wonderful to watch babies absorbing every sound, feel, sight, taste. I am not sure about smell but you can actually see pleasure as they experience new things.

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    1. They are an absolute joy. Can they smell? Well I had never considered that before. You got me thinking. So I googled this https://www.parentingscience.com/newborn-senses.html

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  2. Welcome to the new person!
    I agree with you. The first time for . . . what wonders.
    There is lots of evidence that babies learn words even before birth, e.g. listening in the womb. Language development happens long before a baby/child uses speech.

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  3. I love new babies, well, all babies. She's beautiful. You are blessed.

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  4. A lovely new baby, who will grow up with speech, a wonderful gift.

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  5. Sweet baby girl! What a joy to spend time with her.

    That's it exactly! Babies do learn with ALL their senses. Babies are conscious throughout their bodies. Yoga and meditation are two ways that help adults be fully in our bodies. I was experiencing that this afternoon. Moments of being present between thoughts of wondering what it is like to be a baby and experience everything I experience but without my inner verbal commentary (-:

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  6. Young babies are a lesson to sere and withered adults. I watch them propelled round our local supermarket (Tesco, if you are brand-conscious) and it's as if they were touring the Kölner Dom, Whoops, the head swings right but only for a nanosecond, then whoops, it swings left for more and different delights, then up, then down. They are reading the universe and committing it to memory. For the moment the Dog-Food Aisle will suffice but the day will come, assuming their parents and/or grand-parents are intellectually adventurous, when these babies, now in their teens, stand on their own feet in the courtyard in Cologne, look up at the cathedral's twin spires (157 metres, and that's a long way up) and say to themselves "I sort of knew this building existed."

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    1. "They are reading the universe and committing it to memory."

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  7. How lucky you are that you have gotten to see your first great-grandchild and she is beautiful. I hope that day comes for me someday.

    Like all creatures, our senses teach us more than anything else.

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    1. I hope that day comes for you, too. I imagine you are a lovely grandma.

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  8. It would be nice to set aside all our intellectualizing and just BE, wouldn't it?

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  9. So happy for you. All fresh and new, so many discoveries await.

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  10. I wish I was more like that baby too. All my senses still wide open to the world around me rather than fogged up by all sorts of adult distractions.

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  11. Oh she is Precious and I want to Learn more like that too..., Children really enjoy the Sensory Pleasures so much more than Adults and Appreciate so much that Life has to offer us for Free!

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  12. Congratulations - I'm sure that was wonderful meeting her.

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So, whadayathink?