Language Development
Dec. 1st, 2004 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomikritzerKiera's new word is Da-Da. She first came out with it a couple of days ago but today it was her new favorite word. She would say Da-Da for any picture that conceivably might be Ed, and she said it again when he walked in the door, with a big smile on her face. She always gets a huge grin when communication is achieved -- she has a new word, she tried it out, and we understood what she was saying.
The flip side of this is that she will say words that we don't understand, and that makes her just furious. "Baah-buh!" -- pointing at the kitchen -- could maybe be apple but then she rejects it with a furious swipe. It's not bottle because that's bah-buh; it's not cracker because that's gaah-guh. Clearly she wants something specific. Who knows what.
She also shakes her head for "no." She's been doing this for a while, and it's really pretty cute. Lyda and Shawn's little boy Mason has a gesture he makes when he's frustrated -- he grabs his hands together and then pulls them apart. Kiera also has a gesture she makes when she's frustrated: she throws herself to the floor face-first, kicks her feet, and screams. Less cute.
Our big afternoon activity today was reading A Child Is Born. Molly is fascinated with babies -- pregnancy, birth, newborns, pretty much anything baby-related. When I was pregnant with Kiera I checked a bunch of "so you're going to be a big sister!" books out of the library, and Molly liked them so much she's had me check them out over and over and over. (Her favorite is the weirdly preachy "What Baby Needs" by Dr. Sears of the Attachment Parenting Philosophy fame. He lectures the preschool set on the importance of breastfeeding and skin-to-skin bonding, which makes me snicker, but Molly totally digs that book.) Anyway, while at Peapods recently I spotted A Child Is Born (the new edition) on the shelf and it occurred to me that Molly would find the pictures in that book absolutely fascinating. The book covers pregnancy from the release of the egg through the birth, with wonderful (and totally graphic) pictures of childbirth, as well as gorgeous full-color pictures of the baby in utero, including that classic picture of the one that's sucking its thumb.
Anyway, I was totally right, Molly thinks this book rocks. The text is way, way over her head, and she's mostly quit trying to get me to read the book to her -- instead she wants me to explain what's happening in the pictures. We started at the beginning today, took a break after the joining of egg and sperm for a discussion of genetics -- we adjourned to the dining room table, and I took a bunch of coins out of my wallet to represent chromosomes and try to explain how you get one set from your father and one from your mother, and then when you have babies (Molly wants eight) each one gets half their genes from you and half from the father. We discussed the pictures up through about eight weeks, at which point Molly wanted to skip to the baby being born. Then she wanted to hear about the babies that were born too early -- there's a chapter in the book about premature babies, with pictures of babies in incubators as well as babies receiving kangaroo care. Later she wanted to hear the chapter on infertility treatment.
You'd think that the pictures of the baby crowning might convince her that eight babies of her own was not the way to go, but no, she still wants eight.
Kiera also found the book interesting. She pointed to all the baby pictures and said, "Baby! Baby!"
The flip side of this is that she will say words that we don't understand, and that makes her just furious. "Baah-buh!" -- pointing at the kitchen -- could maybe be apple but then she rejects it with a furious swipe. It's not bottle because that's bah-buh; it's not cracker because that's gaah-guh. Clearly she wants something specific. Who knows what.
She also shakes her head for "no." She's been doing this for a while, and it's really pretty cute. Lyda and Shawn's little boy Mason has a gesture he makes when he's frustrated -- he grabs his hands together and then pulls them apart. Kiera also has a gesture she makes when she's frustrated: she throws herself to the floor face-first, kicks her feet, and screams. Less cute.
Our big afternoon activity today was reading A Child Is Born. Molly is fascinated with babies -- pregnancy, birth, newborns, pretty much anything baby-related. When I was pregnant with Kiera I checked a bunch of "so you're going to be a big sister!" books out of the library, and Molly liked them so much she's had me check them out over and over and over. (Her favorite is the weirdly preachy "What Baby Needs" by Dr. Sears of the Attachment Parenting Philosophy fame. He lectures the preschool set on the importance of breastfeeding and skin-to-skin bonding, which makes me snicker, but Molly totally digs that book.) Anyway, while at Peapods recently I spotted A Child Is Born (the new edition) on the shelf and it occurred to me that Molly would find the pictures in that book absolutely fascinating. The book covers pregnancy from the release of the egg through the birth, with wonderful (and totally graphic) pictures of childbirth, as well as gorgeous full-color pictures of the baby in utero, including that classic picture of the one that's sucking its thumb.
Anyway, I was totally right, Molly thinks this book rocks. The text is way, way over her head, and she's mostly quit trying to get me to read the book to her -- instead she wants me to explain what's happening in the pictures. We started at the beginning today, took a break after the joining of egg and sperm for a discussion of genetics -- we adjourned to the dining room table, and I took a bunch of coins out of my wallet to represent chromosomes and try to explain how you get one set from your father and one from your mother, and then when you have babies (Molly wants eight) each one gets half their genes from you and half from the father. We discussed the pictures up through about eight weeks, at which point Molly wanted to skip to the baby being born. Then she wanted to hear about the babies that were born too early -- there's a chapter in the book about premature babies, with pictures of babies in incubators as well as babies receiving kangaroo care. Later she wanted to hear the chapter on infertility treatment.
You'd think that the pictures of the baby crowning might convince her that eight babies of her own was not the way to go, but no, she still wants eight.
Kiera also found the book interesting. She pointed to all the baby pictures and said, "Baby! Baby!"
