Ode to a Smart Mama

When I first had my baby, my mom told me to talk to him and read to him from the start . . . all the time. She told a story about how she took me to a doctor at 18 months and I didn't make a sound while they drew my blood to check it because she had told me the whole way there and for days in advance what was going to happen. She testifies that I was so calm about the whole process because it was familiar by the time it happened. I knew what to expect so I wasn't afraid. Recently, when a friend commented on how much the kiddo understands, I realized, "Hey, it worked!" So this is my new message to new moms: talk to your kids all the time. Even if you feel like you are sick of talking to yourself (since that's what it feels like); even if you hate your own voice, talk to your kids.

What do you talk about? Well, one thing that helped me when I was a new mom is reading. I read children's books to him sometimes, but I was reading books to myself all the time. Our home teacher told us at one point that while his wife was reading, she often just read whatever she was reading to herself aloud to her baby (who was only a day older than our kiddo). Of course, this was only during the day since I wanted to settle him down in the evening and at night, but I did start reading aloud whatever I was reading a lot of the time. The idea is just to inundate the munchkin with language. Also, talk about body parts and the process of cooking an egg or how you fold laundry or what you're buying at the grocery store or what you see while going on a walk, really anything you have done, are doing, will do, have seen, are seeing, will see. Life has an abundance of things to notice, and talking to a child about all the new things for them to see helps us adults notice it too.

I'm not saying I'm an expert. I only have one child and he is not even a year and a half, but from my observations of kids they understand a lot more than adults realize a lot of times, and kids who are spoken to early and often understand even more. Just passing on the wisdom I got from a pretty smart cookie, namely my mom.

Here's some language for you, Mom: "Orange"
(Note: the kiddo turned the page too fast, but they had just been on the orange page.)