Woke Up to a Bloody Lip
Around 7:30 this morning, Baby J. woke up in her crib. I picked her up, and to my surprise, she passed right back out on my shoulder. So I let her sleep on me for a few minutes, and of course, seeing as I was still groggy, I fell asleep too. About 15 minutes later, my daughter woke up, but not in a calm, collected fashion. She woke up by lifting her head as high as she could, and then slamming it down into my lip. My lip connected with my teeth, and immediately, I felt a well of pain spring up from my mouth.
So, I woke up this morning to a bloody lip. My daughter was completely unaware of what happened. Her head is a lot tougher than my face. I gave her to her mommy, and then I inspected the lip. It wasn't too bad, but it stung. Still, I can think of better ways my daughter could have woken me up.
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.
Smack Your Kids, But Only If They’re Little
A study showed that spanking your kids before the age of six might make them perform better in school, help them become more successful and study better. It's not a big surprise this study isn't scoring points with a lot of people.
Did we really need a study like this? Who thought to themselves, hey why don't we conduct a study to see if spanking our kids will make them smart? I mean, who thinks that way? Who was this person? And I so do like the results, so long as the kid is less than six years old, then the study says "go ahead and spank those rugrats!" but if they're over the age of six, then spanking them might result in behavioral problems.
So if you have a real little one, and they don't understand what they did wrong when you tell them what they did wrong, the best solution is to smack them one. I guess that makes sense if we're living in a totally senseless world. Why on Earth would the kid understand why they were being hit if they didn't understand what they did wrong in the first place? And what does this do except teach our children that the solution to a problem is violence. Those first six years are a crucial time of development. Those are the years where they develop language, learn to understand the world, begin to feel love and joy. Should we mar those years by hitting our kids when they don't do what we wish?
Maybe it's because I come from a younger generation. I wasn't spanked. I figured out things. I figured out that fire is hot and that running full speed down the stairs with a pair of scissors in my hand isn't a good plan. I figured out not to talk back to people. I figured out I should behave in school and respect my elders. I figured out to refer to adults as sir and ma'am. I figured out how to study. I figured out how to read and write and do everything I was supposed to do.
But never was I smacked into learning the things I learned. If I tried to touch a stove, would a slap across the face have told me that touching the stove was a bad thing? Or would it have told me that my parents are violent and don't know how to say a simple "no" and pull me away from something harmful?
Smacking your kids is the easy way out. I'm sure your kids learn fast what not to do. But easy doesn't make it right.
My Messy Child
She's not even a year old yet, but she can trash a room like any kid three times her age. She has too many toys obviously. She has a habit of removing every single toy from her toy box. She also has a big bag of mega bloks (I think there are over 200 in the box), and she feels the need to empty the bag of every single one; she isn't too interested in actually putting the pieces together, just creating a mess. It's the same when she eats now too. She chucks food, not because she doesn't like the food or because she isn't interested, she throws it solely to watch us pick it up.
My Daughter Destroys the Living Room
