1 Grand-baby B loves her black and white images and her Mum and I were delighted to see the reflection of the images in her eye.
Several of my readers asked about the earlier photos I posted of Baby B ‘reading’ her Art for Baby book. Neurologists say that newborns are only capable of focusing 8 to 10 inches from their face. They also prefer black and white, high contrast images to colour graphics. There is a very interesting article here if you’d like to find out more. The following is included in the article.
Hannah Lazenby, 29, a maternity nurse from Harrogate, has looked after dozens of babies over the past 10 years, usually from the day of their birth. She believes a simple black and white image can soothe any crying baby: “It gives them something to concentrate on when they’re bombarded by so many different images after the calm of the womb. This is something very simple that they’re transfixed by – they can’t take their eyes off it. I have had children who have been fractious or had colic and found myself thinking, ‘You poor thing, I don’t know what else to do, I’ll give you this to look at.’ And it does seem to work.”
2 I spent a fascinating morning at the Royal Cornwall Museum, learning about Wildworks’ new project, The Museum of Us. The cabinet in the poster will be filled with objects that local people are asked to bring to the museum.
We, the volunteers,will be finding out the stories behind the objects and why they mean ‘Cornwall’ to the owners. We each had to take an object and mine was a rock!
3 1989 was my parents’ Golden Wedding Anniversary and the family collected together from Yorkshire, Germany, Atlanta and Arizona for two weeks in Cornwall where Mum and Dad still lived. We spent one happy afternoon picnicking and playing on one of our favourite beaches, Kynance Cove. Our eldest daughter found a beautiful piece of Serpentine, pale green on its fractured side and with red veining underneath. About half an hour later one of my nephews found a beautiful piece of Serpentine and we were all amazed to realise that the two pieces fitted together! They were one rock which had split. Now I know one shouldn’t take rocks from the beach but these were too special to leave behind. Our piece came home with us and Lael’s piece went home to Prescott, Arizona with that side of the family. The rocks are part of a whole. The rocks mean Cornwall and family and togetherness to us all.