Baby’s First Birthday Party Ideas
There are a lot of themes to choose from for your baby's first birthday. It took my wife and I a long time to come up with the theme we wanted. There are actually online stores devoted now to first birthdays; I guess they caught wind that we had a child about to turn one, because we've been receiving little catalogs for a month now.
Is My Baby Teething?
It can be extremely difficult to tell if your baby is teething. For some babies, the process might be quick and easy. Maybe they'll spend only one night actually teething, while a tooth comes in, only one night where they might be a bit crankier than usual. And then there are some babies that are in agony for days, weeks, and the lack of sleep during this period is enough to drive you insane. Baby J. has largely fallen somewhere in the middle. For some teeth, the process has been quick and easy. For others, such as her first two teeth and now her molars, the process has been long, arduous agony.
Spankings Make for Aggressive Toddlers
The other day I wrote about a study showing that spanking kids under the age of 6 improved their behavior. I didn't agree with the study. Furthermore, I didn't understand why the study was being done. Personally, I believe spanking is one of those things that is archaic and absolutely unnecessary. Now a different study has shown the complete opposite: that spanking little ones results in children exhibiting aggressive behavior who also "performed worse on measures of thinking abilities." I tend to agree more with this study. It seems logical; if you spank or smack your kids (and I'm not talking to the point of physical abuse but just a smack to keep them in line), why shouldn't your kid make the association that hitting is a good thing? That when your child is in a situation that he does not like and which he would like to modify that the solution is to hit or otherwise act aggressively?
Cursing Around the Little One
Sometimes, I can't help it. I really try, but I slip. I drop something or I smash my foot (because I'm a horrible clutz), and I let out "shit!" or "damn it!" or whatever else I shouldn't be saying in front of a little girl that is quickly learning all the words in my vocabulary. My wife is a teacher; she has run into the occasional student who curses like a sailor. What kid doesn't imitate their parents? They don't know any better. I would feel ashamed of myself if my daughter ever was that way. I know it doesn't matter to some people, but it matters to me.
I think the trick is not cursing ever. Not just when she's in the room, but all the time. Maybe I should get a swear jar or something. Do those help? Every time I curse, I plunk a quarter in the jar. Eventually, I should learn not to do it, right? Old habits die hard, so I'm really going to have to be conscious of this all the time.
D.
The Importance of Reading with Baby
Reading with Baby
I cannot overemphasize the important of reading to your child, even a child as young as a few days old. Well, ok, I could overemphasize it, I could say something crazy like, "If you don't read to your child, the sun will explode." But still, I made my point: reading is very important.
Ever since Baby J. came home from the hospital, we have been reading to her. We read to her every night. We read to her during playtime. We read to her at each nap. Already, my daughter has developed a love affair with books. She can't read the words, but she recognizes them when we read the books to her. She remembers the pictures, and she associates the pictures with words. I've read her a book with cows in it many times, and the other day, one of us read that book, and she got up, grabbed a toy cow and brought it over to us.
When you talk to your child, you don't tend to make associations, at least not all of the time. It's too difficult to always do that in conversation. How often can I remember that every time I talk I need to point to things about which I'm speaking? Or that when I'm having a conversation with her, I need emphasize the important words? Reading takes care of that for you.
Also, reading this early has made my daughter love books. Recently, bathtime was abyssmal. Every time we put her in the bath, she got upset. She couldn't stand it. Then, we got one of those water books, the kind of plastic pages so it's ok for the bath. Now, when it comes to bathtime, she sits calmly, and I read her book to her while she looks at each page and points at all the pictures.
And at naptime and bedtime, reading her books consistently has become part of the routine. When we read her the last book of the night, she becomes drowsy. She makes the association with reading before bed with getting ready for sleep. And it makes putting her down for the night that much easier.
Getting your child to love books early on means it's going to be that much easier to get them to love reading later on. She already loves books. It's not going to be nearly as difficult to sit down with her and teach her the alphabet and teach her how to sound out words and how to read sentences than it would have been had she never had any interest in books. A lifetime love affair with reading will mean our baby will perform better in school, she will better understand comprehension, she will be better equipped to learn on her own.
D.
