Weird Quirks

While we’ve made progress in getting Caitlyn to say a few more words (she can now say da-da, go-go, and ma-ma), we’ve also taken a few steps back in other areas.

Caitlyn’s always been pretty good at going to sleep at bedtime and naptime, but recently, she’s been refusing to go to sleep whenever the wife tries to put her to bed. When I’m the only one around taking care of her, sleep time is a snap, so I suggested to the wife that during bedtime, she say goodbye to the baby and then physically leave the apartment for a few minutes.

Sure enough, right after the wife leaves, Caitlyn will march herself straight to her room and then ask to be put in her crib to sleep. Even cuter is when she realizes she forgot her pacifier and then makes a beeline for the kitchen to get it before heading back to her room.

I’m not exactly sure what to make of this besides the fact that maybe the baby thinks the wife is fun to be around and doesn’t want the party to stop. Which means that I’m the boring party-pooper, leaving the baby no other option but to go to sleep when I’m around.

Or, could it be due to the fact that I rule the roost with an iron fist and refuse to cave in to the demands of a crying and whining baby like the wife does. I like to think it's for this reason that Caitlyn behaves better when she's around me.

Also, getting Caitlyn to sit quietly in the car has become more of a hassle. The wife usually sits in the backseat with her, which leads to a lot of whining and fussing, most likely because she wants to be held.

I’ve also come up with a solution for this. Whenever it’s time to go, I’ll have the wife say goodbye and leave the apartment first. Then, we’ll follow a few minutes later. What Caitlyn doesn’t know is that the wife is quietly hiding in the front passenger seat of the car. Therefore, she doesn’t bother whining or screaming because she knows I won’t be picking her up any time soon.

Now that the wife has experienced first hand what it's like to have the baby go to bed by herself and quietly sitting in her car seat by herself, she's speechless and at a loss for words. And that's led to a lot of wondering on her part as to what she's doing to make the baby so naughty.

I got two words of advice for her, 'iron fist.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Language Development

With Caitlyn slowly on her way to being a walking whiz, our focus has now turned back to her language development. About two months ago, she started saying, “Da-da,” but has since then, stalled at that.

The wife has been looking into this and says that the cause might stem from the fact that we speak different languages to our baby. She speaks Mandarin, while I speak English to Caitlyn. Could there be a possibility that we’re confusing her and that she has no idea how to process what we’re saying and which language to say first?

The wife’s suggestion is that we stop speaking two different languages to her and just stick to one. The notion is that hearing two or more languages will confuse the child and lead to problems in acquiring language. Hearing just one main language will allow it to stand a better chance of being processed without competition from other languages.

I wholly reject this idea. First of all, Caitlyn understands things that we say to her, whether it’s in Mandarin or English. If she were truly confused, then she would not be able to comprehend what we’re saying.

Also, there really is no research that shows that being raised in a bilingual family stunts your language development. Yes, there might be a slight delay in the speech-language department, but over time, it has been show that bilingual children catch up to their peers and have the added advantage of being able to speak two languages proficiently, which in the long run, can open many doors that might have otherwise been closed.

And the icing on the cake is that there may be benefits from bilingual language learning, as children who are fluent in at least two languages have strengths in metalinguistic awareness (the ability to think about languages), as well as in cognitive skills, such as memory, the ability to learn new information, and speech. Is that Harvard that I see in the distant future?

Crawling in the grass

I hope I'm not crawling in poop

 

Why do I feel like a dog?

Always hold hands when walking on street!

Nokia: Connecting People

I'm a lean, mean, eating machine!