Give the right things a chance to catch you. @captainsweetdreams - Tumblr Blog

When I was in uni my housemates had a baby, and we taught them some sign language so they could communicate before all their mouth parts were coordinated yet. None of us knew Auslan but two of us were familiar with the signs that the State Emergency Services used in the field so we worked with those.

The kid learned to request a drink, which is great, because that's like the #1 most important thing for a baby to be able to request, but instead of learning any of the other signs they just used modified versions of the drink sign to ask for all kinds of things. They couldn't actually make the proper drink sign (it requires some level of hand control) and used a modified wave, so they ended up with a whole bunch of subtly different waves to ask for stuff. Which was pretty fun in public because strangers would coo over this adorable baby who kept waving at them when, in practice, the baby wanted their ice cream.

derinthescarletpescatarian

#you can teach babies sign language before words?#huh i guess i always assumed they'd gain language at the same rate regardless of whether it's spoken or signed

Babies gain language much earlier than they start talking. They can understand you before they know how to make the right word sounds with their mouths. Speaking, like writing, is a feat of incredible physical coordination that we generally undervalue because it's been muscle memory for years or decades, but it involves a lot of very precise coordinated physical movements that take a lot longer to learn than the words themselves do for someone who's new at this whole having a body thing. Complex language is also not all that critical for baby sign language. To a baby, communicating hunger via crying or via reaching towards your food isn't markedly different to communicating it with a hand gesture, and they don't need particularly sophisticated language skills to do any of those things, so you can start teaching them hand signs pretty much as soon as they have a concept of deliberately communicating with others.

Babies do need simple gestures, though, because they're not any better at coordinating their fingers than they are their lips.

depsidase

mysharona1987

lynati

If the trash pickup people stop doing their job for two weeks you'd be throwing a fucking tantrum. Same for the janitors who keep your office spaces and bathrooms clean. (And that's before the various illnesses start to spread all over your city from the build up of pathogens.)

The people responsible keeping our spaces clean (and thus, mostly disease-free) should both be paid more AND thanked more.

hunter-rodrigez

If some tech billionaire who makes a million an hour stopped doing his job for two weeks, nobody would notice... well, some might notice because things would suddenly improve across the board.

innerchildabortionclinic

your cat was an honor to see in the window

crtter

”How come you’ve never seen the Amazon rainforest if you’re from Brazil?” big country

crtter

Here, this should make it clearer:

crtter

Wait, hold on, I can illustrate it in a funnier way

crtter

There’s around one and a half Frances between me and the Amazon rainforest.

crtter

I had no idea “coach” could also mean “bus” until like, a second ago and I stared at your reply in disbelief for a good minute because I thought you were telling me to do the trip in a horse-drawn carriage. I was like “Coach?! Like Cinderella?! Where would I even get- that HAS to be slower than a car!”

fillianore-moved

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!

asexuality-witchcraft-and-more

That is amazing, why can’t more institutions do this!

The amount of books I haven’t been able to read because they are out of print is to large, and I don’t have the money to buy them all second hand (since there aren’t that many copies to begin with so they are not cheap)

fizzily

perspective

velvetcloak

Victorian Reverse Painted Crystal Intaglio Earrings, 1870

parakeet

#MyCoin

#pov: you're about to start a ttrpg

sometiktoksarevalid

cameoappearance

You ARE lost, my bus friend. That is a BC Transit bus and a bus stop in Vancouver, the one (1) city in the province whose transit system isn't part of BC Transit.

47witchyneurons

When I get blood samples at work sometimes they’re still warm from being imminently inside the patient’s veins and my hands are always cold because all the labs Ive work in are in the basement and they keep it kinda cold for whatever reason (and I’m also just a chilly kid).

And I clutch the little warm tubes of blood and feel this sick person warming my hands and I think about how kind you might be and how I wish I could hold your hand and how badly, how really really badly, I want you to get better and stay warm and hold someone’s hand again.

And anyway sometimes it’s better to not think so vividly about the people I’m doing tests for. I’m a good little cog in a vast machine of people all trying to heal and cure, and my cog feels so fucking small sometimes. But I hope the blood I prepare for you helps you breathe better and laugh and wake up feeling well rested.

We’ve never met but you warmed my hands and I want you to know I love you and I’m rooting for you.

47witchyneurons

I have over 40k notes on this and it’s the most wonderful thing I could have hoped would get tumblr-famous. I wish you all comfort and compassion every day