Game Day Dad

A very interesting thing my daughter has started doing is pointing and talking about whatever she’s interested in.  It’s a sign that you should be seeing by around 9-12 months from your little one so I’ve been very relieved that she’s started and started early at that.    If you’ve been talking to your baby, asking them questions and performing repetitive learning tasks like you should you’ll see the same thing.       It’s very rewarding when it starts to happen and life starts to get really interesting.  

You are now communicating

At this point your little person is communicating with you.   Hopefully you’ve taught them “NO!” loudly means stop what you’re doing and perhaps look at your parent.   They might take off and try to do it anyway but they should be at this point.   Our munchkin will pause and slowly point at whatever we don’t want her to touch.   Testing us I gather.

My advice to you is the entire time from day one to talk directly at your baby as if they understand 100% of what you’re saying.  Ask them questions, point at things and talk about them and in general just look goofy.   For one it’s fun and most importantly your baby is learning!   Don’t simply hand them things when they get old enough to begin using their hands make them reach out for it.   All of these excercises strengthen your baby and lead to early communication.

This cute little thing harmlessly shows the point that you really have to become self aware around your new infant about what you do.   Our cute little tootie bug is so much fun to feed.   When she first started eating we’d give her bites and make an mmmmm sound just trying to be cute and keep her attention.   Well now she does it all the time.  Probably not so cute would be my uncle who’d say “God Damn It” when something got on his nerves.    He did it almost subconsciously and when my cousin was around two they had to deal with a child who’d scream “No God Damn It” in repetition every time he didn’t want to do something.   I hear it was particularly bad when he decided he didn’t like Santa Claus.   

Point being dad it’s time to do a reality check and clean up your speech.   Get rid of verbal pauses like “you know” and try to pronounce better.   I’m doing it right now when watching my videos realizing I have to stop mumbling and slurring words together with that really bad Southern drawl I have.    Only a matter of time before those mmmmmmmm sounds turn in to words!