Finn is sitting in his high chair with a piece of banana clenched tight in one fist. He chews it, holding the banana to his mouth and squidging it with his gums, but the experience seems to be as much about the sensation of it in his hands as anything else. It’s a sort of rapture.
But then, something goes wrong. He must have an itch because he puts one palm to his face, covered in bits of banana, and rubs it in his eye. He pulls his hand away, thinks, starts to squirm and whimper. Then he rubs more banana in his eye. He thinks again, rubs banana in his eye once more, then his face turns red and he starts to scream.
As his parents comfort him, washing his hands and face, making soothing noises, clearing up the banana mess, I can’t help thinking how much we have to learn. This refrain repeats in my head: “There so much to learn!” Finn’s under a year old; he’s born without the knowledge that rubbing banana in your eyes is a bad idea. The only way he’s going to find out is by trying it. It’s like this with so many things in our lives; “There’s so much to learn!”