Since I’m a stay at home mom now I’ve gone back to the “living with baby” class/group that I was in before. Last weeks class was about teaching baby to talk through reading and singing with her. All that was covered was straightforward. Nothing significantly new was added about learning language. At the end of it all, the facilitator said that the attention span of a baby is very short, so she suggested baby books with no more than ten words. Really? Why not help them expand their attention span as well as language skills. 10 words? Isn’t that a very very low bar to set? It reminds me of a friend who told me his parents named his younger brother J-o-n instead of J-o-h-n because it would be easier for him to spell like they never expected their kids to be advanced enough for four letter words. *smirk* Ten worded books would just annoy the crap out of me. We read Dr. Seuss in this house. I can’t stand most children’s books, they’re so preachy. When I want to teach Sophia that it’s not nice to hit people, I’m not going to pull out a book to read to her. I’m going to tell her, “Stop hitting your friends or they’ll stop hanging out with you.” It’s that fucking simple. She might not stop right away, but the lesson will be out there and she’ll figure it out.
Speaking of kids that hit… One of the boys in the group who is only a month older than Sophia ran around hitting all the babies. He tried grabbing a toy from Sophia and she wouldn’t let it go. He’d pull and she pulled right back while giving him a well-deserved glare, and then he stood up and pulled her hair. The boy had two fists full of my baby’s hair! She didn’t know what to do about that. She stuck out the boo-boo lip and reached for me then cried.
On Tuesday, Sophia learned a new thing that annoys the crap out of me. I kept hearing a squeaky “creek creek” type sound. I looked down at her and she smiled, then I hear again, “creek creek”. What the? I look at her. She laughs and proceeds to grind her two bottom teeth into her not yet cut upper tooth. AURGH!! Stop it before my ears bleed!
Later that day we went to a state park with maternal grandma. I took Sophia to the lake to get her feet wet. She sat right in the water and started butt scooting around.
My throat was scratchy that day and by Wednesday, I had a full-blown sore throat and felt like shit. I was sick AGAIN! Wednesday was hell. Not just because I was sick but because I wanted to sleep and baby innocent angel face was on a multi ten to fifteen minute power nap crusade. I didn’t even get to sleep at night. From two to four in the morning were the erupting baby tooth witching hours. How many more of these does she get? And why can’t it all just happen in one day – maybe even one when I’m not sick?
August 11th, 2008 at 2:09am
Ohmigosh, take her teeth away from her! If she can’t play nice with them, she doesn’t get to have them! *covers her ears and whimpers*
And what is up with the bully in the class? What did his parent do about it? (See? I don’t want to assume it’s only mommies in there, even though I know it is.)
-smarmoofus
smarmoofuss latest blog post… Thematic Photographic: Patterns
August 11th, 2008 at 4:53am
What a beautiful baby…
Where was my 55 this week?
Although you did 2 last week I’ll let you slide…..G
August 11th, 2008 at 7:36am
yay! You’re back! We also read longer books. OOH, that kid made me angry! What did the parent do? I can’t stand parents who are afraid to say no. Chloester understands no in two languages, so bullcrap to those parents who say they can’t understand. As for teething, Chloe likes to scrape her two biting fangs on her daddy’s knees. I said no, Chloe, we don’t bite and showed her how to pet daddy’s knee to make it better. So now she follows up every bite with a loving pet before she goes back for me. It’s like living with a cute and caring vampire. Feel better! My days aren’t the same without my moms journal fix
August 11th, 2008 at 11:07pm
smarmoofus - Other than pull the boy away I don’t think the Bully’s mom did anything. I was busy calming Miss Pouty Face.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:12pm
G-Man - Thank you
Darn it, I did too many 55’s in a row and now I can’t get away with skipping ‘eh? hehehe I should have just spaced my other 55’s out. 
August 11th, 2008 at 11:27pm
Susan Anderson - aawww thanks for the welcome back
I don’t think the parent did anything. I think all she did was move him whenever he became rough with another baby. I totally agree that they quickly learn what ‘no’ means. I don’t say ‘no’ to Sophia often. I usually redirect her, but then again she hasn’t ever hit another kid or pulled their hair. I tell her ‘no’ when she pulls my hair. She usually listens too.
hahaha cute caring vampire, so sweet
Other than a fixation with electrical cords, Sophia pretty much limits her chewing to toys. Oh and the jewel cases to Kurt’s CDs 
August 12th, 2008 at 9:12am
Ack! My least favorite children’s book is The Rainbow Fish. The fish doesn’t have any friends until she starts giving away all her rainbow fish scales. Once she looks like everyone else, they start to like her. And the moral here is what exactly? I don’t know how that one made it to print.
Angels latest blog post… 08/08/08
August 13th, 2008 at 1:35am
You want kids books that are fun for them and you, too? Check out Robert Munch is what you should do. She’s a little young yet to understand the plot, but she will love the pictures a lot. And I learned to read with Dr. Suess. It obviously didn’t harm me much except for a persistent tendency toward rhyme…
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quillys latest blog post… Wordless Wednesday — Butterfly
August 14th, 2008 at 12:36am
Thank you quilly. I’ll check out Robert Munch.
I love Dr. Suess.