One of the things about being a parent is that everyone seems to feel free to harp on you for what you should be doing. Seems. I, being the one who takes everything to seriously, have a lot of mommy guilt over all these things I’ve been told but disagree with.
Case in point? People have been harping on me to teach Ben his alphabet since he was barely starting to talk.
MIL bought him that LeapFrog thing. Ironically, it’s the only toy she’s bought that I have ever returned. I have this thing with battery operated toys that say the same thing over and over and over and over and over again exactly the same way. She gave it to him for his birthday, and if you had any ideas how many times we heard the letter “A” that afternoon…which I can still recite in the exact same tone…you would understand my complete disdain for such things. Yes, I returned it. Even my sister-in-law says she had questioned my “no batteries” rule until the afternoon we all had to listen to the LeapFrog say the letter “A” over and over again – now she’s a firm believer.
Then when MIL would watch Ben, we would go to pick him up and she would try to show us how he’d learned his letters or numbers or something. Again, he barely knew how to talk, and when she tried to get him to show us or even point to them when she said them, he didn’t know any of them at all. But she’d been drilling him on them while we were gone. I mean, for goodness sake, let him be himself! He’ll be drilled enough when he gets to school – there is no need to do that type of things during his “free years.”
My own mother even made the comment once that I needed to make sure Ben knew his alphabet or he’d be embarrassed when he went to kindergarten. He was two, and he’ll probably go to kindergarten when he’s five. I told my mother he had three years to learn them and that we would teach him when he showed interest in them. [I tell my mother what I think, at least. Need to work on that with other people.]
He learned how to count to ten first because we had a couple of counting books. He also learned his colors, thanks to Freight Train. For a while there, he even referred to yellow things as “yellow hopper car” or orange things as “orange tank car” when we’d point to things outside the book and ask him what color they were.
Now he’s finally in the last month started showing interest in the alphabet. [See, I told you he would before he got to kindergarten.] He learned the alphabet song first. I swear we’ve been singing it a dozen times a day. Initially his version had amusing inventions such as H-I-Jacob. He still gets confused a little with the part at the end where the melody repeats: Q-R-S-T-U-V and W-X-Y-and-Z. He’ll do Q-R-S-Y-and-Z twice or variations like that. But now he’s getting it pretty good most of the time.
We’ve even moved on to the next step. He has his Curious George book with a page for every letter of the alphabet. He doesn’t pay much attention to that book, but he goes around the house naming things – window, clock, radio, etc. – and saying things like “C is for clock.”
Most of the time, which letter goes with an object is only a guess, but he’s starting to use the right letter more often. It’s called repitition. And when they’re interested in something, they pay attention.
An amusing side note…he doesn’t pronounce L’s or R’s very clearly. So things like “clock” sound like something else. Or imagine him saying “Aunt Traci and Uncle Lou” without R’s or L’s. I am sure a speech therapist would be alarmed and recommend some serious therapy, but for now, we simply find it amusing. I need to catch some of it on our DVD-recorder. That and a rendition of Old MacDonald Had a Farm which we hear over and over every day. Did you know that Old MacDonald had a trash truck on his farm? Guess what it sounds like? Tsss (think: sound of air brakes being released).
I really need to get some serious armour so I don’t take the comments from the peanut gallery so seriously. Theoretically, I should have grown some with the experiences with my first child that shall serve me with the second. Every child is different, however. I am sure Joey will probably talk early and eat things he shouldn’t rather than refusing to eat things he should. It’ll be a whole new set of “problems” that I know nothing about until, given the time he needs, he figures them out himself.
[Sigh]