Wish I Was as Smart as a Baby

Children are smarter than they get credit for. It seems like studies are continually proving it, like this one that says babies exposed to more than one language can differentiate between them by the time they're 7 months old. Seven months old!! They haven't even built up the muscle to crawl at that point, but according to the article, they can recognize language cues like pitch and word order. The researchers are telling parents not to worry about confusing babies by exposing them to multiple languages because "your baby is very equipped to keep these languages separate and they do so in remarkable ways."

These types of scales are FREEZING cold to bare skin.

Brains are interesting. Especially baby brains. I'm terrible at conversation starters, but one question I like to ask is, "What was your first memory?" I'm convinced that babies are very rational, we just can't remember it ourselves and babies certainly can't convey all their thoughts. I think this because of my oldest memory: being weighed on one of those archaic metal scales like the one in this picture.

I don't know how old I was - between one and two - but I distinctly remember having thoughts but not knowing how to verbalize them. My mother and the doctor were having a conversation and I could follow some of it and I did not like what they were saying, but I didn't say anything. I don't think I knew how to express myself except by crying, which I did as soon as they put me on the dumb scale.

Every parent believes that their child is the most brilliant baby to ever enter the world. As Roald Dahl put it, “It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.” Which is nice to keep in mind if you happen to be the "blister" type. Regardless, there have been interesting stories about babies that obtained extraordinary skills at a very young age. In fact, we all had some superpowers as babies. We could read minds, easily see differences in images, listen to several sound frequencies at once and see pure color.

Wouldn't it be amazing if we retained the special skills of babies in combination with our current cognizance? We'd be crazy smart.
Maybe we needed those superpowers temporarily in order to adapt to a world that gave us so much to think about.